The Australian

Once more this Autumn-earth is ripe, Parturient of another type.

While with the Past old nations merge His foot is on the Future’s verge;

They watch him, as they huddle pent, Striding a spacious continent,

Above the level desert’s marge Looming in his aloofness large.

No flower with fragile sweetness graced— A lank weed wrestling with the waste.

Pallid of face and gaunt of limb, Ihe sweetness withered out of him.

Sombre, indomitable, wan, The juices dried, the glad youth gone.

A little weary from his birth; His laugh the spectre of a mirth.

Bitter beneath a bitter sky, To Nature he has no reply.

Wanton, perhaps, and cruel. Yes, Is not his sun more merciless?

Joy his such niggard dole to give, He laughs, a child, glad just to live.

So drab and neutral is his day He gleans a splendour in the grey.

And from his life’s monotony He lifts a subtle melody.

When earth so poor a banquet makes His pleasures at a gulp he takes.

The feast is his to the last crumb; Drink while he can, the drought will come.

His heart a sudden tropic flower, He loves and loathes within an hour.

Yet you who by the pools abide, Judge not the man who swerves aside.

He sees beyond your hazy fears; He roads the desert of the years.

Rearing his cities in the sand, He builds where even God has banned.

With green a continent he crowns, And stars a wilderness with towns.

His gyves of steel the great plain wears; With roads the distances he snares.

A child given a world for toy, To build a nation, or destroy.

His childish features frozen stern, A nation’s task he has to learn.

From feeble tribes to federate One splendid, peace-encompassed State.

What if there be no goal to reach? Tne road lies open, dawns beseech!

Enough that he lay down his load A little further on the road.

So, toward undreamt-of destinies He slouches down the centuries!