De Te
A burning glass of burnish'd brass,
The calm sea caught the noontide rays,
And sunny slopes of golden grass
And wastes of weed-flower seem to blaze.
Beyond the shining silver-greys,
Beyond the shades of denser bloom,
The sky-line girt with glowing haze,
The farthest faintest forest gloom,
And the everlasting hills that loom.
We heard the sound beneath the mound,
We scared the swamp hawk hovering nigh—
We had not sought for what we found—
He lay as dead men only lie,
With wan cheek whitening in the sky,
Through the wild heath flowers, white and red.
The dumb brute that had seen him die,
Close crouching, howl'd beside the head,
Brute burial service o'er the dead.
The brow was rife with seams of strife—
A lawless death made doubly plain
The ravage of a reckless life ;
The havoc of a hurricane
Of passions through that breadth of brain,
Like headlong horses that had run
Riot, regardless of the rein—
'Madman, he might have lived and done
Better than most men,' whisper'd one.
The beams and blots that Heaven allots
To every life with life begin.
Fool! would you change the leopard's spots.
Or blanch the Etheopian's skin ?
What more could he have hoped to win,
What better things have thought to gain,
So shapen—so conceived in sin ?
No life is wholly void and vain,
Just and unjust share sun and rain.
Were new life sent, and life misspent,
Wiped out (if such to God seemed good),
Would he (being as he was) repent,
Or could he, even if he would,
Who heeded not things understood
(Though dimly) even in savage lands
By some who worship stone or wood,
Or bird or beast, or who stretch hands
Sunward on shining Eastern sands ?
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poem by Adam Lindsay Gordon
Added by Poetry Lover
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