While The Billy BoilsSearchWhen you’ve done with your frivol and fooling,Your parlor diversions and games;When your stripling has come from his schooling,Swell-headed with figures and names.Before he’s enrolled ’neath the bannerOf calling, profession or trade,Before he’s been given his spanner,His typing machine or his spade;Before he grips trowel or levelOr handles a throttle-valve hot;Before he plays dice with the devilOr coaxes the red from the spot,Take him out where no city fumes stifle,Take him out as his country’s recruit;In his hand put a citizen’s rifleAnd — teach him to shoot!
Take him out in the paddock and lone-land,With never a mark for a guide;Teach his heart that to die for his own landIs a patriot’s herited pride.Set him up such a mark as a foeman,And teach him to centre hot lead,Guide his hand that this warrior yeomanShall help his brave heart with his head.For the Gun is the gospel to cling toWhen facing fanatical Shem,The Trench is the alter to spring to,The Bullet, your savior pro. tem.Till they’ve shot or evicted the vermin,Invaders, half-human, half-brute,Our sons can dispense with a sermon,But — teach them to shoot!
Wean them from gambles and guzzlesTo a post where each patriot should be,In the fort where the turreted muzzlesFrown out on the shuddering sea.Teach them to snipe and to slaughterThe ravishers swarming ashoreTo the mother, the sister, the daughter,And the wife who your sweet babies bore.Teach them to fight while retreating,As the bush-brumby springs to the spur,And the ambush gun belches a greetingWhere the range is a smoke-blotted blur.And so no invader shall revelBy your batteries useless and mute;When your youngster a rifle can level,Teach him to shoot!
Too long have we worshipped the jockey,And swarmed the arena of Horse,And watched the women play hockey,Lost stamina, lustre and force.Too long have we golfed at the bunker,While the enemy, vengeful and vain,Stares out from the land of the junker,With a hatred persistent and plain.We cheer the imported sky rocket,We holiday under the gums,While the foe with our plan in his pocketBeats war on invisible drums.And the heart of that armed hurly-burlyIs longing Australia to loot,So catch ye the Kangaroo early —And teach him to shoot!
Teach him to stand in the trenches,And bullet the rabble that comesWith savage and slaughtering stenches,Concealed in its chemical drums;Show them the sons of the Old Land,From Canada cold to the Cape,While the men from the wool and the gold landHave a destiny splendid to shape;Where our scrub-men their axes are swingingWhere the bullock-team tinkles its bells,The brothers of braves they are bringingWho died at the far Dardanelles.But whether they’re marching or mounted,Whether they’re saddle or boot,When the brawny out-backers are counted,Teach them to shoot!