That her hands have rocked my cradle stirs my heart in every beat.
An Australian, ay, Australian—oh, the word is music to me,
And the craven who’d deny her would I spurn beneath my feet.
Thrills the thought that, did the traitor stretch a tainted hand to foil her,
Did I see her flag of silver stars a tattered thing and torn,
Did I see her trampled, breathless, neath the shod heel of the spoiler,
And her bleeding wounds a byword, and her name a thing of scorn,
There would flash the living bayonets in the strong hands of my brothers,
And the blood that coursed for nationhood, through all the years of pain,
In the veins of patriot fathers and of Little Irish Mothers