[Editor: A poem by Mary Hannay Black (who later became Mary Hannay Foott).]
The Aurora Australis.
A radiance in the midnight sky
No white moon gave, nor yellow star ;
We thought its red glow mounted high
Where fire and forest fought afar.
Half fearing that the township blazed,
Perchance, beyond the boundary hill ;
Then finding what it was, — we gazed
And wondered, till we shivered chill.
And pondered on the sister glow,
Of our Aurora, — sending lines
Of lustre forth, to tint the snow
That lodges on Norwegian pines.
And South and North alternate swept,
In vision, past us, to and fro ;
While stealthy winds of midnight crept
About us, whispering fast and low.
The North, whose star burns steadily, —
Night set in Heaven long ago ;
The South, new risen on the sea, —
A tremulous horizon-glow.
We thought, “Shall there be gallant guests
Within our polar hermitage,
As on the shore where Franklin rests, —
And others, — named in glory’s page?”
And “Shall the light we look on blaze
Above such battles as have been,
In other countries — other days, —
The Giants and the Gods between ?”
Till one declared, “We live to-night
In what shall be the poet’s world ;
Those lands ’neath our Aurora’s light
Are as the rocks the Titans hurled.
“From southern waters ice-enthralled,
Year after year the rays that glance
Shall see the Desert shrink appalled,
Before the City’s swift advance.
“Shall see the precipice a stair, —
The river as a road. And then
There shall be voices which declare
‘This work was wrought by manly men.’”
And so our South all stately swept,
In vision, past us, — to and fro ;
While stealthy winds of midnight crept
About us, — whispering fast and low.
M. H. B.
April 30, 1873.
Source:
The Australian Town and Country Journal (Sydney, NSW), Saturday 3 May 1873, page 565 (21st page of that issue)
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