| Walter Murdoch (1874–1970). The Oxford Book of Australasian Verse. 1918. |
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| 56. The Grey Company |
| | | By Jessie Mackay |
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| O THE GREY, grey company | |
| Of the pallid dawn! | |
| O the ghostly faces | |
| Ashen-like and drawn! | |
| The Lord’s lone sentinels | 5 |
| Dotted down the years— | |
| The little grey company | |
| Before the pioneers! | |
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| Dreaming of Utopias | |
| Ere the time was ripe, | 10 |
| They awoke to scorning, | |
| To jeering and to strife. | |
| Dreaming of millenniums | |
| In a world of wars, | |
| They awoke to shudder | 15 |
| At a flaming Mars. | |
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| Never was a Luther | |
| But a Huss was first— | |
| A fountain unregarded | |
| In the primal thirst. | 20 |
| Never was a Newton | |
| Crowned and honoured well, | |
| But first a lone Galileo | |
| Wasted in a cell. | |
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| In each other’s faces | 25 |
| Looked the pioneers;— | |
| Drank the wine of courage | |
| All their battle years. | |
| For their weary sowing | |
| Through the world wide, | 30 |
| Green they saw the harvest | |
| Ere the day they died. | |
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| But the grey, grey company | |
| Stood every man alone | |
| In the chilly dawnlight: | 35 |
| Scarcely had they known | |
| Ere the day they perished | |
| That their beacon star | |
| Was not glint of marshlight | |
| In the shadows far. | 40 |
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| The brave white witnesses | |
| To the truth within | |
| Took the dart of folly, | |
| Took the jeer of sin. | |
| Crying, ‘Follow, follow | 45 |
| Back to Eden-gate!’ | |
| They trod the Polar desert,— | |
| Met the desert fate. | |
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| Be laurel to the victor, | |
| And roses to the fair; | 50 |
| And asphodel Elysian | |
| Let the hero wear: | |
| But lay the maiden lilies | |
| Upon their narrow biers— | |
| The lone grey company | 55 |
| Before the pioneers! | |
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