The Explorer
In the cold eternal bronze of statuary,
he watches over the continent he named,
the young explorer, figurehead of youth, once human, now immortal.
Every school-child knows his history, for he is history, sketching the first outline of the great south land.
But few know the story of a lifelong love that is one of the world's great tragedies;
of a life's unending labour for discovery;
of the persecutions of a cruel fate that gave all only to take away,
and sent a broken cripple to an unknown grave,
and crowned the ruin with undying fame when a century had gone.
Ernestine Hill.
from "My Love Must Wait”
