| |
| HE sought Australia’s far-famed isle, | |
| Hoping that Fortune on his lot would smile, | |
| In search for gold. When one short year had flown, | |
| He wrote the welcome tidings to his own | |
| Betrothéd; told how months of toiling vain | 5 |
| Made ten-fold sweeter to him sudden gain; | |
| With sanguine words, traced with love’s eager hand, | |
| He bade her join him in this bright south land. | |
| Oft as he sat, his long day’s labor o’er, | |
| In his bush hut, he dreamed of home once more; | 10 |
| His thoughts to the old country home in Kent | |
| Returned. ’T was Christmas-day, and they two went | |
| O’er frost and snow; the Christmas anthem rang | |
| Through the old church, which echoed as they sang. | |
| |
| That day had Philip courage gained to tell | 15 |
| His tale of love to pretty Christabel; | |
| And she, on her part, with ingenuous grace, | |
| Endorsed the tell-tale of her blushing face. | |
| Dream on, true lover! never, never thou | |
| Shalt press the kiss of welcome on her brow. | 20 |
| E’en now a comrade, eager for thy gold, | |
| Above thy fond true heart the knife doth hold— | |
| One stroke, the weapon ’s plunged into his breast; | |
| So sure the aim that, like a child at rest, | |
| The murdered digger lies,—a happy smile | 25 |
| Parts the full manly bearded lips the while. | |
| |
| Next day they found him. In his deathcold hand, | |
| He held his last home letter, lately scanned | |
| With love-lit eyes; and next his heart they found | |
| A woman’s kerchief which, when they un-wound, | 30 |
| Disclosed a lock of silken auburn hair | |
| And portrait of a girl’s face, fresh and fair, | |
| Dyed with the life-blood of his faithful heart. | |
| To more than one eye, tears unbidden start; | |
| With reverent hands, and rough, unconscious grace, | 35 |
| They laid him in his lonely resting-place. | |
| The bright-hued birds true nature’s requiem gave, | |
| And wattle-bloom bestrews the digger’s grave. | |
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