[Editor: A poem published in The Warwick Argus, 24 December 1898.]
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. in “Adelaide Observer.”
Source:
The Warwick Argus (St. Lucia, Qld.), Saturday 24 December 1898, page 3
[Editor: Corrected by inserting the missing closing quotation mark to the end of “Adelaide Observer”.]
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