STEPHENS
Ah, now we know the long delayBut served to assure a prouder day,For while we waited, came the callTo prove and make our title good—To face the fiery ordealThat tries the claim to Nationhood—And now, in pride of challenge, we unroll,For all the world to read, the record-scrollWhose bloody script attests a Nation’s soul.O ye, our Dead, who at the callFared forth to fall as heroes fall,Whose consecrated souls we failedTo note beneath the common guiseTill all-revealing Death unveiledThe splendour of your sacrifice,Now, crowned with more than perishable bays,Immortal in your country’s love and praise,Ye too have portion in this day of days!And ye who sowed where now we reap,Whose waiting eyes, now sealed in sleep,Beheld far off with prescient sightThis triumph of rejoicing lands—Yours too the day! for though its lightCan pierce not to your folded hands,These shining hours of advent but fulfilThe cherished purpose of your constant willWhose onward impulse liveth in us still.Still lead thou vanward of our lineWho, shaggy, massive, leonine,Couldst yet most finely phrase the event—For if a Pisgah view was allVouchsafed to thine uncrowned intent,The echoes of thy herald-callNot faintlier strive with our saluting guns,And at thy words through all Australia’s sonsThe ‘crimson thread of kinship’ redder runs.But not the memory of the dead,How loved soe’er each sacred head,To-day can change from glad to graveThe chords that quire a Nation born—Twin-offspring of the birth that gave,When yester-midnight chimed to morn,Another age to the Redeemer’s reign,Another cycle to the widening gainOf Good o’er Ill and Remedy o’er Pain.Our sundering lines with love o’ergrown,Our bounds the girdling seas alone—Be this the burden of the psalmThat every resonant hour repeats,Till day-fall dusk the fern and palmThat forest our transfigured streets,And night still vibrant with the note of praiseThrill brotherhearts to song in woodland ways,When gum-leaves whisper o’er the camp-fire’s blaze.*****The Charter’s read; the rites are o’er;The trumpet’s blare and cannon’s roarAre silent, and the flags are furled;But not so ends the task to buildInto the fabric of the worldThe substance of our hope fulfilled—To work as those who greatly have divinedThe lordship of a continent assignedAs God’s own gift for service of mankind.O People of the onward will,Unit of Union greater stillThan that to-day hath made you great,Your true Fulfilment waiteth there,Embraced within the larger fateOf Empire ye are born to share—No vassal progeny of subject brood,No satellite shed from Britain’s plenitude,But orbed withherin one wide sphere of good!James Brunton Stephens.
Ah, now we know the long delayBut served to assure a prouder day,For while we waited, came the callTo prove and make our title good—To face the fiery ordealThat tries the claim to Nationhood—And now, in pride of challenge, we unroll,For all the world to read, the record-scrollWhose bloody script attests a Nation’s soul.O ye, our Dead, who at the callFared forth to fall as heroes fall,Whose consecrated souls we failedTo note beneath the common guiseTill all-revealing Death unveiledThe splendour of your sacrifice,Now, crowned with more than perishable bays,Immortal in your country’s love and praise,Ye too have portion in this day of days!And ye who sowed where now we reap,Whose waiting eyes, now sealed in sleep,Beheld far off with prescient sightThis triumph of rejoicing lands—Yours too the day! for though its lightCan pierce not to your folded hands,These shining hours of advent but fulfilThe cherished purpose of your constant willWhose onward impulse liveth in us still.Still lead thou vanward of our lineWho, shaggy, massive, leonine,Couldst yet most finely phrase the event—For if a Pisgah view was allVouchsafed to thine uncrowned intent,The echoes of thy herald-callNot faintlier strive with our saluting guns,And at thy words through all Australia’s sonsThe ‘crimson thread of kinship’ redder runs.But not the memory of the dead,How loved soe’er each sacred head,To-day can change from glad to graveThe chords that quire a Nation born—Twin-offspring of the birth that gave,When yester-midnight chimed to morn,Another age to the Redeemer’s reign,Another cycle to the widening gainOf Good o’er Ill and Remedy o’er Pain.Our sundering lines with love o’ergrown,Our bounds the girdling seas alone—Be this the burden of the psalmThat every resonant hour repeats,Till day-fall dusk the fern and palmThat forest our transfigured streets,And night still vibrant with the note of praiseThrill brotherhearts to song in woodland ways,When gum-leaves whisper o’er the camp-fire’s blaze.*****The Charter’s read; the rites are o’er;The trumpet’s blare and cannon’s roarAre silent, and the flags are furled;But not so ends the task to buildInto the fabric of the worldThe substance of our hope fulfilled—To work as those who greatly have divinedThe lordship of a continent assignedAs God’s own gift for service of mankind.O People of the onward will,Unit of Union greater stillThan that to-day hath made you great,Your true Fulfilment waiteth there,Embraced within the larger fateOf Empire ye are born to share—No vassal progeny of subject brood,No satellite shed from Britain’s plenitude,But orbed withherin one wide sphere of good!James Brunton Stephens.
Ah, now we know the long delayBut served to assure a prouder day,For while we waited, came the callTo prove and make our title good—To face the fiery ordealThat tries the claim to Nationhood—And now, in pride of challenge, we unroll,For all the world to read, the record-scrollWhose bloody script attests a Nation’s soul.
O ye, our Dead, who at the callFared forth to fall as heroes fall,Whose consecrated souls we failedTo note beneath the common guiseTill all-revealing Death unveiledThe splendour of your sacrifice,Now, crowned with more than perishable bays,Immortal in your country’s love and praise,Ye too have portion in this day of days!
And ye who sowed where now we reap,Whose waiting eyes, now sealed in sleep,Beheld far off with prescient sightThis triumph of rejoicing lands—Yours too the day! for though its lightCan pierce not to your folded hands,These shining hours of advent but fulfilThe cherished purpose of your constant willWhose onward impulse liveth in us still.
Still lead thou vanward of our lineWho, shaggy, massive, leonine,Couldst yet most finely phrase the event—For if a Pisgah view was allVouchsafed to thine uncrowned intent,The echoes of thy herald-callNot faintlier strive with our saluting guns,And at thy words through all Australia’s sonsThe ‘crimson thread of kinship’ redder runs.
But not the memory of the dead,How loved soe’er each sacred head,To-day can change from glad to graveThe chords that quire a Nation born—Twin-offspring of the birth that gave,When yester-midnight chimed to morn,Another age to the Redeemer’s reign,Another cycle to the widening gainOf Good o’er Ill and Remedy o’er Pain.
Our sundering lines with love o’ergrown,Our bounds the girdling seas alone—Be this the burden of the psalmThat every resonant hour repeats,Till day-fall dusk the fern and palmThat forest our transfigured streets,And night still vibrant with the note of praiseThrill brotherhearts to song in woodland ways,When gum-leaves whisper o’er the camp-fire’s blaze.
*****
The Charter’s read; the rites are o’er;The trumpet’s blare and cannon’s roarAre silent, and the flags are furled;But not so ends the task to buildInto the fabric of the worldThe substance of our hope fulfilled—To work as those who greatly have divinedThe lordship of a continent assignedAs God’s own gift for service of mankind.
O People of the onward will,Unit of Union greater stillThan that to-day hath made you great,Your true Fulfilment waiteth there,Embraced within the larger fateOf Empire ye are born to share—No vassal progeny of subject brood,No satellite shed from Britain’s plenitude,But orbed withherin one wide sphere of good!
James Brunton Stephens.