[Editor: This poem by John Shaw Neilson was written in 1906.]
White Australia
Child of the white man — welcome to thy place;
Great are thy needs and piteous is thy cry.
If thou art scorned — alas, the race is lost;
Thy mother’s love is in her watchful eye.
For very life — for home — our fathers fought;
Proud is their record — for a thousand years
Our simplest liberties were dearly bought;
Shall we now halt because of craven fears?
Traitors are they who say fling wide the gates,
Let us have people — God has given soil.
How are you blind — well know we the vile fates
Of the slave peoples robbed and born to toil.
Trust not to those who preach for Greed of Gain;
If to our heart we take a keen-eyed foe
Soon shall we learn that pretty prayers are vain;
With the forgotten people we shall go.
’Tis for no Godless conquest we would arm;
Traitors and cowards, sophists smooth and mild
Have sought thee little one to do thee harm —
And it is ours to guard — the white child.
Published in:
Margaret Roberts (editor), John Shaw Neilson: The Collected Verse: A Variorum Edition Australian Scholarly Editions Centre, UNSW at ADFA, Canberra, 2003, p. 282
Editor’s notes:
art = (archaic) are
sophist = someone who uses reasoning in a clever and tricky manner, so as to support an argument which is false and incorrect but which is then made to sound true and correct (can also refer to: a teacher of philosophy and rhetoric in ancient Greece)
thee = (archaic) you
thou = (archaic) you
’tis = (archaic) a contraction of “it is”
thy = (archaic) your
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