Page:Australian and Other Poems.djvu/57

 
Not how he led his legions far and wide,
Subduing nations to his vaulting pride;
Not how he made of war a game, or framed
Huge, lifeless piles, unstoried as unnamed;
Not these the deeds his sounding name shall spread:
Far nobler works the Islander has sped.
How conquering ocean and subduing space.
The earth he traversed with a steady pace;
How unallured by love of golden ores.
He pitched his peaceful camp on doubtful shores;
How by no dangers checked or turned aside.
He pierced the forest, climbed the mountain side;
How leading commerce in the wake of toil.
He built up cities and subdued the soil;
While all the chaster arts successive came,
To gild and beautify the mighty frame;
How carrying out the great behest he ran
From pole to pole, the harbinger of man.
Such deeds relating—shall the historian say,
'Twas thus the Briton held his glorious way"