While The Billy BoilsSearch(Sydney)
A blanket low and leaden,Though rent across the west,Whose darkness seems to deadenThe brightest and the best;A sunset white and staringOn cloud-wrecks far away—And haggard house-walls glaringA farewell to the day.
A light on tower and steeple,Where sun no longer shines—My people, Oh my people!Rise up and read the signs!Low looms the nearer high-line(No sign of star or moon),The horseman on the skylineRode hard this afternoon!
(Is he—and who shall know it?—The spectre of a scout?The spirit of a poet,Whose truths were met with doubt?Who sought and who succeededIn marking danger’s track—Whose warnings were unheededTill all the sky was black?)
It is a shameful storyFor our young, generous home—Without the rise and gloryWe’d go as Greece and Rome.Without the sacrificesThat make a nation’s name,The elder nation’s vicesAnd luxuries we claim.
Grown vain without a conquest,And sure without a fort,And maddened in the one questFor pleasure or for sport.Self-blinded to our starknessWe’d fling the time awayTo fight, half-armed, in darknessWho should be armed to-day.
This song is for the city,The city in its pride—The coming time shall pityAnd shield the countryside.Shall we live in the presentTill fearful war-clouds loom,And till the sullen peasantShall leave us to our doom?
Cloud-fortresses titanicAlong the western sky—The tired, bowed mechanicAnd pallid clerk flit by.Lit by a light unhealthy—The ghastly after-glare—The veiled and goggled wealthyDrive fast—they know not where.
Night’s sullen spirit rouses,The darkening gables lourFrom ugly four-roomed housesVerandah’d windows glower;The last long day-stare dies onThe scrub-ridged western side,And round the near horizonThe spectral horsemen ride.