The Spirits for Good

Henry Lawson 1867 (Grenfell) – 1922 (Sydney)



We come with peace and reason,
We come with love and light,
To banish black self-treason
And everlasting night.

We know no god nor devil,
We neither drive nor lead—
We come to banish evil
In thought as well as deed.

And this our grandest mission,
And this our purest worth;
To banish superstition,
The blackest curse on earth.

We come to pass no sentence,
For ours is not the power—
The coward’s vain repentance
But wastes the waiting hour.

’Tis not for us to lengthen
The years of wasted lives;
We come to help and strengthen
The goodness that survives.

We promise nought hereafter,
We cannot conquer pain,
But work, and rest, and laughter,
Will soothe the tortured brain.

That which is lost, we cannot
Restore to any one—
But Truth and Right must triumph,
And Justice must be done!

We come in many guises;
But every one is plain
To each pure thought that rises
Again and yet again.

We are ourselves and human,
And ours our destiny;
The souls of Man and Woman
Divorced by Vanity.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

54 sec read
118

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABAB CXCX ADAD EFEF AXAX FGFG XAXA HGHX AIAI
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 963
Words 181
Stanzas 9
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4

Henry Lawson

Henry Lawson 17 June 1867 - 2 September 1922 was an Australian writer and poet Along with his contemporary Banjo Paterson Lawson is among the best-known Australian poets and fiction writers of the colonial period more…

All Henry Lawson poems | Henry Lawson Books

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