Sonnets of the Empire: Australia 1914

The Night is thick with storm and driving cloud,
Lurid at instants through the blackness break
Quick gleams of war across the perilous lake
From yonder isles that awe and magic shroud:
Far in the northland smite Thor’s hammers loud
On steel that warlocks for her spoilure make,
Till lo! from sleep Australia starts awake
And lifts the queenly head that sloth had bowed.

Not yet her eyes are clear: throughout her brain
Still swarm the antic creatures of her dream,
The idiot jests, the sports that kill the soul,
Yet shall not night lay hold on her again,
For through the rack she spies the morning gleam
Clear on the sword that lights her to her goal.