Sir Henry Parkes, deceased, is generally referred to in the Australian Press as poet, politician and patriot. I haven't the time to inquire into all the other things, but I did spend an hour with his "Fragmentary Thoughts" and "Stolen Moments." They are well worth perusing, and I think everybody ought to read those sympathetic lines "To a Beautiful and Friendless Child; aged four years." The child was aged four years; it is not "an early poem," which fact I thought it just as well to mention before quoting the opening stanza:
"Did shock of birth-bliss slay thy mother? How from all kindred torn? Than God's all-seeing eye, what other Said that a man was born?"
But the poet is even better in his stirring moods, as in the well-known (in Australia) "Australian Youth's Song." Here is one of the "jewels four lines long":--
"We live in hope--we live in hope! Forget the day that's gone! Or dim or bright, the future's light Is all to guide us on."
A strong man would shed tears over the same poet's "The Dying Convict's Letter." For that reason I shan't quote it any further than to say it begins:
"In mental agony he lifted up His voice to Him who hears the sufferer's prayer...."
That's just what you feel like doing. The spirit of humility expressed in the poem is in sharp contrast to the ferocity expressed by a brother bard, who, on leaving Australia's shores, shook his clenched fist at the continent and recited some lines ending--
"The rich man's Heaven, the poor man's Hell, Land of ----, Fare thee well!"
There has been a lot of controversy in the Commonwealth as to the missing word, so I leave it blank, and pass on to the ode that won the New South Wales Government prize of fifty guineas, in open competition, as being the best "Occasional" for the birth of the Commonwealth. Listen to the opening:
"Awake! Arise! The wings of dawn Are beating at the Gates of Day!"
And that was addressed to the Australian for the purpose of arousing him! What chance had it of doing so; the Australian merely turned over and said, "Why the blanky blank should I get up?" It's just as well that all should know here and now that the only way to waken Australia is to heave a brick at it--same as I'm doing.
One of the best known poets of Australia, I understand, is the Rev. Mr. Cuzens, who published a volume entitled "Footprints of Jesus." I make bold to reprint a verse of "The Temptation":