In Memoriam C. G. Gordon

Devotion! When thy name is named,
What matchless visions rise!
The Hebrew, leaving Pharoahs house,
To Israels rescue flies;
The Moabitess, gleans, content,
Beneath the burning skies.

The flower of Christendom is given
To gain the Holy Grave;
Oer Acre and oer Askelon
The blessed banners wave;
By Edwards bed I see thee kneel,
O Queen beloved and brave!

Who art thou, girl, in warrior garb,
St. Catherines sword in hand?
Tis La Pucelle, and France is free;
O shame that thou must stand
Bound, helpless, at the cruel stake,
To wait the headmans brand!

And now upon the wild North Sea
From Lindisfarnes bleak shore,
To save the lives of shipwrecked men
A maiden plies the oar;
Seamen and landsmen honour thee,
Grace Darling, evermore!

And swifter, closer, as I muse,
The splendid spectres loom;
And stately stands among them one
To glory passed from gloom,
But late, by waters of the Nile,
In walls of lost Khartoum!

Mary Hannay Foott

Mary Hannay Foott was an Australian poet known for her works that capture the spirit and landscape of colonial Australia. Her most famous poem, 'Where the Pelican Builds', reflects the challenges and beauty of the pioneering experience. She was notable for being one of the first Australian poets to gain recognition, with her works regularly published in Australian newspapers and magazines of the time. Her poetry often explored themes of nature, human perseverance, and the Australian identity.

Mary Hannay Foott

Napoleon III

Mary Hannay Foott, Simple Poetry

Watch-Night

Mary Hannay Foott, Simple Poetry

Sonnets - I - Christmas Day

Mary Hannay Foott, Simple Poetry

New Country

Mary Hannay Foott, Simple Poetry

English

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In the South Pacific

A vision of a savage land,
A glimpse of cloud-ringed seas;
A moonlit deck, a murderous hand;
No more, no more of these!

No more! how heals the tender flesh,
Once torn by savage beast?
The wound, re-opening, bleeds afresh,
Each season at the least!

O day, for dawn of thee how prayed
The spirit, sore distressed;
Thy latest beams, upslanting, made
A pathway for the blest.

And robes, new-donned, of the redeemed,
Gleamed white past griefs dark pall:
So this, a day of death which seemed,
A birthday let us call.

Remembering, such day as this,
A soul from flesh was shriven,
By death, Gods messenger of bliss;
A spirit entered Heaven.

Thy dying head no loving breast
Upheld, O early slain;
But soon, mid welcom...

Mary Hannay Foott

To The Memory Of Mrs. Ewing.

Written After Perusing The Interesting Memoir Composed By Her Husband, The Rev. Greville Ewing.


Daughter of Scotland! may a stranger twine
    One cypress wreath around thy honoured urn?--
Yet, when I meditate on faith like thine,
    I feel my breast with sacred ardour burn;
Deep admiration checks the starting tear,--
Such drops would stain a Ewing's holy bier!

Death was to thee a messenger of love;
    He met thee in the path thy Saviour trod,
Bearing this blessed mandate from above,
    "Come, happy spirit--come away to God!
Thy works of piety on earth are o'er,--
Plume thy bright wing to reach the heavenly shore!"

Calm was thy exit from this troubled scene;
    Pain from thy lips no hasty murmurs wrung;
With brow unruffled and with mind ...

Susanna Moodie

Up North

Into Thy hands let me fall, O Lord,
Not into the hands of men,
And she thinned the ranks of the savage horde
Till they shrank to the mangrove fen.

In a rudderless boat, with a scanty store
Of food for the fated three,
With her babe and her stricken servitor
She fled to the open sea.

Oh, days of dolor and nights of drouth,
While she watched for a sail in vain,
Or the tawny tinge of a river mouth,
Or the rush of the tropic rain.

The valiant woman! Her feeble oar
Sufficed, and her fervent prayer
Was heard, though she reached but a barren shore,
And died with her darling there.

For the demons of murder and foul disgrace
On her hearthstone dared not light;
But the Angel of Womanhood held the place,
And its site is a holy site.

Mary Hannay Foott

In Memoriam. - A. L. Gordon.

At rest! Hard by the margin of that sea
Whose sounds are mingled with his noble verse,
Now lies the shell that never more will house
The fine, strong spirit of my gifted friend.
Yea, he who flashed upon us suddenly,
A shining soul with syllables of fire,
Who sang the first great songs these lands can claim
To be their own; the one who did not seem
To know what royal place awaited him
Within the Temple of the Beautiful,
Has passed away; and we who knew him, sit
Aghast in darkness, dumb with that great grief,
Whose stature yet we cannot comprehend;
While over yonder churchyard, hearsed with pines,
The night-wind sings its immemorial hymn,
And sobs above a newly-covered grave.
The bard, the scholar, and the man who lived
That frank, that open-hearted life wh...

Henry Kendall

To the Virgin Mary

Mother of Him we call the Christ,
No halo round thy brows we paint,
Incense and prayer we offer not,
Nor mind to title thee as saint.

And yet, no womans name, of all
With honour from the ages sent,
Mary, is aureoled like thine,
With love and grief and glory blent!

Oh wisely was it that He chose,
Who the unwritten future reads,
To teach the after-world, through thee,
What cherishers Messiah needs.

Thou heardst the angels prophecy,
The tidings which the shepherds brought,
Anna and Simeon praising God,
And sawst that star the Wise Men sought!

Ah, who of us could bear, like thee,
With meekness, Gods triumphal light;
Then, still believing, with His Charge,
At midnight take an exiles flight?

Throughout the Son...

Mary Hannay Foott

Wentworth

Tis a new thing for Australia that the waters to her bear
One who seeks not strength of sunshine, or the breath of healing air;
One who reeks not of her riches, nor remembers she is fair;
One who land and houses, henceforth, holdeth not, for evermore;
Coming for such narrow dwelling as the dead need, to the shore
Named aforetime by the spirit to receive the garb it wore.

Tis a strange thing for Australia that her name should be the name
Breathed ere death by one who loved her, claiming, with a patriots claim,
Earth of her as chosen grave-place; rather than the lands of fame;
Rather than the Sacred City where a sepulchre was sought
For the noblest hearts of Europe; rather than the Country fraught
With the incense of the altars whence our household gods were brought.

Mary Hannay Foott