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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=415694" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>A Son of the Soil</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Said the Preacher “All is Vanity!”—appending as a reason<br>That the things we find our pleasure in are bound to pass and pall;<br>But it seems to me that whatso'er endureth for a season<br>Isn't half as vain as whatso'er hath never been at all.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">When you find that what you've hitherto been wont to make a boast of<br>Must be numbered with the ejects that from muddled brains proceed—<br>When you find that in respect thereof there isn't ev'n a ghost of<br>Fact to back it up—ah, then, you may cry “Vanity,” indeed.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">From my tend'rest years I've plumed myself on being an Australian—<br>An Australian pure and simple, of the most authentic brand;<br>Scotchman, Englishman, and Irishman alike to me were alien;<br>I was sibber to King Billy through our common mother-land.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">To the pride of local genesis my being was surrendered,<br>The worthiest of immigrants I looked upon with scorn<br>As exotic interlopers under foreign skies engendered,<br>Though transplanted to my country fifty years ere I was born.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">What although they wove the fabric of Australia's starry banner<br>From the fibre of their being till the tissue was complete,—<br>'Twas for us, the young, to wave it in our own emphatic manner<br>In the face of all things ancient, European and effete!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">“Ours the fitter hand to hold the reins,” I sedulously boasted;<br>And whenever at the festal board occasion would allow,<br>“Australia for the Australians!” with a hip-hooray I toasted . . . .<br>And to-day I learn I'm no more an Australian than a Chow.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Would to heav'n I'd been content to play the “Native” single-handed,<br>Nor sought to be enrolled in that accursèd A.N.A., *<br>But the vain ambition seized me to be registered and branded<br>As an organised Australian—and I gave myself away.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Not long to crush my fondest pride the ruthless Council tarried;<br>Yester eve I made my overtures, the answer came at morn—<br>“Dear Sir, at last night's meeting 'twas unanimously carried<br>“That a person born at Battersea is not Australian-born.”<br>“At Battersea?” “At Battersea?”—Unwitting of objection<br>I had hardly even looked at my certificate of birth,<br>Which, now “Returned herewith,” brought dimly back to recollection<br>A tale of my nativity on t'other side the earth.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">How my mother (rest her soul) by wayward appetences fretted<br>Cried aloud for the Old Country and a breath of English air;<br> <br>How my father, ripe for holiday, her last caprice abetted. . . . .<br>And I, a mere expectancy, went them unaware.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And though the self-same year in shining dells of myrtle found me,<br>Where the wattle shed its perfume and the lories flashed their gems,<br>And the white acacia blossoms flaked the verdure allaround me—<br>I had been born in London, on the Surrey side of Thames.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oh, vanity of vanities, the birth I made a boast of!<br>Oh, unsubstantial eject of an inadvertent brain!<br>And the self-confounding sentiment I made so brave a toast of<br>Gr-r. I danced on my certificate—and even that was vain.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">* * * * *<br>I have slept upon the question. I have faced the problem squarely<br>At the favoured hour of wisdom when the darkness turns to grey.<br>I have reckoned up “nativity” impartially and fairly,<br>And I've come to the conclusion they are fools, the A.N.A.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">If begotten of and from the soil, what lack I to be native?<br>What matters where my skin first felt the chill of mundane airs,<br>If my origin was here, in this alluvium procreative<br>Whose substance reached me through two generations of forbears?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">That an accidental deviousness in time of incubation<br>Should make my whence irrelevant, and pin me to Whereat—<br>Do they really mean to play on me with calm deliberation<br>A pyramidal, orbicular absurdity like that!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But no matter. Let them hug their narrow canons of admission:<br>The A.N.A. are not the only natives in the land.<br>There is yet another outlet for my dominant ambition;<br>I will hie me to King Billy; he will take me by the hand.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">He will lead me to his tribe, on slight preliminary payment;<br>As a resurrected ancestor my status shall be fixed;<br>As a native of the natives I will rid me of my raiment;<br>I will rub me with goanna grease and charcoal intermixed.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I'll adorn my head with feathers, and to decorate my body<br>I will grave it o'er with diagrams, and fill the grooves with clay.<br>I will capture me a lubra by the suasion of a waddy—<br>And who'll be native, then, my high and mighty A.N.A.?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">* Australian Natives' Association.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=James+Brunton+Stephens">James Brunton Stephens</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=415694" data-title="A Son of the Soil de James Brunton Stephens" data-description="Said the Preacher “All is Vanity!”—appending as a reason
That the things we find our pleasure in are bound to pass and pall;
But it seems to me that whatso'er endureth for a season
Isn't half as vain as whatso'er hath never been at all.

Whe..."></div>
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