A Protest.
14
Sing your own songs, Oh! aliens,
Portray your native scenes,
But let Australia's children
Tell what Australia means.
Portray your native scenes,
But let Australia's children
Tell what Australia means.
Dumb Mouths.
Think ye, that if the living crystal tide
That leaps against the shore could only guess
By what foul sewers it shall be mortified,
How filled with death, and every loathsomeness,
And could the tinted weeds that swing below
The laughing bubbles at the bay's blue mouth
Foresee the sickly, slimy things they grow
When drawn to perish in the ebb-tide's drought,
Could any life retain its vital force
If it but knew the thing it shall become?
Could the bold future step upon her course
Were not the past so mercifully dumb?
That leaps against the shore could only guess
By what foul sewers it shall be mortified,
How filled with death, and every loathsomeness,
And could the tinted weeds that swing below
The laughing bubbles at the bay's blue mouth
Foresee the sickly, slimy things they grow
When drawn to perish in the ebb-tide's drought,
Could any life retain its vital force
If it but knew the thing it shall become?
Could the bold future step upon her course
Were not the past so mercifully dumb?
Aha! the wisdom of the hooded eyes,
Aha! the force that drives so blindly on.
Here's to the silent mouth that utters lies,
Here's to the dark that never says it shone!
Aha! the force that drives so blindly on.
Here's to the silent mouth that utters lies,
Here's to the dark that never says it shone!
