THE ANTARCTIC HEROES.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 47, 24 February 1913, Page 2

THE ANTARCTIC HEROES.

(Robort J. Ba Ice well in the Taranaki Herald.) Why mourn ye for them that have gallantly done— What reck’d they of death who had gloriously won!

A hundred leagues across the Polar waste They homeward strove, by bellowing blizzard faced; And through the snow slough reached the glacier’s dip Where, chasm down, Death lurked for ev’ry slip.

O’er icy hummocks, all too thickly strewn. Tho’ hunger sapped and frost had biten bone,

They went, with every care of one by other And Christ-like gift of life to save a brother! A striving onward sorely faint and slow, Then rest at last beneath tho folding

snow; A quiet passing of the mortal breath And lo—the silent majesty of Death!

Where is nor sordid strife nor selfish

care, Whence all is purged that is not pure

and rare, Where men and Nature’s self, their purpose gained, Uplift to heavenly view a soul unstained.

There in the mighty Fastness surely scaled, Ringed by a wilderness of ice-bound field, in ' Far from the prying eye of vulgar quest In lonliness sublime, now let them rest!

And mourn but only as they would who

hold That souls heroic prove of purest gold, Nor grudge for loss of that is merest clay The glorious triumph of the last assay! By Death like theirs what heart not deeply stirr’d— What spirit' not to nobler action spurr’d! Own England’s sons yet hold a purpose high, Can still as nobly do and nobly die! Gilbert and Hudson, Honour’s roll so graced, Nelson and Franklyn, Death’s pale seifs thus faced; Duty and Faith and Honour fired their souly Be gallant Scott a fifth upon the scroll! They prate ho -more—our Stock hath spent its day, !"<'• I A forest giant sunk in slow decay! Did ever failing sap such fruitage give ? ■Who strive-and 'die like these—:mmortal live! Five orbs above our Pole in splendour glow d i. A pledge of Hope to mortals here be - low: As high the stars, among be writ their name— The rolling ages on as fright their fame! —Waitui, Inglewood, Fob. 21, 1913.