AT THE SIGN OF THE LYRE

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1507, 17 January 1901, Page 28

AT THE SIGN OF THE LYRE

3EASTS OF GOLD. (Dedicated to the Brave, Unflinching West) Thou gin poets have not yet sung von Nor writers your true worth told, 1, who- have wrought among you, ’ . I know you of Gold. Toiling with shove] and dray, With reaper and harrow and drill, For the old folk wrinkled and grey In the old home under the hill; Brave, broad-shouldered, and brown, With the width of the world to roam, Staying to battle a mortgage down. That., a- mother may keep her home. Hearts- of gold! Oh ! Hearts of gold ! Bending your arms when the floods are down, Lest a neighbour's stock in the dark should drown, Sweating with green houghs, turn and turn, Lest a neighbour’s crop in the night should burn, Riding the hills-at the risk of life For a doctor’s aid for a neighbour's wife. Hearts of gold ! Oh ! Hearts of.gold ! Toiling out on the blue grass plains With plunging leaders and ringing chains, Working early and working late To the click of the’dusty drafting-gate, Steadying hornies seared and wild All for a- mother, a wife, a child. Hearts of gold ! Ob ! Hearts of gold ! Out in tlie scorching pitiless sun, ' Under the reeling rocking sky, With a comrade gasping: “Mate, I’m done!” Making the- last two drinks in one Lest a good true mate should die. Hearts- of gold! t Oh ! Hearts of gold! Men who have ridden all day, ■Hungry and saddle sore. Snatching a morsel and riding away, Maybe for ten hours more, In the lined advance That the range may give One more faint chance To a child to live. Hearts of gold! Oh! Hearts of gold! Women alone in the bush, Mothers and wives, Keeping your guard in the weird nighthush Over the sleeping lives, In woe or weal Staunch and fend, True as steel To the marriage bond. Hearts- of gold fOh ! Hearts'of gold! Fighting the fires and floods and drought In nights of terror and days of doubt, Shifting the outposts farther out— Hearts of gold! Facing your fate as the years go by, With a hidden grief and a silent cry Dying gamely as bulldogs die; Hearts of gold ! Oh ! Hearts of gold ! By the trouble that never will tame yen, By the toil that will never withhold, Whatever the dull world name you, ... X hon-jv Wji tor TUba-H-s- n.f o-nlfl 1