Men have said that ye were sleeping—
Hurl, Australians, back the lie;
Whet the swords you have in keeping,
Forward stand to do or die!
Hear ye not, across the ocean,
Echoes of the distant fray,
Sounds of loud and fierce commotion,
Swiftly sweeping on the way?
Hearts have woke from sluggish trances,
Woke to know their native worth;
Freedom with her train advances—
Freedom newly sprung to birth.
Despots start from thrones affrighted—
Tyrants hear the angry tread;
Where the slaves, whose prayers were slighted,
Marching—draw the sword instead.
If the men of other nations
Dash their fetters to the ground;
When the foeman seeks your stations,
Will you willing slaves be found?
You the sons of hero fathers—
Sires that bled at Waterloo!
No! Your indignation gathers—
To your old traditions true;
Should the cannon's iron rattle
Sound between your harbour doors,
You will rise to wage the battle
In a just and righteous cause.
Patriot fires will scorch Oppression
Should it dare to draw too near;
And the tide of bold Aggression
Must be stayed from coming here.
Look upon familiar places,
Mountain, river, hill and glade;
Look upon those beauteous faces,
Turning up to you for aid.
Think ye, in the time of danger,
When that threatening moment comes—
Will ye let the heartless stranger
Drive your kindred from their homes?
By the prayers which rise above you,
When you face him on the shore,
By the forms of those that love you—
Greet him with the rifle's roar!
While an arm can wield a sabre,
While you yet can lift a hand,
Strike and teach your hostile neighbour,
This is Freedom's chosen land.
The Ivy on the Wall
The verdant ivy clings around
Yon moss be-mantled wall,
As if it sought to hide the stones,
That crumbling soon must fall:
That relic of a bygone age
Now tottering to decay,
Has but one friend—the ivy—left.
The rest have passed away.
The fairy flowers that once did bloom
And smile beneath its shade;
They lingered till the autumn came,
And autumn saw them fade:
The emerald leaves that blushed between—
The winds away have blown;
But yet to cheer the mournful scene,
The ivy liveth on.
Thus heavenly hope will still survive,
When earthly joys have fled;
And all the flow'ry dreams of youth
Lie withering and dead.
When Winter comes—it twines itself
Around the human heart;
And like the ivy on the wall
Will ne'er from thence depart.
The Australian Emigrant
How dazzling the sunbeams awoke on the spray,
When Australia first rose in the distance away,
As welcome to us on the deck of the bark,
As the dove to the vision of those in the ark!
What fairylike fancies appear'd to the view
As nearer and nearer the haven we drew!
What castles were built and rebuilt in the brain,
To totter and crumble to nothing again!
We had roam'd o'er the ocean—had travers'd a path,
Where the tempest surrounded and shriek'd in its wrath:
Alike we had roll'd in the hurricane's breath,
And slumber'd on waters as silent as death:
We had watch'd the Day breaking each morn on the main,
And had seen it sink down in the billows again;
For week after week, till dishearten'd we thought
An age would elapse ere we enter'd the port.
How often while ploughing the 'watery waste',
Our thoughts—from the Future have turn'd to the Past;
How often our bosoms have heav'd with regret;
For faces and scenes we could never forget:
For we'd seen as the shadows o'er-curtain'd our minds
The cliffs of old England receding behind;
And had turned in our tears from the view of the shore,
The land of our childhood, to see it no more.
But when that red morning awoke from its sleep,
To show us this land like a cloud on the deep;
And when the warm sunbeams imparted their glow,
To the heavens above and the ocean below;
The hearts had been aching then revell'd with joy,
And a pleasure was tasted exempt from alloy;
The souls had been heavy grew happy and light
And all was forgotten in present delight.
'Tis true—of the hopes that were verdant that day
There is more than the half of them withered away:
'Tis true that emotions of temper'd regret,
Still live for the country we'll never forget;
But yet we are happy, since learning to love
The scenes that surround us—the skies are above,
We find ourselves bound, as it were by a spell,
In the clime we've adopted contented to dwell.
To My Brother, Basil E. Kendall
To-night the sea sends up a gulf-like sound,
And ancient rhymes are ringing in my head,
The many lilts of song we sang and said,
My friend and brother, when we journeyed round
Our haunts at Wollongong, that classic ground
For me at least, a lingerer deeply read
And steeped in beauty. Oft in trance I tread
Those shining shores, and hear your talk of Fame
With thought-flushed face and heart so well assured
(Beholding through the woodland's bright distress
The Moon half pillaged of her loveliness)
Of this wild dreamer: Had you but endured
A dubious dark, you might have won a name
With brighter bays than I can ever claim.