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THE DAUNTLESS three! For twenty days and nights These heroes battled with the haughty heights; For twenty spaces of the star and sun These Romans kept their harness buckled on; By gaping gorges, and by cliffs austere, These fathers struggled in the great old year. Their feet they set on strange hills scarred by fire, Their strong arms forced a path through brake and briar; They fought with Nature till they reached the throne Where morning glittered on the great UNKNOWN! There, in a time with praise and prayer supreme, Paused Blaxland, Lawson, Wentworth, in a dream; There, where the silver arrows of the day Smote slope and spire, they halted on their way. Behind them were the conquered hills—they faced The vast green West, with glad, strange beauty graced; And every tone of every cave and tree Was as a voice of splendid prophecy. |