Come, too, thou Sun-maid, in whose veins For ever burns the tropic fire Whose cattle roam a thousand plains, Come, with thy gold and pearls for tire; And that sweet Harvester who twines The tender vine and binds the sheaf; And she, the Western Queen, who mines The desert reef; And thou, against whose flowery throne And orchards green the wave is hurled; Australia claims you; ye are one Before the world. Crown her--most worthy to be praised-- With eyes uplifted to the morn; For, on this day, a flag is raised, A triumph won, a nation born; And ye, vast armies of the dead, From mine and city, plain and sea, Who fought and dared, who toiled and bled That this might be, Draw round us in this hour of fate-- This golden harvest of thy hand-- With unseen lips, O consecrate And bless the land! Eternal power, benign, supreme, Who weigh'st the nations upon earth; Without whose aid the empire-dream And pride of states is nothing worth, From shameless speech, and vengeful deed, From licence veiled in Freedom's name, From greed of gold, and scorn of creed, Guard Thou our fame! In stress of days that yet may be, When hope shall rest upon the sword, In welfare and adversity, Be with us, Lord! GEORGE ESSEX EVANS. _A DESPERATE ASSAULT._ I have more than once had reason to admire the British soldier in battle, but never was there such good ground for admiration as in watching him prepare. All the blare and tumult, the death and disaster of actual conflict have no such tense, dramatic, nerve-trying moments as when a regiment is making ready for some great enterprise. The fight is a medley of mixed impressions, jostling each other for a moment's existence ere passing away, but the getting ready is unforgetable. Everything is clear-cut and within the sum of human emotions--eternal. So it was with that last grand charge of the Devons, which swept the Boers from their fringe of the little plateau and finished the long seventeen hours' ordeal. The enemy were on one side of the Table, we on the other. A tropical hailstorm howled across it, and beat heavily in our faces, as Colonel Park led his men up the sheltered face of the hill, and halted a moment within five yards of the crest, to make ready. The men knew exactly what they had to do, and the solemnity of a great and tragic undertaking was upon and about them. All the world for them--the too brief past with its consequences, the fast-flying present, and the mysterious beyond--might concentrate in a short desperate dash across a storm-swept African hilltop. It was the sublimity of life--the anticipation of death. The Devons were making ready for it, and how unready a man might feel at such a moment! The line of brown riflemen stretched away to the left of us, and it seemed that every trivial