Page:Moyarra- An Australian Legend in Two Cantos, 1891.djvu/27

Shines through all time a beacon-fire
To light the enterprising few
To their celestial portion true
Which, in the dreariest hour can build
Hope, all ephemeral ills to gild.
Do patriots' laurels earn our praise?
Through the far mist of ancient days
Gleams a long line of Greece's martyrs
Who perished to defend her charters.
Their epitaph their country's groans—
Their fame a world's approving tones.
Doth wisdom claim our reverence? Ages
Yet mourn the loss of ancient sages.
And wisdom's goddess, drooping, flies
To plume her pinion in the skies.
Bend we at Poesy's sacred shrine?
Oh! thou, Mæonides divine,
Before whose throne the boldest falters
Ere he approach the Muses' altars,
Shed but one feather of that pinion
Which gaining thy sublime dominion
Gave thee to soar the upper air
And dwell in instellation there;
Oh! for the faintest colour given