Last Stanzas of the Bush



WHERE is Australia, singer, do you know?   
 These sordid farms and joyless factories,   
Mephitic mines and lanes of pallid woe?   
 Those ugly towns and cities such as these   
With incense sick to all unworthy power,           
And all old sin in full malignant flower?   
No! to her bourn her children still are faring:   
 She is a temple that we are to build:   
For her the ages have been long preparing:   
 She is a prophecy to be fulfilled!           
  
All that we love in olden lands and lore   
 Was signal of her coming long ago!   
Bacon foresaw her, Campanella, More,   
 And Plato’s eyes were with her star aglow!   
Who toiled for Truth, whate’er their countries were,           
Who fought for Liberty, they yearned for her!   
No corsair’s gathering ground, nor tryst for schemers,   
 No chapman Carthage to a huckster Tyre,   
She is the Eldorado of old dreamers,   
 The Sleeping Beauty of the world’s desire.           
  
She is the scroll on which we are to write   
 Mythologies our own and epics new:   
She is the port of our propitious flight   
 From Ur idolatrous and Pharaoh’s crew.   
She is our own, unstained, if worthy we,           
By dream, or god, or star we would not see:   
Her crystal beams all but the eagle dazzle.   
 Her wind-wide ways none but the strong-winged sail:   
She is Eutopia, she is Hy-Brasil,   
 The watchers on the tower of morning hail!           
  
Yet she shall be as we, the Potter, mould:   
 Altar or tomb, as we aspire, despair:   
What wine we bring shall she, the chalice, hold:   
 What word we write shall she, the script, declare:   
Bandage our eyes, she shall be Memphis, Spain:           
Barter our souls, she shall be Tyre again:   
And if we pour on her the red oblation,   
 All o’er the world shall Asshur’s buzzards throng:   
Love-lit, her Chaos shall become Creation:   
 And dewed with dream, her silence flower in song.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:33 min read
112

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABABCCXDXD EAEACCBXXC FGFGHHIJIJ KLKLXXAMXM
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 1,890
Words 312
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 10, 10, 10, 10

Bernard O'Dowd

Bernard Patrick O'Dowd was an Australian activist, educator, poet, journalist, and author of several law books and poetry books. O'Dowd worked as an assistant-librarian and later Chief Parliamentary Draughtsman in the Supreme Court at Melbourne for 48 years; he was also a co-publisher and writer for the radical paper Tocsin. Bernard O'Dowd lived to age 87. more…

All Bernard O'Dowd poems | Bernard O'Dowd Books

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