Chapter CCXXVII: A Federal Song

In the greyness of the dawning we have seen the pilot-star,
In the whisper of the morning we have heard the years afar.
Shall we sleep and let them be
When they call to you and me?
Can we break the land asunder God has girdled with the sea?
For the Flag is floating o’er us,
And the track is clear before us;--
From the desert to the ocean let us lift the mighty chorus
For the days that are to be.

We have flung the challenge forward:--‘Brothers stand or fall as one!’
She is coming out to meet us in the splendour of the sun;--
From the graves beneath the sky
Where her nameless heroes lie,
From the forelands of the Future they are waiting our reply!
We can face the roughest weather
If we only hold together,
Marching forward to the Future, marching shoulder-firm together;
For the Nation yet to be.

All the greyness of the dawning, all the mists are overpast;
In the glory of the morning we shall see her face at last.
He who sang, ‘She yet will be,’
He shall hail her, crowned and free!
Could we break the land asunder God had girdled with the sea?
For the Flag is floating o’er us,
And the star of Hope before us,
From the desert to the ocean, brothers, lift the mighty chorus
For Australian Unity!

_George Essex Evans._

O’HARA

CCXXVIII

FLINDERS

He left his island home
For leagues of sleepless foam,
For stress of alien seas,
Where wild winds ever blow;
For England’s sake he sought
Fresh fields of fame, and fought
A stormy world for these,
A hundred years ago.

And where the Austral shore
Heard southward far the roar
Of rising tides that came
From lands of ice and snow,
Beneath a gracious sky
To fadeless memory
He left a deathless name
A hundred years ago.

Yea, left a name sublime
From that wild dawn of Time,
Whose light he haply saw
In supreme sunrise flow,
And from the shadows vast,
That filled the dim dead past,
A brighter glory draw,
A hundred years ago.

Perchance, he saw in dreams
Beside our sunlit streams
In some majestic hour
Old England’s banners blow;
Mayhap, the radiant morn
Of this great nation born,
August with perfect power,
A hundred years ago.

We know not,--yet for thee
Far may the season be,
Whose harp in shameful sleep
Is soundless lying low!
Far be the noteless hour
That holds of fame no flower
For those who dared our deep
A hundred years ago!

_John Bernard O’Hara._