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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=408935" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Star of Australasia</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">We boast no more of our bloodless flag, that rose from a nation's slime; <br>Better a shred of a deep-dyed rag from the storms of the olden time. <br>From grander clouds in our `peaceful skies' than ever were there before <br>I tell you the Star of the South shall rise -- in the lurid clouds of war. <br>It ever must be while blood is warm and the sons of men increase; <br>For ever the nations rose in storm, to rot in a deadly peace. <br>There comes a point that we will not yield, no matter if right or wrong, <br>And man will fight on the battle-field <br> while passion and pride are strong -- <br>So long as he will not kiss the rod, and his stubborn spirit sours, <br>And the scorn of Nature and curse of God are heavy on peace like ours. <br> <br> . . . . . <br> <br>There are boys out there by the western creeks, who hurry away from school <br>To climb the sides of the breezy peaks or dive in the shaded pool, <br>Who'll stick to their guns when the mountains quake <br> to the tread of a mighty war, <br>And fight for Right or a Grand Mistake as men never fought before; <br>When the peaks are scarred and the sea-walls crack <br> till the furthest hills vibrate, <br>And the world for a while goes rolling back in a storm of love and hate. <br> <br> . . . . . <br> <br>There are boys to-day in the city slum and the home of wealth and pride <br>Who'll have one home when the storm is come, and fight for it side by side, <br>Who'll hold the cliffs 'gainst the armoured hells <br> that batter a coastal town, <br>Or grimly die in a hail of shells when the walls come crashing down. <br>And many a pink-white baby girl, the queen of her home to-day, <br>Shall see the wings of the tempest whirl the mist of our dawn away -- <br>Shall live to shudder and stop her ears to the thud of the distant gun, <br>And know the sorrow that has no tears when a battle is lost and won, -- <br>As a mother or wife in the years to come, will kneel, wild-eyed and white, <br>And pray to God in her darkened home for the `men in the fort to-night'. <br> <br> . . . . . <br> <br>But, oh! if the cavalry charge again as they did when the world was wide, <br>'Twill be grand in the ranks of a thousand men <br> in that glorious race to ride <br>And strike for all that is true and strong, <br> for all that is grand and brave, <br>And all that ever shall be, so long as man has a soul to save. <br>He must lift the saddle, and close his `wings', and shut his angels out, <br>And steel his heart for the end of things, <br> who'd ride with a stockman scout, <br>When the race they ride on the battle track, and the waning distance hums, <br>And the shelled sky shrieks or the rifles crack <br> like stockwhip amongst the gums -- <br>And the `straight' is reached and the field is `gapped' <br> and the hoof-torn sward grows red <br>With the blood of those who are handicapped with iron and steel and lead; <br>And the gaps are filled, though unseen by eyes, <br> with the spirit and with the shades <br>Of the world-wide rebel dead who'll rise and rush with the Bush Brigades. <br> <br> . . . . . <br> <br>All creeds and trades will have soldiers there -- <br> give every class its due -- <br>And there'll be many a clerk to spare for the pride of the jackeroo. <br>They'll fight for honour and fight for love, and a few will fight for gold, <br>For the devil below and for God above, as our fathers fought of old; <br>And some half-blind with exultant tears, and some stiff-lipped, stern-eyed, <br>For the pride of a thousand after-years and the old eternal pride; <br>The soul of the world they will feel and see <br> in the chase and the grim retreat -- <br>They'll know the glory of victory -- and the grandeur of defeat. <br> <br>The South will wake to a mighty change ere a hundred years are done <br>With arsenals west of the mountain range and every spur its gun. <br>And many a rickety son of a gun, on the tides of the future tossed, <br>Will tell how battles were really won that History says were lost, <br>Will trace the field with his pipe, and shirk <br> the facts that are hard to explain, <br>As grey old mates of the diggings work the old ground over again -- <br>How `this was our centre, and this a redoubt, <br> and that was a scrub in the rear, <br>And this was the point where the guards held out, <br> and the enemy's lines were here.' <br> <br> . . . . . <br> <br>They'll tell the tales of the nights before <br> and the tales of the ship and fort <br>Till the sons of Australia take to war as their fathers took to sport, <br>Their breath come deep and their eyes grow bright <br> at the tales of our chivalry, <br>And every boy will want to fight, no matter what cause it be -- <br>When the children run to the doors and cry: <br> `Oh, mother, the troops are come!' <br>And every heart in the town leaps high at the first loud thud of the drum. <br>They'll know, apart from its mystic charm, what music is at last, <br>When, proud as a boy with a broken arm, the regiment marches past. <br>And the veriest wreck in the drink-fiend's clutch, <br> no matter how low or mean, <br>Will feel, when he hears the march, a touch <br> of the man that he might have been. <br>And fools, when the fiends of war are out and the city skies aflame, <br>Will have something better to talk about than an absent woman's shame, <br>Will have something nobler to do by far than jest at a friend's expense, <br>Or blacken a name in a public bar or over a backyard fence. <br>And this you learn from the libelled past, <br> though its methods were somewhat rude -- <br>A nation's born where the shells fall fast, or its lease of life renewed. <br>We in part atone for the ghoulish strife, <br> and the crimes of the peace we boast, <br>And the better part of a people's life in the storm comes uppermost. <br> <br>The self-same spirit that drives the man to the depths of drink and crime <br>Will do the deeds in the heroes' van that live till the end of time. <br>The living death in the lonely bush, the greed of the selfish town, <br>And even the creed of the outlawed push is chivalry -- upside down. <br>'Twill be while ever our blood is hot, while ever the world goes wrong, <br>The nations rise in a war, to rot in a peace that lasts too long. <br>And southern nation and southern state, aroused from their dream of ease, <br>Must sign in the Book of Eternal Fate their stormy histories.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Henry+Lawson">Henry Lawson</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=408935" data-title="The Star of Australasia de Henry Lawson" data-description="We boast no more of our bloodless flag, that rose from a nation's slime; 
Better a shred of a deep-dyed rag from the storms of the olden time. 
From grander clouds in our `peaceful skies' than ever were there before 
I tell you the Star of the Sou..."></div>
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