Page:Moyarra- An Australian Legend in Two Cantos, 1891.djvu/16

The stars, her ministers, array
Their gleaming ranks until the day,
Returning, chase their fires away.
Around, in frowning grandeur, stand
The forest patriarchs of the land;
In sullen sanction of the hour
They wave beneath the West wind's power,
Till the whole grove, with yielding grace,
Murmurs around the sacred place.
Moyarra felt his being thrill
Within him, as by magic spell;
Like lightning, through his sanguine frame
As the electric transport came,
In fuller tide his life-blood ran;
He knew—he felt himself, a man.
Then, by those lights which o'er him sparkled,
And by the woods which round him darkled.
By the blue arch extended o'er him,
And by the sacred rites before him.
He vowed to that dear mother earth
Which gave his ancestry their birth
To wage, till life's extremest close,
Unyielding warfare 'gainst her foes.
His conscious step, his haughty bearing