POETRY.
PEACE.
THE SETTLERS.
(A FORECAST ON THE DECLARATION OF PEACE.)
How green the earth, how blue the sky, How quiet now the days that pass, Here, where the British settlers lie Beneath their cloaks of grass !
Here ancient Peace resumes her ground, And rich from toil stand hill and plain; Men reap and store: but they sleep sound, The men who saved the grain.
Hard to the plough their hands they put, And whereso'er the soil had need The furrow drave : and underfoot They sowed themselves for seed.
Ah ! not like him whose hand made yield The brazen kine with fiery breath, And over all the Colchian field Strewed far the seeds of death- Till, as day sank, awoke to war The seedlings of the dragon's teeth ; And Death ran multiplied once more Across the hideous heath.
But rich in flocks be all these farms, And fruitful all the fields that hide Brave eyes that loved the light, and arms That never clasped a bride.
Oh, willing hearts turned quick to clay, Young lovers holding death in scorn, Out of the lives you cast away The coming race is born.
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