O Radiant Land! o'er whom the Sun's first dawning
Fell brightest when God said " Let there be Light;"'
O'er whom the day hung out its bluest awning
Whitening to wondrous deeps of stars by night
O Land exultant! on whose brow reposes
A queenlier coronal than has been wrought
From light of pearls and bloom of Eastern roses
In all the workshops of high Poet-thought!
O thou who hast, thy splendid hair entwining,
A toil-won wreath where are no blood-splashed bays,
Who standest in a stainless vestment shining
Before the eyes and lips of love and praise
O wrought of old in Orient clime and sunny,
With all His richest bounties graced and decked;
Thy heart all virgin gold, thy breath all honey,
Supremest work of greatest Architect!
O Land of widest hope, of promise boundless,
Why wert thou hidden in a dark, strange sea
To wait through ages, fruitless, scentless, soundless,
Till from thy slumber men should waken thee?
Why did'st thou lie, with ear that never hearkened
The sounds without, the cries of strife and play,
Like some sweet child within a chamber darkened
Left sleeping far into a troubled day?
What opiate sealed thine eyes while all the others
Grew tired and faint in East and West and North ;
Why did'st thou dream until thy joyful brothers
Found where thou wast, and led thee smiling forth?
Why did'st thou mask the happy face thou wearest?
Why wert thou veiled from all the eager eyes?
Why left so long, O first of lands and fairest,
Beneath the tent of unconjectured skies?
We know thy secret. In the awful ages
When there was silence and the world was white,
Ere yet on the recording volume's pages
The stern-browed Angel had begun to write;
Ere yet from Eden the sad feet had wandered
Or yet was sin or any spilth of blood,
August in judgment, God the Father pondered
Upon His work, and saw that it was good
The Sovereign of suns and stars, the thunder
Of whose dread Power we cannot understand,
Sate throned and musing on the shining wonder
Of this new world within His hollowed hand,
With high sad eyes, like one that saw a vision
And spake "Lo! this My gift is fair to see,
But Pride will mar the glory, and derision
Of many feet that will not follow Me.
"I give my creatures shields of hope and warning;
I set in fruitful ways of peace their first;
But even these will turn from Me, and scorning
My council, hearken to the Voice Accurst;
And sin, and pain, and death will make invasion
Of this abode, and from a world undone
To Heaven will sound the moans of expiation
They wring from Him, My well-beloved Son.
"And yet again will they, with eyes unheeding
His sacrifice, uplift their guilty hands
Against their brethren, and with rage exceeding
And lust, and vengeance, desolate the lands.
But this one land," so mused He, the Creator,
"This will I bless and hide from all the woe,
That worthier among men, in ages later
May find it pure, and, haply, hold it so."
Then, sweet Australia, fell a benediction
Of sleep upon thee, where no wandering breath
Might come to tell thee of the loud affliction
Of cursing tongues and clamouring hosts of death;
And with the peace of His great lore around thee,
And rest that clashing ages could not break,
Strong-sighted eyes of English seekers found thee,
Strong English voices cried to thee "Awake!"
For them a continent undreamed of, peerless,
A realm for happier sons of theirs to be,
One land preserved unspotted, bloodless, tearless,
Beyond the rim of an enchanted sea
Lay folded in the soft compelling languor
Of warm south airs, like an awaiting bride,
While strife, and hate, and culminating anger
Raged through the far-off nations battle-dyed.
Here were no dreadful vestiges imprinted
With evil messages and brands of Cain,
No mounds of death or walls of refuge dinted
With signs that Christ had lived and died in rain;
No chill memorials here proclaimed the story
Of kingships stricken for and murders done;
Here was a marvel and a separate glory,
One land whose history had not begun!
One unsown garden, fenced by sea-crags sterile,
Whose iron breasts flung back the thundering waves,
From all the years of fierce unrest and peril,
And slaves, and lords, and broken blades, and graves;
One gracious freehold for the free, where only
Soft dusky feet fell, reaching not thy sleep;
One field inviolate, untroubled, lonely,
Across the dread of the uncharted deep!
O dear and fair! awakened from thy sleeping
So late! The world is breaking into noon;
The eyes that all the morn were dim with weeping
Smile through the tears that will cease dropping soon!
Thine have no tears in them for olden sorrow,
Thou hast no heartache for a ruined past;
From bright to-day to many a bright to-morrow
Shall be thy way, O first of lands and last!
