Wide Lies Australia

Related poetry:

1. The Heart of Australia When the wars of the world seemed ended, and silent the distant drum, Ten years ago in Australia, I wrote of a war to come: And I pictured Australians fighting as their fathers fought of old For the old things, pride or country, for God or the Devil or gold. And they lounged on the […]...
2. Australia's Peril We must suffer, husband and father, we must suffer, daughter and son, For the wrong we have taken part in and the wrong that we have seen done. Let the bride of frivolous fashion, and of ease, be ashamed and dumb, For I tell you the nations shall rule us who have let their children […]...
3. The Never-Never Country By homestead, hut, and shearing-shed, By railroad, coach, and track By lonely graves of our brave dead, Up-Country and Out-Back: To where ‘neath glorious the clustered stars The dreamy plains expand My home lies wide a thousand miles In the Never-Never Land. It lies beyond the farming belt, Wide wastes of scrub and plain, A […]...
4. My Land and I They have eaten their fill at your tables spread, Like friends since the land was won; And they rise with a cry of “Australia’s dead!” With the wheeze of “Australia’s done!” Oh, the theme is stale, but they tell the tale (How the weak old tale will keep!) Like the crows that croak on a […]...
5. The Song of Australia The centuries found me to nations unknown – My people have crowned me and made me a throne; My royal regalia is love, truth, and light – A girl called Australia – I’ve come to my right. Though no fields of conquest grew red at my birth, My dead were the noblest and bravest on […]...
6. El Mahdi to the Australian Troops And wherefore have they come, this warlike band, That o’er the ocean many a weary day Have tossed; and now beside Suakim’s Bay, With faces stern and resolute, do stand, Waking the desert’s echoes with the drum Men of Australia, wherefore have ye come? To keep the Puppet Khedive on the throne, To strike a […]...
7. In The Days When The World Was Wide The world is narrow and ways are short, and our lives are dull and slow, For little is new where the crowds resort, and less where the wanderers go; Greater, or smaller, the same old things we see by the dull road-side And tired of all is the spirit that sings Of the days when […]...
8. Back From Australia Cocooned in Time, at this inhuman height, The packaged food tastes neutrally of clay, We never seem to catch the running day But travel on in everlasting night With all the chic accoutrements of flight: Lotions and essences in neat array And yet another plastic cup and tray. “Thank you so much. Oh no, I’m […]...
9. Waratah and Wattle Though poor and in trouble I wander alone, With rebel cockade in my hat, Though friends may desert me, and kindred disown, My country will never do that! You may sing of the Shamrock, the Thistle, the rose, Or the three in a bunch, if you will; But I know of a country that gathered […]...
10. Australia A Nation of trees, drab green and desolate grey In the field uniform of modern wars, Darkens her hills, those endless, outstretched paws Of Sphinx demolished or stone lion worn away. They call her a young country, but they lie: She is the last of lands, the emptiest, A woman beyond her change of life, […]...
11. Love Lies Bleeding Love lies bleeding in the bed whereover Roses lean with smiling mouths or pleading: Earth lies laughing where the sun’s dart clove her: Love lies bleeding. Stately shine his purple plumes, exceeding Pride of princes: nor shall maid or lover Find on earth a fairer sign worth heeding. Yet may love, sore wounded scarce recover […]...
12. In the Storm that is to come By our place in the midst of the furthest seas we were fated to stand alone – When the nations fly at each other’s throats let Australia look to her own; Let her spend her gold on the barren west, let her keep her men at home; For the South must look to the South […]...
13. For Australia Now, with the wars of the world begun, they’ll listen to you and me, Now while the frightened nations run to the arms of democracy, Now, when our blathering fools are scared, and the years have proved us right – All unprovided and unprepared, the Outpost of the White! “Get the people – no matter […]...
14. White in the Moon the Long Road Lies White in the moon the long road lies, The moon stands blank above; White in the moon the long road lies That leads me from my love. Still hangs the hedge without a gust, Still, still the shadows stay: My feet upon the moonlit dust Pursue the ceaseless way. The world is round, so travellers […]...
15. A Dream Lies Dead A dream lies dead here. May you softly go Before this place, and turn away your eyes, Nor seek to know the look of that which dies Importuning Life for life. Walk not in woe, But, for a little, let your step be slow. And, of your mercy, be not sweetly wise With words of […]...
16. Where Lies The Land To Which The Ship Would Go Where lies the land to which the ship would go? Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know. And where the land she travels from? Away, Far, far behind, is all that they can say. On sunny noons upon the deck’s smooth face, Linked arm in arm, how pleasant here to pace! Or, o’er the […]...
17. The Land of the Exile Mother, the light has grown grey in the sky; I do not know what The time is. There is no fun in my play, so I have come to you. It is Saturday, our holiday. Leave off your work, mother; sit here by the window and tell Me where the desert of Tepantar in the […]...
18. How the Land was Won The future was dark and the past was dead As they gazed on the sea once more – But a nation was born when the immigrants said “Good-bye!” as they stepped ashore! In their loneliness they were parted thus Because of the work to do, A wild wide land to be won for us By […]...
19. A Sweltering Day In Australia The Bombola faints in the hot Bowral tree, Where fierce Mullengudgery’s smothering fires Far from the breezes of Coolgardie Burn ghastly and blue as the day expires; And Murriwillumba complaineth in song For the garlanded bowers of Woolloomooloo, And the Ballarat Fly and the lone Wollongong They dream of the gardens of Jamberoo; The wallabi […]...
20. Tenth Commandment The woman said yes she would go to Australia with him Unless he heard wrong and she said Argentina Where they could learn the tango and pursue the widows Of Nazi war criminals unrepentant to the end. But no, she said Australia. She’d been born in New Zealand. The difference between the two places was […]...
21. Australia Today 1916 They came from the lower levels Deep down in the Brilliant mine; From the wastes where the whirlwind revels, Whirling the leaves of pine. On the western plains, where the Darling flows, And the dust storms wheel and shift, The teamster loosened his yokes and bows, And turned his team adrift. On the western stations, […]...
22. To Seem The Stranger Lies My Lot, My Life To seem the stranger lies my lot, my life Among strangers. Father and mother dear, Brothers and sisters are in Christ not near And he my peace my parting, sword and strife. England, whose honour O all my heart woos, wife To my creating thought, would neither hear Me, were I pleading, plead nor do […]...
23. Lies About Love We are a liars, because The truth of yesterday becomes a lie tomorrow, Whereas letters are fixed, And we live by the letter of truth. The love I feel for my friend, this year, Is different from the love I felt last year. If it were not so, it would be a lie. Yet we […]...
24. Ozymandias I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, […]...
25. Love Lies Sleeping Earliest morning, switching all the tracks That cross the sky from cinder star to star, coupling the ends of streets to trains of light. Now draw us into daylight in our beds; And clear away what presses on the brain: put out the neon shapes that float and swell and glare Down the gray avenue […]...
26. At The Beating Of A Drum Fear ye not the stormy future, for the Battle Hymn is strong, And the armies of Australia shall not march without a song; The glorious words and music of Australia’s song shall come When her true hearts rush together at the beating of a drum. We may not be there to hear it – ’twill […]...
27. Unto one who lies at rest Unto one who lies at rest ‘Neath the sunset, in the West, Clover-blossoms on her breast. Lover of each gracious thing Which makes glad the summer-tide, From the daisies clustering And the violets purple-eyed, To those shy and hidden blooms Which in forest coverts stay, Sending wandering perfumes Out as guide to show the way, […]...
28. Wide Spaces When the man I was denounces all the things that I was not, When the true souls stand like granite, while the souls of liars not – When the quids I gave are counted, and the trays I cadged forgot; Shall my spirit see the country that it wrote for once again? Shall it see […]...
29. The Palm And The Pine From the German of Heine. In the far North stands a Pine-tree, lone, Upon a wintry height; It sleeps: around it snows have thrown A covering of white. It dreams forever of a Palm That, far i’ the Morning-land, Stands silent in a most sad calm Midst of the burning sand....
30. I Went Down into the Desert I went down into the desert To meet Elijah- Arisen from the dead. I thought to. find him in an echoing cave; For so my dream had said. I went down into the desert To meet John the Baptist. I walked with feet that bled, Seeking that prophet lean and brown and bold. I spied […]...
31. I walked in a desert I walked in a desert. And I cried, “Ah, God, take me from this place!” A voice said, “It is no desert.” I cried, “Well, But The sand, the heat, the vacant horizon.” A voice said, “It is no desert.”...
32. The Lone Trail Ye who know the Lone Trail fain would follow it, Though it lead to glory or the darkness of the pit. Ye who take the Lone Trail, bid your love good-by; The Lone Trail, the Lone Trail follow till you die. The trails of the world be countless, and most of the trails be tried; […]...
33. Ballad of a Ship Down by the flash of the restless water The dim White Ship like a white bird lay; Laughing at life and the world they sought her, And out she swung to the silvering bay. Then off they flew on their roystering way, And the keen moon fired the light foam flying Up from the flood […]...
34. The Flood Blood has been harder to dam back than water. Just when we think we have it impounded safe Behind new barrier walls (and let it chafe!), It breaks away in some new kind of slaughter. We choose to say it is let loose by the devil; But power of blood itself releases blood. It goes […]...
35. The Great Grey Plain Out West, where the stars are brightest, Where the scorching north wind blows, And the bones of the dead gleam whitest, And the sun on a desert glows Yet within the selfish kingdom Where man starves man for gain, Where white men tramp for existence Wide lies the Great Grey Plain. No break in its […]...
36. Words, Wide Night Somewhere on the other side of this wide night And the distance between us, I am thinking of you. The room is turning slowly away from the moon. This is pleasurable. Or shall I cross that out and say It is sad? In one of the tenses I singing An impossible song of desire that […]...
37. Permanence Set within a desert lone, Circled by an arid sea, Stands a figure carved in stone, Where a fountain used to be. Two abraded, pleading hands Held below a shapeless mouth, Human-like the fragment stands, Tortured by perpetual drouth. Once the form was drenched with spray, Deluged with the rainbow flushes; Surplus water dashed away […]...
38. Should the wide world roll away Should the wide world roll away, Leaving black terror, Limitless night, Nor God, nor man, nor place to stand Would be to me essential, If thou and thy white arms were there, And the fall to doom a long way....
39. Here Died There’s many a schoolboy’s bat and ball that are gathering dust at home, For he hears a voice in the future call, and he trains for the war to come; A serious light in his eyes is seen as he comes from the schoolhouse gate; He keeps his kit and his rifle clean, and he […]...
40. The Night was wide, and furnished scant The Night was wide, and furnished scant With but a single Star That often as a Cloud it met Blew out itself for fear The Wind pursued the little Bush And drove away the Leaves November left then clambered up And fretted in the Eaves No Squirrel went abroad A Dog’s belated feet Like intermittent […]...