The Night is thick with storm and driving cloud, <br />Lurid at instants through the blackness break <br />Quick gleams of war across the perilous lake <br />From yonder isles that awe and magic shroud: <br />Far in the northland smite Thor’s hammers loud <br />On steel that warlocks for her spoilure make, <br />Till lo! from sleep Australia starts awake <br />And lifts the queenly head that sloth had bowed. <br /> <br />Not yet her eyes are clear: throughout her brain <br />Still swarm the antic creatures of her dream, <br />The idiot jests, the sports that kill the soul, <br />Yet shall not night lay hold on her again, <br />For through the rack she spies the morning gleam <br />Clear on the sword that lights her to her goal.<br /><br />Archibald Thomas Strong<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sonnets-of-the-empire-australia-1914/
