Australia Vindex
Who cometh from fields of the southWith raiment of weeping and woe,And a cry of the heart in her mouth,And a step that is muffled and slow?
Her paths are the paths of the sun;Her house is a beautiful light;But she boweth her head, and is oneWith the daughters of dolour and night.
She is fairer than flowers of love;She is fiercer than wind-driven flame;And God from His thunders aboveHath smitten the soul of her shame.
She saith to the bloody one curstWith the fever of evil, she saith“My sorrow shall strangle thee firstWith an agony wilder than death!
“My sorrow shall hack at thy life!Thou shalt wrestle with wraiths of thy sin,And sleep on a pillow of strifeWith demons without and within!”
She whispers, “He came to the landA lord and a lover of me—A son of the waves with a handAs fearless and frank as the sea.
“On the shores of the stranger he stoodWith the sweetness of youth on his face;Till there started a fiend from the wood,Who stabbed at the peace of the place!
“Because of the dastardly thingThou hast done in the sight of the day,All horrors that sicken and stingShall make thee for ever their prey.
“Because of the beautiful trustDestroyed by a devil like thee,Thy bed shall be low in the dustAnd my heel as a shackle shall be!
“Because” (and she mutters it deepWho curseth the coward in chains)“Thou hast stricken and murdered our sleep,Thy sleep shall be perished with pains;
“Thy sleep shall be broken and sharpAnd filled with fierce spasms and dreams,And shadow shall haunt thee and harpOn hellish and horrible themes!
“I will set my right hand on thy neckAnd my foot on thy body, nor bate,Till thy name shall become as a wreckAnd a byword for hisses and hate!”