While The Billy BoilsSearchThey come not as an open foeTo loot the land with steel and fire,No barricades to dust they blow,No landmark make a lurid pyre.They bear no bannerette of war:No trumpet forth a challenge yellsFrom grim-built battleships to shore,They rain no hell-invented shells.But still they war and still they win;They claim, and get, the victor’s share.Swarthy of heart as well as skin,The Alien comes —Beware! Beware!
Along the street no shrapnel shrieks,No rifle spits its venomed lead;No hasty-dug entrenchment reeksWith piles of disembowelled dead.They bear no bayonet, lance or sword,They blare no brass, they roll no drum;When comes this irresistless hordeFrom out its Mediterranean slum.From where the stench of Lisbon’s dockPollutes the olive-scented air,From plague-infected AntiochThe Alien comes —Beware! Beware!
Along the Adriatic shoreWhere swarming, beggars whine and weepThe tramp-ship shudders as they pourInto her vitals dark and deep;From old Cadiz to Thessaly,From Montenegro down to Said,They swarm across the Indian SeaTo swell the beetle-browed brigade,To cheat the Briton of his crust:To take what he and his should share;To drag Australia to his dust.The Alien comes —Beware! Beware!
From Cairo to the Yellow Sea,The dusky pagan swells the flood,The Ghan, the Kurd, and AtchineeAre blending with Australia’s blood.Across a land once virgin-goodA trail of greed and lust he leaves,And o’er its virile nationhoodDegeneration’s spell he weaves,To tempt the fickle and the frailWith many a tawdry, tinselled snare,To buy where beauty is for saleThe Alien comes —Beware! Beware!
In hovels never cleansed nor aired,On which the Law indulgent looks,He serves you dainty meals preparedFrom filthy food by filthier cooks.He laundries what so’er you need,What he demands, you promptly pay,While women of a white man’s breedBarter their honor day by day.He sells you fruits of Mother EarthThat ripened in his loathsome lair,To blast the land that gave you birth.The Alien comes —Beware! Beware!
They come not as an open foeTo loot the land with steel and fire,No barricades to dust they blow,No landmark make a lurid pyre.They bear no bannerette of war:No trumpet forth a challenge yellsFrom grim-built battleship to shore,They rain no hell-invented shells;But still they war and still they win,They claim, and get, the victor’s share.Swarthy of heart as well as skin,The Alien comes —Beware! Beware!