THE MUTINY OF THE CHAINS.
(Penal Colony of Western Australia, 1857.)
THE sun rose o'er dark Fremantle,
And the Sentry stood on the wall;
Above him, with white lines swinging,
The flag-staff, bare and tall:
The flag at its foot—the Mutiny Flag—
Was always fast to the line,—
For its sanguine field was a cry of fear,
And the Colony counted an hour a year
In the need of the blood-red sign.
The staff and the line, with its ruddy flash,
Like a threat or an evil-bode,
Were a monstrous whip with a crimson lash,
Fit sign for the penal code.
