William Watson

“ Have been, and stablisht on their dust we stand;
Thy England; with the northern sister fair,
That hath the heath-bells in her blowing hair;
And the dark mountain maid
That dreams for ever in the wizard shade,
Hymning her heroes there.
V
O doom of overlordships! to decay
First at the heart, the eye scarce dimmed at all;
Or perish of much cumber and array,
The burdening robe of empire, and its pall;
Or, of voluptuous hours the wanton prey,
Die of the poisons that most sweetly slay ”

“ Have many crowns been gathered, till, to-day,
How many peoples crown thee, who shall say?
Time, and the ocean, and some fostering star,
In high cabal have made us what we are,
Who stretch one hand to Huron's bearded pines,
And one on Kashmir's snowy shoulder lay,
And round the streaming of whose raiment shines
The iris of the Australasian spray. ”

“ And changelessly the river sends his sigh
Down leagues of hope and fear, and pride and shame,
And life and death; dim-journeying passionless
To where broad estuary and beaconing ness
Look toward the outlands whence our fathers came. ”