O Wallace, peerless lover of thy land, We need thee still, thy moulding brain and hand! For us, thy poor, again proud tyrants spurn, The robber rich, a yet more hateful band! THE AUSTRALIAN FLAG. Pure blue flag of heaven With your silver stars, Not beside those crosses’ Blood-stained torture-bars: Not beside the token The foul sea-harlot gave, Pure blue flag of heaven, Must you ever wave! No, but young exultant, Free from care and crime, The soulless selfish England Of this later time: No, but, faithful, noble, Rising from her grave, Flag of light and liberty, For ever must you wave! TO AN OLD FRIEND IN ENGLAND. “ESAU.” Was it for nothing in the years gone by, O my love, O my friend, You thrilled me with your noble words of faith?— Hope beyond life, and love, love beyond death! Yet now I shudder, and yet you did not die, O my friend, O my love! Was it for nothing in the dear dead years, O my love, O my friend, I kissed you when you wrung my heart from me, And gave my stubborn hand where trust might be? Yet then I smiled, and see, these bitter tears, O my friend, O my love! No bitter words to say to you have I, O my love, O my friend! That faith, that hope, that love was mine, not yours! And yet that kiss, that clasp endures, endures. I have no bitter words to say. Good-bye, O my friend, O my love! AT THE SEAMEN’S UNION. {84} “THE SEAMEN AND THE MINERS.” . . . One rises now and speaks: “The Cause is one— _Labour o’er all the earth_! Shan’t we, then, share With these, whose very flesh and blood’s our own, All that we can of what we have and are? “What is it that their work is in the earth, Down in its depths, and ours is on the sea? The fight they fight is ours; their worth our worth; Their loss our loss. We help them! They are we! “We help them!—Ay, and when our hour too breaks, And on to every ship that ploughs the wave We put our hand at last, our hand that takes Its own, will they forget the help we gave? “And, if our robber lords would rob us still With the foul hoard of beasts without a soul, They may find leprous hands to work their will, But, for their ships, where will they find the coal?” “Help them!” the voices cry. They help them. Here, Resolute, stern, menacing, hark the sound! Look, ’tis the simple fearlessness of fear— Dark faces and deep voices all around. TO HIS LOVE. “Teach me, love, to be true; Teach me, love, to love; Teach me to be pure like you. It will be more than enough! “Ah, and in days to come, Give me, my seraph, too, A son nobler than I, A daughter true like you: “A son to battle the wrong, To seek and strive for the right; A beautiful daughter of song, To point us on to the light!”