Page:A New Zealand verse (1906).pdf/43

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The Empire-builder.
7

v.

The Empire-builder.

The night wind moans the sorrow of the world,The league-far surge sobs out eternity—And I, who stand for conquest on a tractThat knows no footsteps save mine own, that drawThe silent protest from the stoic pines—Keep vigil at my joyous altar fire,And worship at the shrine of Empire’s God.
The leaping gold surrounds an angel’s face,Rose-budded in the wealth of English lanes,Crowned above price, and smiling as the landReturning thanks for riotous rains of spring.The image fades—and through the flame there loomsThe marble eagle-forms and tombs of thoseWho sleep beside the altar of our race,Bathed in the incense-music of the pastThat floats from every stone and speaking scroll.Humble my offering, yet I justly claimA brotherhood with these defiant souls,And share the praise that rings a shouting world.
Where be the mystic dreams I loved to dreamOf holy priesthood in the shrine of soul,Of life groove-rolling to the song of Art,And gliding slowly to a faultless West?The strings are broken on the breast of song,The unseen page is dimmed—the golden lineShrinks from the strangeness of my halting lips,And Action triumphs—foot to neck on Art.
But mine the sacrament of taintless sky,The unstained landscape and the virgin wave,
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