sob beside me--you, upon whose golden head
Many rains of many sorrows have from day to day been shed;
Who because your love was noble, faced with me the lot austere
Ever pressing with its hardship on the man of letters here--
Let me feel that you are near me, lay your hand within mine own;
You are all I have to live for, now that we are left alone.
Three there were, but one has vanished. Sins of mine have made you weep;
But forgive your baby's father now that baby is asleep.
Let us go, for night is falling; leave the darling with her flowers;
Other hands will come and tend them--other friends in other hours.

The Sydney International Exhibition

(The poem which won the prize offered by the proprietors
of the "Sydney Morning Herald".)

Now, while Orion, flaming south, doth set
A shining foot on hills of wind and wet--
Far haughty hills beyond the fountains cold
And dells of glimmering greenness manifold--
While August sings the advent of the Spring,
And in the calm is heard September's wing,
The lordly voice of song I ask of thee,
High, deathless radiance--crowned Calliope!
What though we never hear the great god's lays
Which made all music the Hellenic days--
What though the face of thy fair heaven beams
Still only on the crystal Grecian streams--
What though a sky of new, strange beauty shines
Where no white Dryad sings within the pines:
Here is a land whose large, imperial grace
Must tempt thee, goddess, in thine holy place!
Here are the dells of peace and plenilune,
The hills of morning and the slopes of noon;
Here are the waters dear to days of blue,
And dark-green hollows of the noontide dew;
Here lies the harp, by fragrant wood-winds fanned,
That waits the coming of thy quickening hand!
And shall Australia, framed and set in sea,
August with glory, wait in vain for thee?
Shall more than Tempe's beauty be unsung
Because its shine is strange--its colours young?
No! by the full, live light which puts to shame
The far, fair splendours of Thessalian flame--
By yonder forest psalm which sinks and swells
Like that of Phocis, grave with oracles--
By deep prophetic winds that come and go
Where whispering springs of pondering mountains flow--
By lute-like leaves and many-languaged caves,
Where sounds the strong hosanna of the waves,
This great new majesty shall no