ANTARCTIC isle! thy mountains rise
All dimly o’er the western main;
But gladly I regale my eyes
With the bless’d sight of land again!
O, ’tis a welcome sight to me,
Amid this wild and billowy sea!
Thy shores, methinks, sequester’d isle,
Might form a fitting dwelling-place
For men devoid of earthly guile,
For mortals of a heavenly race;
For underneath thy cloudless skies
Fancy might form a Paradise.
Far different is the race that swarms
Along thy rivers, lakes and bays;
All horribly disguised their forms,
All treacherous their savage ways;
Barbarian war their chief employ,
And deadliest cruelty their joy.
The vile assassin’s hideous yell,
The murderer’s terrific roar,
The music and the speech of hell
Are heard along thy shelving shore;
While men, like lions in their den,
Feast on the quivering limbs of men!
See yon tall chief of high command,
With face tattoo’d and bearing proud;
The feast of blood already plann’d,
He eyes his victim in the crowd;
His horrid mien and matted hair
Might well befit a tiger’s lair.
Beneath his shaggy flaxen mat,
The dreadful marree* hangs conceal’d;
Nor is his dark and deadly thought,
By look, or word, or act, reveal’d;
The fated wretch fears no surprise
Till suddenly he shrieks, and dies!
How shall we tame thee, man of blood?
How shall thy wild Antarctic isle,
Won by philanthropy to God,
With British arts and science smile?
How shall New Zealand’s sons embrace
The habits of a happier race?
“Let agriculture tame the soil,”
The philosophic sage exclaims;
“Let peasants ply their useful toil
Along the wide Antarctic Thames;
So shall New Zealand’s sons embrace
The habits of a happier race.”
Wisdom, thy name is folly here!
The savage laughs thy plans to scorn.
Each lake supplies him dainty cheer;
He sates his hunger with the fern,
And contemplates with proud disdain
Thy furrowed fields and yellow grain.
“Let European arts be plied,”
Again the learned sage commands,
“And be the great sledge-hammer tried
To civilize the savage lands;
The axe, the chisel, and the saw
Lead to religion, peace, and law.”
Deluded sage th’ attempt were vain:
The savage scorns thy science too,
And asks, with pitiful disdain,
“What ship outsails my war canoe?”
Of all thy gifts there is but one
He prizes – ’tis thy murdering gun.
“Go, preach the Gospel,” Christ commands;
And when he spake the sov’reign word,
New Zealand’s dark and savage lands
Lay all out-stretch’d before their Lord:
He saw them far across the sea,
Even from the hills of Galilee.
In all their ignorance they lay
Before the Saviour’s piercing eye;
And he who makes the darkness day,
Thus pitied all their misery:
“Proclaim to yonder savage race
The tidings of redeeming grace.
“Let the wild savage know the God,
Whose Providence his life sustains,
And Him who shed his precious blood
To save him from eternal pains;
So shall his brutal warfare cease,
So shall he learn the arts of peace!”
Yes! “Preach the Gospel,” Christ commands,
“To every soul, the world around;
In barbarous, as in learned lands,
Still let the Gospel trumpet sound,
Till every dark and savage isle
In Eden’s primal beauty smile.”
Yes! though despised in every age,
Thy word of power, Almighty Lord!
Can put to shame the wisest sage,
And civilize the rudest horde;
Can cheer the deepest, darkest gloom,
And make the dreariest desert bloom.
Great Source of light! O be it given
To every minister of thine,
To wield this instrument of Heaven
With zeal and energy divine,
Till every isle of this vast sea
Be won to virtue and to thee!
(John Dunmore Lang)
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Based on Topics: Man Poems, God Poems, World Poems, Light Poems, Mind Poems, Sadness Poems, Soul Poems, War & Peace Poems, Joy & Excitement Poems, Heaven Poems, Christianity PoemsBased on Keywords: antarctic, agriculture, civilize, philanthropy, sledge-hammer, out-stretch, sates
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