William Canton

“ A GENTLE creature grew
Within this cell of pearly blue—
How many centuries ago
No seer can tell us. We can only know
It found life pleasant, moved, and took its ease
By palmy island shores in distant Indian seas.
The world has changed since then!
Tongues have died out; and tribes of men
Have clamoured, and have passed away,
Like crow-flights through the sunset of a day;
No pillar marks where gorgeous cities fell;
But this small speechless life hath left its storied shell. ”

“ To mark deep love or high descent;
A many-virtued amulet;
A sign to know the child by when they met;
A coin for that last journey through the night—
A coin of little worth, a childless widow's mite?
No man shall ever know! ”

“ Followed the stone celt's thud, as wave by wave,
The Aryan exodus for ever westward drave?
For ever westward! New
Wild worlds still opened; but the Blue
That brooded o'er them was the same
Unchanging God that brooded whence they came.
For ever westward! And the shell was cast
Westward; and great fresh waves still swept beyond the last.
Across the infinite plains
White cattle draw the lumbering wains ”