Their feet they set on strange hills scarred by fire,
Their strong arms forced a path through brake and briar;
They fought with Nature till they reached the throne
Where morning glittered on the great UNKNOWN!
There, in a time with praise and prayer supreme,
Paused Blaxland, Lawson, Wentworth, in a dream;
There, where the silver arrows of the day
Smote slope and spire, they halted on their way.
Behind them were the conquered hills -- they faced
The vast green West, with glad, strange beauty graced;
And every tone of every cave and tree
Was as a voice of splendid prophecy.
Robert Parkes
--
* Son of Sir Henry Parkes.
--
High travelling winds by royal hill
Their awful anthem sing,
And songs exalted flow and fill
The caverns of the spring.
To-night across a wild wet plain
A shadow sobs and strays;
The trees are whispering in the rain
Of long departed days.
I cannot say what forest saith --
Its words are strange to me:
I only know that in its breath
Are tones that used to be.
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