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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=344061" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Song of the Future</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Tis strange that in a land so strong <br>So strong and bold in mighty youth, <br>We have no poet's voice of truth <br>To sing for us a wondrous song. <br>Our chiefest singer yet has sung <br>In wild, sweet notes a passing strain, <br>All carelessly and sadly flung <br>To that dull world he thought so vain. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">&quot;I care for nothing, good nor bad, <br>My hopes are gone, my pleasures fled, <br>I am but sifting sand,&quot; he said: <br>What wonder Gordon's songs were sad! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And yet, not always sad and hard; <br>In cheerful mood and light of heart <br>He told the tale of Britomarte, <br>And wrote the Rhyme of Joyous Garde. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And some have said that Nature's face <br>To us is always sad; but these <br>Have never felt the smiling grace <br>Of waving grass and forest trees <br>On sunlit plains as wide as seas. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">&quot;A land where dull Despair is king <br>O'er scentless flowers and songless bird!&quot; <br>But we have heard the bell-birds ring <br>Their silver bells at eventide, <br>Like fairies on the mountain side, <br>The sweetest note man ever heard. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The wild thrush lifts a note of mirth; <br>The bronzewing pigeons call and coo <br>Beside their nests the long day through; <br>The magpie warbles clear and strong <br>A joyous, glad, thanksgiving song, <br>For all God's mercies upon earth. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And many voices such as these <br>Are joyful sounds for those to tell, <br>Who know the Bush and love it well, <br>With all its hidden mysteries. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">We cannot love the restless sea, <br>That rolls and tosses to and fro <br>Like some fierce creature in its glee; <br>For human weal or human woe <br>It has no touch of sympathy. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">For us the bush is never sad: <br>Its myriad voices whisper low, <br>In tones the bushmen only know, <br>Its sympathy and welcome glad. <br>For us the roving breezes bring <br>From many a blossum-tufted tree -- <br>Where wild bees murmur dreamily -- <br>The honey-laden breath of Spring. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"> * * * * </div><div style="margin:10px 0">We have our tales of other days, <br>Good tales the northern wanderers tell <br>When bushmen meet and camp-fires blaze, <br>And round the ring of dancing light <br>The great, dark bush with arms of night <br>Folds every hearer in its spell. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">We have our songs -- not songs of strife <br>And hot blood spilt on sea and land; <br>But lilts that link achievement grand <br>To honest toil and valiant life. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Lift ye your faces to the sky <br>Ye barrier mountains in the west <br>Who lie so peacefully at rest <br>Enshrouded in a haze of blue; <br>'Tis hard to feel that years went by <br>Before the pioneers broke through <br>Your rocky heights and walls of stone, <br>And made your secrets all their own. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">For years the fertile Western plains <br>Were hid behind your sullen walls, <br>Your cliffs and crags and waterfalls <br>All weatherworn with tropic rains. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Between the mountains and the sea <br>Like Israelites with staff in hand, <br>The people waited restlessly: <br>They looked towards the mountains old <br>And saw the sunsets come and go <br>With gorgeous golden afterglow, <br>That made the West a fairyland, <br>And marvelled what that West might be <br>Of which such wondrous tales were told. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">For tales were told of inland seas <br>Like sullen oceans, salt and dead, <br>And sandy deserts, white and wan, <br>Where never trod the foot of man, <br>Nor bird went winging overhead, <br>Nor ever stirred a gracious breeze <br>To wake the silence with its breath -- <br>A land of loneliness and death. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">At length the hardy pioneers <br>By rock and crag found out the way, <br>And woke with voices of today <br>A silence kept for years and tears. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Upon the Western slope they stood <br>And saw -- a wide expanse of plain <br>As far as eye could stretch or see <br>Go rolling westward endlessly. <br>The native grasses, tall as grain, <br>Bowed, waved and rippled in the breeze; <br>From boughs of blossom-laden trees <br>The parrots answered back again. <br>They saw the land that it was good, <br>A land of fatness all untrod, <br>And gave their silent thanks to God. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The way is won! The way is won! <br>And straightway from the barren coast <br>There came a westward-marching host, <br>That aye and ever onward prest <br>With eager faces to the West, <br>Along the pathway of the sun. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The mountains saw them marching by: <br>They faced the all-consuming drought, <br>They would not rest in settled land: <br>But, taking each his life in hand, <br>Their faces ever westward bent <br>Beyond the farthest settlement, <br>Responding to the challenge cry <br>of &quot;better country farther out&quot;. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And lo, a miracle! the land <br>But yesterday was all unknown, <br>The wild man's boomerang was thrown <br>Where now great busy cities stand. <br>It was not much, you say, that these <br>Should win their way where none withstood; <br>In sooth there was not much of blood -- <br>No war was fought between the seas. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">It was not much! but we who know <br>The strange capricious land they trod -- <br>At times a stricken, parching sod, <br>At times with raging floods beset -- <br>Through which they found their lonely way <br>Are quite content that you should say <br>It was not much, while we can feel <br>That nothing in the ages old, <br>In song or story written yet <br>On Grecian urn or Roman arch, <br>Though it should ring with clash of steel, <br>Could braver histories unfold <br>Than this bush story, yet untold -- <br>The story of their westward march. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"> * * * * </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But times are changed, and changes rung <br>From old to new -- the olden days, <br>The old bush life and all its ways, <br>Are passing from us all unsung. <br>The freedom, and the hopeful sense <br>Of toil that brought due recompense, <br>Of room for all, has passed away, <br>And lies forgotten with the dead. <br>Within our streets men cry for bread <br>In cities built but yesterday. <br>About us stretches wealth of land, <br>A boundless wealth of virgin soil <br>As yet unfruitful and untilled! <br>Our willing workmen, strong and skilled, <br>Within our cities idle stand, <br>And cry aloud for leave to toil. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The stunted children come and go <br>In squalid lanes and alleys black: <br>We follow but the beaten track <br>Of other nations, and we grow <br>In wealth for some -- for many, woe. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And it may be that we who live <br>In this new land apart, beyond <br>The hard old world grown fierce and fond <br>And bound by precedent and bond, <br>May read the riddle right, and give <br>New hope to those who dimly see <br>That all things yet shall be for good, <br>And teach the world at length to be <br>One vast united brotherhood. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"> * * * * </div><div style="margin:10px 0">So may it be! and he who sings <br>In accents hopeful, clear, and strong, <br>The glories which that future brings <br>Shall sing, indeed, a wondrous song.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Andrew+Barton+Paterson">Andrew Barton Paterson</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=344061" data-title="Song of the Future de Andrew Barton Paterson" data-description="'Tis strange that in a land so strong 
So strong and bold in mighty youth, 
We have no poet's voice of truth 
To sing for us a wondrous song. 
Our chiefest singer yet has sung 
In wild, sweet notes a passing strain, 
All carelessly and sadly flung..."></div>
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