Page:An anthology of Australian verse (IA anthologyofaustr00stev).pdf/89

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AN INVITATION

In an era so rapid with railway and steamer, And with Pan and the Dryads like Raphael gone—  What if this could be shown?
O my friends, never deaf to the charms of Denial,Were its comfortless comforting worth a life-trial Discontented content with a chilling despair?—Better ask as we float down a song-flood unchecked,lf our Sky with no Iris be glory-bedecked?Through the gloom of eclipse as we wistfully steallf no darkling aureolar rays may reveal That the Future is haply not utterly cheerless:  While the Present has joy and adventure as rare   As the Past when most fair?
And if weary of mists you will roam undisdainingTo a land where the fanciful fountains are raining Swift brilliants of boiling and beautiful sprayIn the violet splendour of skies that illumeSuch a wealth of green ferns and rare crimson tree-bloom;Where a people primeval is vanishing fast,With its faiths and its fables and ways of the past: O with reason and fancy unfettered and fearless,  Come plunge with us deep into regions of Day—   Come away—and away!—


A MAORI GIRL’S SONG

“Alas, and well-a-day! they are talking of me still:By the tingling of my nostril, I fear they are talking ill;

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