Sonnets on the Discovery of Botany Bay by Captain Cook - II - The Second Attempt, Opposed by Two of the Natives

A poem by Henry Kendall

“There were but two, and we were forty! Yet,”
The Captain wrote, “that dauntless couple throve,
And faced our wildering faces; and I said
‘Lie to awhile!’ I did not choose to let
A strife go on of little worth to us.
And so unequal! But the dying tread
Of flying kinsmen moved them not: for wet
With surf and wild with streaks of white and black
The pair remained.” O stout Caractacus!
’Twas thus you stood when Caesar’s legions strove
To beat their few, fantastic foemen back
Your patriots with their savage stripes of red!
To drench the stormy cliff and moaning cove
With faithful blood, as pure as any ever shed.