Page:A New Zealand verse (1906).pdf/264

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The Grey Company.
Dreaming of Utopias Ere the time was ripe,They awoke to scorning, The jeering and the strife.Dreaming of millenniums In a world of wars,They awoke to shudder At a flaming Mars.
Never was a Luther But a Huss was first—A fountain unregarded In the primal thirst.Never was a Newton Crowned and honoured wellBut first alone, Galileo Wasted in a cell.
In each other’s faces Look the pioneers;Drank the wine of courage All their battle years.For their weary sowing Through the world wide,Green they saw the harvest Ere the day they died.
But the grey, grey company Stood every man aloneIn the chilly dawnlight. Scarcely had they knownEre the day they perished, That their beacon-starWas not glint of marsh-light In the shadows far.
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