And love of nature and which all things beautiful elate, This spark of immortality flaming with fitful gleams Of vague remembrance of a pre-existence, seems To shape itself into a dream which comes and goes. And when the influence of the Almighty over spirit throws The searching rays of the great Omnipresent power In Whom we live, to Whom we kneel in sorrow’s hour, Who bids the ministers of all the Heavenly Argosies Of Faith, and Hope, and Mercy, on the ethereal spheres Enthroned with Justice, Truth and Liberty, To teach man that, though mortal, immortality Is his, Oh not, for nought, the powers of death and life, Oh not, for nought, it is the everlasting strife ’Twixt mind and matter, if we be--as some would deem-- Nought but the moving shadows of a melting dream, Why live, why love, why breathe the unconscious prayer? Because, deep down in the human heart, we feel God there; And dare the shadow of his Maker,--man--profess That he can build this empire without him to bless. [Illustration: text decoration] THE BLUE MOUNTAINS, NEW SOUTH WALES. Imperial battlements, whose frowning brows Look ever into space and watch the dawn In roseate loveliness above the snows Of feathery cloudlets which thy breasts adorn. Ye regal forms! Whose jagged chasms bear The scars of ages, scored by tempests’ rage When cataclysms thundering rent the air-- Thou mammoth ruins of a bygone age. And hoary Kosciusko in dim distance gleams, So not alone in thy most awful pride Art thou great Austral Alps, whose purling streams Gush from the fissures in thy wounded side. What buried secrets doth thy caverns hold Of aeons marked by time’s unerring hand? What mystic rites were held by warriors bold, The dusky children of an almost vanished band? Perchance they crept within thy strongholds grim, Hiding, as erst cave dwellers once had done In old Europa--fearful lest limb from limb They should be torn by some great mastodon. Mayhap from giddy height they gazed with awe Upon thy ever-changing billowy cloud, Deeming the “Eagle Rock” and “Bear” they saw Gods to which they in adoration bowed. Oh! lo we bend to Him who fashioned thee From chaos at His own almighty word-- Creation’s wonderland of moving mystery, When seas and winds alone His voice had heard. So wildly beautiful art thou, the spirit fails To utterly describe thy variant mood. The mantled velvet of thy mossy, vernal vales And magic falls, which flash in foaming flood; Ye tree-crowned hills! With leafy branches spread, Ye scented pines! Whose odorous breath is flung, Wafted from “Govett’s Leap” and fen and glade, From aerial censer by wood-spirits swung.