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
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
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.”
