[Editor: This poem was published in The Evening Journal (Adelaide, SA), 9 May 1888.]
Australia for the Australians.
Shall the yellow man pick
From our Eden the fruit?
Must we yield our fair fields
Like a dumb driven brute?
Shall our children learn trades
And be forced to compete
With a parasite horde
In the workshop and street?
Are we breeders of men
Or but breeders of slaves?
Shall our daughters be worse
Than if dead in their graves?
Nay — the bright sun of freedom
Gives us life, and the light
To warm us and guide us
In guarding our right.
And our right is our country,
To hold and to keep;
We’ve been dreaming too long,
But we’re up from our sleep.
We’ve been rubbing our eyes,
We’ve been shading the light,
Now we gaze at the sun
With an eagle’s delight.
And we cry, shine out brighter,
Our eyes have grown strong,
To look on the glory
We’ve blinked at so long.
G.M.
Port Adelaide, May, 1888.
Source:
The Evening Journal (Adelaide, SA), 9 May 1888, p. 2 (Second Edition)
Also published in:
The Adelaide Observer (Adelaide, SA), 12 May 1888, p. 40
The Colonist (Launceston, Tas.), 26 May 1888, p. 2
The Week (Brisbane, Qld.), 2 June 1888, p. 7
The Telegraph (Brisbane, Qld.), 6 June 1888, p. 3
The Armidale Express, and New England General Advertiser (Armidale, NSW), 15 June 1888, p. 3
The Darling Downs Gazette (Toowoomba, Qld.), 30 June 1888, p. 5
The Warwick Argus (Warwick, Qld.), 24 December 1898, p. 3
The Darling Downs Gazette (Toowoomba, Qld.), 24 December 1898, p. 3
Editor’s notes:
nay = an archaic form of “no”; however, it is still sometimes used regarding voting (e.g. to vote yea or nay), in formal circumstances, in some dialects (e.g. in the north of England), and as a substitute for “no” when some emphasis is desired
yellow = a reference to something that is Asian (especially Chinese) with regards to ethnicity, origin, or style
Updated 13 April 2023
Leave a Reply