A Sonnet dedicated to Sir George Gipps

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