THIS SOUTHERN LAND OF OURS by Charles Harpur

With alien hearts to frame our laws
   And cheat us as of old,
In vain our soil is rich, in vain
   'Tis seamed with virgin gold:
But the present only yields us nought,
   The future only lours
Till we dare to be a people
   In this Southern Land of Ours.


What would pygmean statesmen but
   Our new-world prospects blast,
By chaining native enterprise
   To Europe's pauper past,
With all its misery for the mass,
   And fraud-upholden powers;
But we'll yet have men, - like Cromwell,
   In this Southern Land of Ours.


And lo, the unploughed future, boys,
   May yet be all our own,
If hearts that love their Native Land
   Determine this alone:
To sow its years with crops of truth,
   And border these with flowers,
Till we have a birth of heroes
   In this Southern Land of Ours.