 | Sonnets and Other Poems |  |
81
1899.
Farewell, old year, unhappy Ninety-nine!No personal cause have I to hate thy name;
While thou wert here, to me no suffering came:
No bright young life, rear'd at this hearth of mine,
At call of duty join'd the battle-line.
I mourn the public loss, the public shame—
The blot thou leav'st upon our country's fame.
On history's page this record will be thine—
That a vain man, by England's evil fate
Clothed with brief power to guide and wound the State,
By mingling serpent guile and menace rude
Goaded a patient people into war,
And made our good Victoria's evening star
Look on a surging sea of brothers' blood.
| Sonnets and Other Poems | |