Tomorrow shall your vote decide
Your land's humility or pride.
And for long years that mark may be
The arbiter of history.
Mayhap no day in all your life
Holds graver choice 'twixt peace and strife,
No action, of design or chance,
Be fraught with more significance.
Not thro' unwise experiment
And days in mad class-warfare spent
Has any nation of the earth
Won aught of true and lasting worth.
Then set your faith, not in the man
Who by some mystic wizard's plan
Would conjure wealth from nothingness
And money from a printing press.
But glean your wisdom from the years
Whose tale of human hopes and fears
Bears witness no magician's art
Won profit yet by field or mart.
Truth, humor and integrity
These ever shall and yet shall be
The touchstones in which men's sound sense
Shall place the final confidence.
First published in The Herald, 18 December 1931
Author reference sites: C.J. Dennis, Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library
See also.
