POETRY.
A COLONIAL GIRL.
AUSTRALIA'S great, and rich, and fair, Jewels of price are common there, But Phoebe's one a king might wear.
She is as witty as she's wise, And has the brownest black-fringed eyes That ever woke to sunny skies-- Eyes that can see beyond to-day, To fax horizons, and their ray Will light fresh lamps along the way.
Hunger, fatigue, heat, cold, or wet, When Phoebe's with me I forget : Far in the background they are set.
And if rm bored, or cross, or glum, I telephone and bid her come
Whose laugh would cheer the deaf and dumb.
There's nothing Phoebe cannot do : She'll break a horse or patch a shoe, A page of Browning she'll construe,
Turn an old gown, or bake a pie, Or make a speech, or tie a fly, And never, never will say die.
Then she's a sound perennial source Of facts concerning every horse At Flemington or Randwiek Course. Times and Spectator both she reads,
And comments on the Empire's needs. liisdoubting words, she dotes on deeds.
Phoebe, of course, is "native-born," While I'm "imported "—term of acorn— And two years hence, far-off, forlorn, Phoebe in absence shall I mourn.
Sydney, Christmas, 1908.
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