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And the Bairns Will Come
So you’ve seen at last what we have seen so long through scalding tears:
You have found what we—the People—we have known for twenty years:
And Australia’s hymn is swelling till the furthest fence-wires hum—
Save your country, Legislators—and the bairns will come.
You would put the blame upon us—we are women, we are men;
And our fathers and our mothers gave the country nine and ten.
They had honest work and wages, and the ways to win a home—
Give us half the chances they had—and the bairns will come.
Try the ranks of wealth and fashion, ask the rich and well-to-do,
With their nurseries and their nurses and their children one and two,
Will they help us bear the burden?—but their purse-proud lips are dumb.
Let us earn a decent living—and the bairns will come.
Young men, helpless in the city’s wheel of greed that never stops,
Tramp the streets for work while sweethearts slave in factories and shops.
Shall they marry and bear children to their parents’ martyrdom?
Make the city what it should be—and the bairns will come.
Shall we give you sons and daughters to a life of never-rest,
Sacrificing all for nothing in the desert of the West,
To be driven to the city’s squalid suburb and the slum?
Make the city what it should be—and the bairns will come.
Don’t you hear Australia calling for her children unconceived?
Don’t you hear them calling to her while her heart is very grieved?
Give the best land to the farmers, make the barren West a home,
Save the rainfall, lock the rivers—and the bairns will come.
poem by Henry Lawson
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It is na mair pitty to see a Woman greit, nor to see a Goose go barefoot.
Old English Lullaby
Hush, bonnie, dinna greit;
Moder will rocke her sweete,-
Balow, my boy!
When that his toile ben done,
Daddie will come anone,-
Hush thee, my lyttel one;
Balow, my boy!
Gin thou dost sleepe, perchaunce
Fayries will come to daunce,-
Balow, my boy!
Oft hath thy moder seene
Moonlight and mirkland queene
Daunce on thy slumbering een,-
Balow, my boy!
Then droned a bomblebee
Saftly this songe to thee:
'Balow, my boy!'
And a wee heather bell,
Pluckt from a fayry dell,
Chimed thee this rune hersell:
'Balow, my boy!'
Soe, bonnie, dinna greit;
Moder doth rock her sweete,-
Balow, my boy!
Give mee thy lyttel hand,
Moder will hold it and
Lead thee to balow land,-
Balow, my boy!
poem by Eugene Field
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Universe Child
Universe Child
Mothers womb, out I dropp out
Cold and shivering, is the earth
I’m a free soul
Grown amidst bearded elders
Dreams like sun make day
Time like sand has passed by
Make bearded, I can’t play
All like a day, a moment.
Dreams not like stars in a night.
I pinch my skin
I have grey hair, ecclesiastical
Universe child, bearded.
poem by Charles Jagongo Ogola
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How the Revolution Started
The bearded amoeba
Quietly smoked his pipe.
The servant came in
And said:
The crocodile is ready
But the president cannot make today
The apple pie.
The bearded amoeba
Quietly smoked his pipe.
Yes, the dentist is in Venice
To make the root canal,
The servant said.
The crocodile was looking
At the sky.
Then suddenly
An angry cat
Began to puff and pant.
An orchestra was playing
In a distant café.
The bearded amoeba
Quietly smoked his pipe.
It is time to start the revolution
Mao said,
Rising from a chair.
A portrait of Lenin
Began to shine
On the wall.
poem by Paul Hartal
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Women and bairns keep counsell of that they ken not.
It is a' tint that is done to auld folk and bairns.
Bairns speak i' the field what they hear i' the ha'.