While The Billy BoilsSearch(Here and there, a little apart from the laughing crowd that surged in the traffic-ways of Melbourne streets during Fleet Week, little groups of Aborigines in gaudy second-hand apparel, stood and watched the illuminations.)
’Mid her radiant raiment of laughter and light,Of her splendour the pity,You are drifting like ghosts of the carnival nightOf the beautiful city.
As a wan wind of March when the forest is stirredWith Autumnal foretoken,You pass, and the lights and the laughter are blurredWith a sorrow unspoken.
Sere Autumn leaves whirled on the eddying streamOf the conquering races,Sad elves from a wistful, wild glamour of Dream,O faces, brown faces!
High over the mirth and the merriment, harkO’er the gay saturnaliaThe cry of a spirit that moans in the dark —“Australia, Australia!”
The croon of a mother fast clutched by despairThat shall never know healing,A Hagar’s lament for the child that she bareThro’ the music is stealing.
But deep in the dark of your slumbering eyesBurn no Sibylline traces,Where the lost Alcheringa fire smoulders and dies,O faces, brown faces!
Deaf, deaf are your ears to the passion and painOf a grief unavailing,Dumb syllables set to the sobbing refrainOf swans sunward sailing.
Wild children, sad children, deep whelmed by the roarOf the tide that effaces,You shall pass and your forest shall know you no more,Brown faces! Brown faces!
’Mid her radiant raiment of laughter and light,Of her splendour the pity,You are drifting like ghosts of the carnival nightOf the beautiful city.