WHAT have we all forgotten, at the break of the seventh year? <br />With a nation born to the ages and a Bad Time borne on its bier! <br />Public robbing, and lying that death cannot erase— <br />“Private” strife and deception—Cover the bad dead face! <br />Drinking, gambling and madness—Cover and bear it away— <br />But what have we all forgotten at the dawn of the seventh day? <br /> <br />These are the years of plenty—years when the “tanks” are full— <br />Stacked by the lonely sidings mountains of wheat and wool. <br />Country crowds to the city, healthy, shaven and dressed, <br />Clothes to wear with the gayest, money to spend with the best. <br />Grand are the lights of the cities, carnival kings in power— <br />But what have we all forgotten, in this, the eleventh hour? <br /> <br />“We” have brought the states together, a land to the lands new born. <br />We have worked in the glorious weather, we have garnered and reaped and shorn. <br />We have come from the grass-waves flowing under Heaven’s electric lamps <br />(Making of sordid cities, boyish and jovial camps). <br />“We” have cleansed the cities and townships: we rest and frolic and gain, <br />But what have we all forgotten? Did we send the peace and the rain? <br /> <br />What have we all forgotten, here in our glorious home? <br />(I the greater the sinner because I was greater than some.) <br />What have we all forgotten so widely from east to west? <br />(I—and the most ungrateful because I was doubly blessed.) <br />Sinners to self and to country! and saviours though misunderstood! <br />Let us all kneel for one moment and thank the Great Spirits for Good.<br /><br />Henry Lawson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/what-have-we-all-forgotten/
