Poem - William Charles Wentworth (1823)

Prediction Poetry

Australasia

By William Charles Wentworth

1823

And, oh Britannia! shouldst thou cease to ride,

Despotic Empress of old Ocean’s tide:-

Should thy tam’d Lion – spend his former might –

No longer roar the terror of the fight;-

Should e’er arrive that dark disastrous hour,

When bow’d by luxury, thou yield’st to power;-

When thou, no longer freest of the free

To some proud victor bend’st the vanquish’d knee;-

May all thy glories in another sphere

Relume, and shine more brightly still than here;

May this, thy last-born infant, - then arise,

And Australasia float, with flag unfurl’d.

A new Britannia in another world.