Wide lies Australia! The seas that surround her <br />Flow for her unity – all states in one. <br />Never has Custom nor Tyranny bound her – <br />Never was conquest so peacefully won. <br />Fair lies Australia! with all things within her <br />Meet for a Nation, the greatest to be: <br />Free to the White Man to woo and to win her: <br />Those who'd be happy and those who'd be free. <br /> <br />Free to live fully and free to live cleanly, <br />Free to give learning to daughter and son; <br />Free to act nobly but not to act meanly, <br />Free to forget what the old lands had done. <br />Free to be Brothers! Our hymn and our sermon <br />To keep for the White World the balance of Power, <br />Welcoming all, be they British or German, <br />All come to help us – we'll wait for the hour. <br /> <br />Out in the West where the flood-water gathers – <br />Out in the drought on the sand desert lone – <br />Went the brave English and brave foreign fathers <br />Fearlessly facing the fearful unknown. <br />Gemmed with their names lies the great past behind us. <br />Dark lie the storm clouds before us today, <br />Let us so live the future shall find us <br />Facing the danger as dauntless as they.<br /><br />Henry Lawson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/wide-lies-australia/
