The Land Of The Dawning

Darkrose her shore in seas of amethyst

                By tropic breezes kissed,

A summer land in watery wastes forlorn,

Her ranges floating in the snow-white mist

                And gold of early morn.

The tides of Empire ebbed and flowed afar;

The thrones of nations in the dust were hurled,

Silent she slept beneath the morning star,

                A virgin world.

Love, Birth, and Death, the stress of Age and Race,

                Changed not her maiden face—

Unstocked her pastures and untilled her soil—

She who for labour builds a throne apace

                Saw not her people toil;

Down the low valleys, up the stormy steeps,

Careless they roamed at will: the land was free

From desert stark to where the mangrove sleeps

                Upon the sea.

There dropped no anchor at her river bars

                Beneath the quiet stars;

No wandering sail her silent waters swept;

By waste and scrub, o’er plain and rocky scars

                No alien footstep crept;

In feathery billows of her grassy seas

Some lonely mountain stretched its capes of blue;

Only the heavens above her and the breeze

                Her secrets knew.

Where the wild grass grew rank on slopes forlorn

                Rise fields of yellow corn,

And purple lucerne-bloom makes sweet the air;

The sullen mountain, lost in mists of morn,

                Its golden heart lays bare.

Spoils of her pastures crowd full many a mart;

Her glittering treasure calls to many a land;

She has no secrets for the daring heart

                And strong brown hand.

The smoke and thunder of her cities rise

                To the same careless skies;

Her arteries thread the same wide sunlit leas,

Her fleets stretch forth their wings of enterprise

                O’er the same summer seas.

She to the Nations cries: “No Past, no Fame,

No Memories quicken round my flag unfurled;

The mightier, therefore, shall I carve my name

                Upon the World.”