Want ground the faces of the Prophets old;
Our greatest Bards were only rich in song;
The golden-hearted ever wanted gold;
And they who wronged not ever suffered wrong.
Such, in this unintelligible World,
Seems still the Patriot's, Sage's, Poet's fate!
The mountain of its scorn upon them hurled,
Or grinds to misery, or constrains to hate!
To hate sometimes -- but with a perfect will
To this superior they should ever be;
Though sacrificed, like Jesus, loving still
The injured Spirit of Humanity:
For God's beholding patience makes it plain,
That so to suffer, and to die, are GAIN.
First published in The Maitland Mercury & Hunter River General Advertiser, 13 January 1847,
and later in:
The Poetical Works of Charles Harpur edited by Elizabeth Perkins, 1984.
Author: Charles Harpur (1813-68) was born on the Hawkesbury River, New South Wales to parents who had both been transported: his father from Ireland and his mother from England. Harpur was a very prolific writer - his volume of collected poems runs to over 1000 pages - and is considered by many to be the first great Australian-born poet.
Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography
See also.
Our greatest Bards were only rich in song;
The golden-hearted ever wanted gold;
And they who wronged not ever suffered wrong.
Such, in this unintelligible World,
Seems still the Patriot's, Sage's, Poet's fate!
The mountain of its scorn upon them hurled,
Or grinds to misery, or constrains to hate!
To hate sometimes -- but with a perfect will
To this superior they should ever be;
Though sacrificed, like Jesus, loving still
The injured Spirit of Humanity:
For God's beholding patience makes it plain,
That so to suffer, and to die, are GAIN.
First published in The Maitland Mercury & Hunter River General Advertiser, 13 January 1847,
and later in:
The Poetical Works of Charles Harpur edited by Elizabeth Perkins, 1984.
Author: Charles Harpur (1813-68) was born on the Hawkesbury River, New South Wales to parents who had both been transported: his father from Ireland and his mother from England. Harpur was a very prolific writer - his volume of collected poems runs to over 1000 pages - and is considered by many to be the first great Australian-born poet.
Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography
See also.
