Poem - George Essex Evans

Ode for Commonwealth Day

1st January, 1901

By George Essex Evans

Awake! Arise! The wings of dawn

Are beating at the gates of day,

The morning star hath been withdrawn,

The silver vapours melt away.

Rise royally, O sun, and crown

The shoreward billow, streaming white,

The forelands, and the mountains brown,

With crested light;

Flood with soft beams the valleys wide,

The mighty plains, the desert sand,

Till the New Day hath won for bride

This Austral land!

Free-born of nations, virgin white,

Not won by blood, nor ringed with steel.

Thy throne is on a loftier height,

Deep-rooted in the commonweal.

O thou, for whom the strong have wrought,

And poets sung with souls aflame,

Born of long hope and patient thought,

A mighty name—

We pledge thee faith that shall not swerve,

Our land, our lady, breathing high

The thought that makes it love to serve,

And life to die!

Now are thy maidens linked in love,

Who erst have striven for pride of place;

Lifted all meaner thoughts above

They greet thee, one in heart and race;

She, in whose sunlit coves of peace

The navies of the world may rest,

And bear her wealth of snowy fleece

Northward and west.

And she, whose corn and rock-hewn gold

Built that Queen City of the South,

Where the lone billow swept of old

Her harbour-mouth.

Come, too, thou Sun-maid, in whose veins

For ever burns the tropic fire

Whose cattle roam a thousand plains,

Come, with thy gold and pearls for tire;

And that sweet Harvester who twines

The tender vine and binds the sheaf;

And she, the Western Queen, who mines

The desert reef;

And thou, against whose flowery throne

And orchards green the wave is hurled;

Australia claims you; ye are one

Before the world.

Crown her—most worthy to be praised—

With eyes uplifted to the morn;

For, on this day, a flag is raised,

A triumph won, a nation born;

And ye, vast armies of the dead,

From mine and city, plain and sea,

Who fought and dared, who toiled and bled

That this might be,

Draw round us in this hour of fate—

This golden harvest of thy hand—

With unseen lips, O consecrate

And bless the land!

Eternal power, benign, supreme,

Who weigh'st the nations upon earth;

Without whose aid the empire-dream

And pride of states is nothing worth,

From shameless speech, and vengeful deed,

From licence veiled in Freedom's name,

From greed of gold, and scorn of creed,

Guard Thou our fame!

In stress of days that yet may be,

When hope shall rest upon the sword,

In welfare and adversity,

Be with us, Lord!