TO THE AGE-1891.

Otago Witness, Issue 1956, 20 August 1891, Page 33

TO THE AGE-1891.

O tbou unquiet Age ! Lo now the cedars on the mountain rook and bow ; The ancient cedars totter to their overthrow, Whose shadows filled the earth ; and thon wilt wreck them, thou 1 O thou new tender Age 1 Who slng'et old musio newly ; hearest ories of those Low trodden to the earth by feet of herd that goes To Mammon with a gift, their brothers' blood -not foes'.

O thou awakening Age ! The slow past ages slept as surely as the dead When blinded dungeon-dwellers cried for light and bread ; They ory not softer now ; thou art disquieted. O thou contending Age 1 Who warrest with thyself ; tbe right hand with the left; Old lights new kindled warring with the dark that cleft Its way to kingly thrones, Earth nigh of good bereft. O heavy-weighted Age 1 Who art, on waking from primeval sleep, the heir Of wrongful debts that shame thy icutoheon ; wilt thou dare To grapple with the paying,— leave a record fair J O thou muoh-doubting Age I In heaven, silent, the recording angels tit ; The great white page of Destiny is open yet ; And fonl or fair to oome shall be as thou hast writ. O thou perplexed Age 1 Thou lackest not to day for nostrums In thy pain One looketh to the glories of the Past, and fain Would bind and task anew, and tighten at the rein. O thou all-hearing Age 1 And one, with words as water dropping through a sieve, Ories, " Race, die out for aye ; Oblivion peace shall give." Evader 1 it is easier to die than live I O thou tempestuous Ago 1 Say, are thy mighty billows, inowy at the crest, To wash all waitely Earth's impureness from her breait, Or Kraken's waking throes to whelm her worst and best?

O thou far-thoughted Age t Unresting, as tney danced the Taranthelle of yore,— Doubting if luring lights be stars at Heaven's door. Or ignis fatwis flitting on an earthly moor. O thou unquiet Age 1 Thy children bless tbee that thou hast the thought to free The bond ; yet mark: the Golden Age shall never be Till Pagan "I " has merged into the Christian " We."

— Jbssik Mackat.

Balnollff, August 15.