Written by
Henry Lawson |
While you use your best endeavour to immortalise in verse
The gambling and the drink which are your country's greatest curse,
While you glorify the bully and take the spieler's part --
You're a clever southern writer, scarce inferior to Bret Harte.
If you sing of waving grasses when the plains are dry as bricks,
And discover shining rivers where there's only mud and sticks;
If you picture `mighty forests' where the mulga spoils the view --
You're superior to Kendall, and ahead of Gordon too.
If you swear there's not a country like the land that gave you birth,
And its sons are just the noblest and most glorious chaps on earth;
If in every girl a Venus your poetic eye discerns,
You are gracefully referred to as the `young Australian Burns'.
But if you should find that bushmen -- spite of all the poets say --
Are just common brother-sinners, and you're quite as good as they --
You're a drunkard, and a liar, and a cynic, and a sneak,
Your grammar's simply awful and your intellect is weak.
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Written by
Robert Louis Stevenson |
YOU fear, Ligurra - above all, you long -
That I should smite you with a stinging song.
This dreadful honour you both fear and hope -
Both all in vain: you fall below my scope.
The Lybian lion tears the roaring bull,
He does not harm the midge along the pool.
Lo! if so close this stands in your regard,
From some blind tap fish forth a drunken barn,
Who shall with charcoal, on the privy wall,
Immortalise your name for once and all.
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Written by
Francesco Petrarch |
[Pg 284] SONNET LVI. L' aura e l' odore e 'l refrigerio e l' ombra. HER OWN VIRTUES IMMORTALISE HER IN HEAVEN, AND HIS PRAISES ON EARTH. The air and scent, the comfort and the shadeOf my sweet laurel, and its flowery sight,That to my weary life gave rest and light,Death, spoiler of the world, has lowly laid.As when the moon our sun's eclipse has made,My lofty light has vanish'd so in night;For aid against himself I Death invite;With thoughts so dark does Love my breast invade.Thou didst but sleep, bright lady, a brief sleep,In bliss amid the chosen spirits to wake,Who gaze upon their God, distinct and near:And if my verse shall any value keep,Preserved and praised 'mid noble minds to makeThy name, its memory shall be deathless here. Macgregor. The fragrant gale, and the refreshing shadeOf my sweet laurel, and its verdant form,That were my shelter in life's weary storm,Have felt the power that makes all nature fade:Now has my light been lost in gloomy shade,E'en as the sun behind his sister's form:I call for Death to free me from Death's storm,But Love descends and brings me better aid!He tells me, lady, that one moment's sleepAlone was thine, and then thou didst awakeAmong the elect, and in thy Maker's arms:And if my verse oblivion's power can keepAloof, thy name its place on earth-will takeWhere Genius still will dote upon thy charms! Morehead.
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