My country! I am sore at heart for thee! <br />An in mine ear, like a storm-heralding breeze, <br />A voice against thee gathers warningly! <br />Lo, in what hands seem now thy destinies! <br />Hands grasping all, through party means, to seize <br />Some private benefit: and what should be <br />Thy Freedom's dawn, but gives ascendancy <br />To lawless Squatters, and the Hacks of these! <br />Woe waits a land, where men are wise and brave <br />For naught but self! When even the best aside <br />Are thrusting honesty to don the knave! <br />Where worth is trampled on by vulgar pride! <br />And where all beauty of the mind, decried, <br />Hangs dying o'er a Mammon-delved grave.<br /><br />Charles Harpur<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-sonnet-dedicated-to-sir-george-gipps/
