There frown'd above the dank morass,
The forest whose long night
Of noisome and of tangled shade
Forgot the noontide's light.
Men crowded round the victim pyre
In worship vile as vain;
And God's own precious gift of life,
Was flung to him again.
We were the savages—of whom
We now can only hear;
The change has been the mighty work
Of many a patient year.
The progress of our race is mark'd
Wherever we can turn:
No more the gloomy woods extend,
No more the death-fires burn.
The village rises where once spread
Th' inhabitable moor:
And Sabbath-bells sweep on the wind,
The music of the poor.
The sun sinks down o'er myriad spires
That glisten in the ray,
As almost portions of that heaven
To which they point the way.
There is not a more lovely land
On all our lovely earth,
Than that, Victoria, which now gives
Its blessing on thy birth.
