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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=408404" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Fate of the Explorers (A Fragment)</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=408404" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Set your face toward the darkness — tell of deserts weird and wide,<br>Where unshaken woods are huddled, and low, languid waters glide;<br>Turn and tell of deserts lonely, lying pathless, deep and vast,<br>Where in utter silence ever Time seems slowly breathing past —<br>Silence only broken when the sun is flecked with cloudy bars,<br>Or when tropic squalls come hurtling underneath the sultry stars!<br>Deserts thorny, hot and thirsty, where the feet of men are strange,<br>And eternal Nature sleeps in solitudes which know no change.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=408404" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Weakened with their lengthened labours, past long plains of stone and sand,<br>Down those trackless wilds they wandered, travellers from a far-off land,<br>Seeking now to join their brothers, struggling on with faltering feet,<br>For a glorious work was finished, and a noble task complete.<br>And they dreamt of welcome faces — dreamt that soon unto their ears<br>Friendly greetings would be thronging, with a nation’s well-earned cheers;<br>Since their courage never failed them, but with high, unflinching soul<br>Each was pressing forward, hoping, trusting all should reach the goal.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=408404" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"></a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=408404" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Though he rallied in the morning, long before the close of day<br>He had sunk, the worn-out hero, fainting, dying by the way!<br>But with Death he wrestled hardly; three times rising from the sod,<br>Yet a little further onward o’er the weary waste he trod.<br>Facing Fate with heart undaunted, still the chief would totter on<br>Till the evening closed about him — till the strength to move was gone;<br>Then he penned his latest writings, and, before his life was spent,<br>Gave the records to his comrade — gave the watch he said was lent —<br>Gave them with his last commandments, charging him that night to stay<br>And to let him lie unburied when the soul had passed away.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=408404" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Through that night he uttered little, rambling were the words he spoke:<br>And he turned and died in silence, when the tardy morning broke.<br>Many memories come together whilst in sight of death we dwell,<br>Much of sweet and sad reflection through the weary mind must well.<br>As those long hours glided past him, till the east with light was fraught,<br>Who may know the mournful secret — who can tell us what he thought?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=408404" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Very lone and very wretched was the brave man left behind,<br>Wandering over leagues of waste-land, seeking, hoping help to find;<br>Sleeping in deserted wurleys, fearful many nightfalls through<br>Lest unfriendly hands should rob him of his hoard of wild nardoo.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=408404" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"></a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=408404" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Ere he reached their old encampment — ere the well-known spot was gained,<br>Something nerved him — something whispered that his other chief remained.<br>So he searched for food to give him, trusting they might both survive<br>Till the aid so long expected from the cities should arrive;<br>So he searched for food and took it to the gunyah where he found<br>Silence broken by his footfalls — death and darkness on the ground.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=408404" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Weak and wearied with his journey, there the lone survivor stooped,<br>And the disappointment bowed him and his heart with sadness drooped,<br>And he rose and raked a hollow with his wasted, feeble hands,<br>Where he took and hid the hero, in the rushes and the sands;<br>But he, like a brother, laid him out of reach of wind and rain,<br>And for many days he sojourned near him on that wild-faced plain;<br>Whilst he stayed beside the ruin, whilst he lingered with the dead,<br>Oh! he must have sat in shadow, gloomy as the tears he shed.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=408404" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"></a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=408404" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Where our noble Burke was lying — where his sad companion stood,<br>Came the natives of the forest — came the wild men of the wood;<br>Down they looked, and saw the stranger — he who there in quiet slept —<br>Down they knelt, and o’er the chieftain bitterly they moaned and wept:<br>Bitterly they mourned to see him all uncovered to the blast —<br>All uncovered to the tempest as it wailed and whistled past;<br>And they shrouded him with bushes, so in death that he might lie,<br>Like a warrior of their nation, sheltered from the stormy sky.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=408404" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"></a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=408404" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Ye must rise and sing their praises, O ye bards with souls of fire,<br>For the people’s voice shall echo through the wailings of your lyre;<br>And we’ll welcome back their comrade, though our eyes with tears be blind<br>At the thoughts of promise perished, and the shadow left behind;<br>Now the leaves are bleaching round them — now the gales above them glide,<br>But the end was all accomplished, and their fame is far and wide.<br>Though this fadeless glory cannot hide a grateful nation’s grief,<br>And their laurels have been blended with the gloomy cypress leaf.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=408404" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Let them rest where they have laboured! but, my country, mourn and moan;<br>We must build with human sorrow grander monuments than stone.<br>Let them rest, for oh! remember, that in long hereafter time<br>Sons of Science oft shall wander o’er that solitary clime!<br>Cities bright shall rise about it, Age and Beauty there shall stray,<br>And the fathers of the people, pointing to the graves, shall say:<br>“Here they fell, the glorious martyrs! when these plains were woodlands deep;<br>Here a friend, a brother, laid them; here the wild men came to weep.”</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><a href="http://poems.citatepedia.com/">poem</a> by <strong><a rel="author" href="http://authors.citatepedia.com/by.php?a=Henry+Kendall">Henry Kendall</a></strong></div>