Editor's note:
Selections from Australian Poets No. 1.
We venture to assert that the following is the most beautiful poem belonging to the infant literature of this country. A still, deep, shining power pervades it, like the pure, beamy, quiet flow of our own rock-bedded Nepean, where it glides from the trackless mountains to the peopled plain, a power which is in itself a bounty like that stream of fresh waters. We have often drank of both, when aweary of the tumoils of this world, and when athirst with hard work and the summer sun; and we shall never forget the sensations of balmy delight which we experienced. It would serve no interest of ours, and we have little desire, to puff Mr. Harpur- his is a wayward and erratic genius; but we consider this production alone would stamp him as a true poet.