Song of the Wheat
We have sung the song of the droving days,
Of the march of the travelling sheep --
How by silent stages and lonely ways
Thin, white battalions creep.
But the man who now by the land would thrive
Must his spurs to a ploughshare beat;
And the bush bard, changing his tune, may strive
To sing the song if the Wheat!
It's west by south of the Great Divide
The grim grey plains run out,
Where the old flock-masters lived and died
In a ceaseless fight with drought.
Weary with waiting and hope deferred
They were ready to own defeat,
Till at last they heard the master-word --
And the master-word was Wheat.
Yarran and Myall and Box and Pine --
'Twas axe and fire for all;
They scarce could tarry to blaze the line
Or wait for the trees to fall
Ere the team was yoked, and the gates flung wide,
And the dust of the horses' feet
Rose up like a pillar of smoke to guide
The wonderful march of Wheat.
Furrow by furrow, and fold by fold,
The soil is turned on the plain;
Better than silver and better than gold
Is the surface-mine of the grain.
Better than cattle and better than sheep
In the fight with drought and heat;
For a streak of stubbornness, wide and deep,
Lies hid in a grain of Wheat.
When the stock is swept by the hand of fate,
Deep down on his bed of clay
The brave brown Wheat will die and wait
For the resurrection day --
Lie hid while the whole world thinks him dead;
But the Spring-rain, soft and sweet,
Will over the steaming paddocks spread
The first green flush of the Wheat.
Green and amber and gold it grows
When the sun sinks late in the West;
And the breeze sweeps over the rippling rows
Where the quail and the skylark nest.
Mountain or river or shining star,
There's never a sight can beat --
Away to the sky-line stretching far --
A sea of the ripening Wheat.
When the burning harvest sun sinks low,
And shadows stretch on the plain,
The roaring strippers come and go
Like ships on a sea of grain.
Till the lurching, groaning waggons bear
Their tale of the load complete.
Of the world's great work he has done his share
Who has garnered a crop of wheat.
Princes, Potentates, Kings and Czars,
They travel in regal state,
But old King Wheat has a thousand cars
For his trip to the water-gate;
And his thousand steamships breast the tide
And plough through the wind and sleet
To the lands where the teeming millions bide
That say: "Thank God for the Wheat!"
This work is in the public domain in Australia because it was created in Australia and the term of copyright has expired. According to Australian Copyright Council - Duration of Copyright, the following works are public domain:
- published non-government works whose author died before January 1, 1955,
- anonymous or pseudonymous works and photographs published before January 1, 1955, and
- government works published more than 50 years ago (before January 1, 1974).
This work is also in the public domain in the United States because it was first published outside the United States (and not published in the U.S. within 30 days), and it was first published before 1989 without complying with U.S. copyright formalities (renewal and/or copyright notice) and it was in the public domain in Australia on the URAA date (January 1, 1996). This is the combined effect of Australia having joined the Berne Convention in 1928, and of 17 USC 104A with its critical date of January 1, 1996.
Because the Australian copyright term in 1996 was 50 years, the critical date for copyright in the United States under the URAA is January 1, 1946.
This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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