Stand up, my young Australian,
In the brave light of the sun,
And hear how Freedom's battle
Was in the old days lost - and won.
The blood burns in my veins, boy,
As it did in years of yore,
Remembering Eureka,
And the men of 'Fifty-four.

The old times were the grand times,
And to me the Past appears
As rich as seas at sunset,
With its many-coloured years;
And like a lonely island
Aglow in sunset light,
One day stands out in splendour -
The day of the Good Fight.

Where Ballarat the Golden
On her throne sits like a Queen,
Ten thousand tents were shining
In the brave days that have been.
There dwelt the stalwart diggers,
When our hearts with hope were high.
The stream of Life ran brimming
In that golden time gone by.

They came from many countries,
And far islands in the main,
And years shall pass and vanish
Ere their like are seen again.
Small chance was there for weaklings
With these man of iron core,
Who worked and played like Giants
In the year of 'Fifty-four.

The Tyrants of the Goldfields
Would not let us live in peace;
They harried us and chased us
With their horse and foot police.
Each man must show his licence
When they chose, by fits and starts:
They tried to break our spirits,
And they almost broke our hearts.

We wrote a Declaration
In the store of Shanahan,
Demanding Right and justice,
And we signed it, man by man,
And unto Charles Hotham,
Who was then the Lord of High,
We sent it; Charles Hotham
Sent a regiment in reply.

There comes a time to all men
When submission is a sin;
We made a bonfire brave, and
Flung our licences therein.
Our hearts with scorn and anger
Burned more fiercely than the flame,
Full well we knew our peril,
But we dared it all the same.

On Bakery Hill the Banner
Of the Southern Cross flew free;
Then up rose Peter Lalor,
And with lifted hand spake he: -
'We swear by God above us
While we live to work and fight
For Freedom and for justice,
For our Manhood and our Right.'

Then, on the bare earth kneeling,
As on a chapel-floor,
Beneath the sacred Banner,
One and all, that oath we swore;
And some of those who swore it
Were like straws upon a flood,
But there were men who swore it
And who sealed it with their blood.

We held a stern War Council,
For in bitter mood were we,
With Vern and Hayes and Humffray,
Brady, Ross, and Kennedy,
And fire-eyed Raffaello,
Who was brave as steel, though small
But gallant Peter Lalor
Was the leader of us all.

Pat Curtain we made captain
Of our Pikemen, soon enrolled,
And Ross, the tall Canadian,
Was our standard-bearer bold.
He came from where St Lawrence
Flows majestic to the main;
But the River of St Lawrence
He would never see again.

Then passed along the order
That a fortress should be made,
And soon, with planks and palings,
We constructed the Stockade.
We worked in teeth-set silence,
For we knew what was in store:
Sure never men defended
Such a feeble fort before.

All day the German blacksmith
At his forge wrought fierce and fast;
All day the gleaming pike-blades
At his side in piles were cast;
All day the diggers fitted
Blade to staff with stern goodwill,
Till all men, save the watchers,
Slept upon the fatal hill.

The night fell cold and dreary,
And the hours crawled slowly be.
Deep sleep was all around me,
But a sentinel was I.
And then the moon grew ghostly,
And I saw the grey dawn creep,
A wan and pallid phantom
O'er the Mount of Warrenheip.

When over the dark mountain
Rose the red rim of the sun,
Right sharply in the stillness
Rang our picket's warning gun.
And scarce had died the echo
Ere, of all our little host,
Each man had grasped his weapon,
And each man was at his post.

The foe came on in silence
Like an army of the dumb;
There was no blare of trumpet.
And there was no tap of drum.
But ever they came onward,
And I thought, with indrawn breath,
The Redcoats looked like Murder,
And the Blackcoats looked like Death.

Our gunners, in their gun-pits
That were near the palisade,
Fired fiercely, but the Redcoats
Fired as if upon parade.
Yet, in the front rank leading
On his men with blazing eyes,
The bullet of a digger
Struck down valiant Captain Wise.

Then 'Charge!' cried Captain Thomas,
And with bayonets fixed they came.
The palisade crashed inwards,
Like a wall devoured by flame.
I saw our gallant gunners,
Struggling vainly, backward reel
Before that surge of scarlet
All alive with stabbing steel.

There Edward Quinn of Cavan,
Samuel Green the Englishman,
And Haffele the German,
Perished, fighting in the van.
And with the William Quinlan
Fell while battling for the Right,
The first Australian Native
In the first Australian Fight.

But Robertson the Scotchman,
In his gripping Scottish way,
Caught by the throat a Redcoat,
And upon that Redcoat lay.
They beat the Scotchman's head in
Smiting hard with butt of gun,
And slew him - but the Redcoat
Died before the week was done.

These diggers fought like heroes
Charged to guard a kingdom's gate.
But vain was all their valour,
For they could not conquer Fate.
The Searchers for the Wounded
Found them lying side by side.
They lived good mates together,
And good mates together died.

Then Peter Lalor, gazing
On the fight with fiery glance,
His lion-voice uplifted,
Shouting, 'Pikemen, now advance!'
A bullet struck him, speaking,
And he fell as fall the dead:
The Fight had lost its leader,
And the Pikemen broke and fled.

The battle was not over,
For there stood upon the hill
A little band of diggers,
Fighting desperately still,
With pistol, pike, and hayfork,
Against bayonet and gun.
There was no madder combat
Ever seen beneath the sun.

Then Donaghey and Dimond,
And Pat Gittins fighting fell,
With Thaddeus Moore, and Reynolds:
And the muskets rang their knell.
And staring up at Heaven,
As if watching his soul's track,
Shot through his heart so merry,
Lay our jester 'Happy Jack'.

The sky grew black above us,
And the earth below was red,
And, oh, our eyes were burning
As we gazed upon our dead.
On came the troopers charging,
Valiant cut-throats of the Crown,
And wounded men and dying
Flung their useless weapons down.

The bitter fight was ended,
And, with cruel coward-lust,
They dragged our sacred Banner
Through the Stockade's bloody dust.
But, patient as the gods are,
Justice counts the years and waits -
That Banner now waves proudly
Over six Australian States.

I said, my young Australian,
That the fight was lost - and won -
But, oh, our hearts were heavy
At the setting of the sun.
Yet, ere the year was over,
Freedom rolled in like a flood:
They gave us all we asked for -
When we asked for it in blood.

God rest you, Peter Lalor!
For you were a whiteman whole;
A swordblade in the sunlight
Was your bright and gallant soul.
And God reward you kindly,
Father Smith, alive or dead:
'Twas you that give him shelter
When a price was on his head.

Within the Golden City
In the place of peace profound
The Heroes sleep. Tread softly:
'Tis Australia's Holy Ground.
And ever more Australia
Will keep green in her heart's core
The memory of Lalor
And the men of 'Fifty-four.

The Dream Of Margaret

It fell upon a summer night
The village folk were soundly sleeping,
Unconscious of the glamour white
In which the moon all things was steeping;
One window only showed a light;
Behind it, silent vigil keeping,
Sat Margaret, as one in trance—
The dark-eyed daughter of the Manse.
A flood of strange, sweet thoughts was surging
Her passionate heart and brain within.
At last, some secret impulse urging,
She laid aside her garment thin,
And from its snowy folds emerging,
Like Lamia from the serpent-skin,
She stood before her mirror bright
Naked, and lovely as the night.

Her dark hair o’er her shoulders flowing
Might well have been a silken pall
O’er Galatea’s image glowing
To life and love: she was withal—
The lamplight o’er her radiance throwing—
With her high bosom virginal,
A woman made to madden men,
A Cleopatra born again.

Hers was the beauty dark and splendid,
Whose spell upon the heart of man
Falls swiftly as, when day is ended,
Night falls in lands Australian.
Her rich, ripe, scarlet lips, bow-bended,
Smiled as such ripe lips only can;
Her eyes, wherein strange lightnings shone,
Were deeper than Oblivion.

With round, white arms, whose warm caress
No lover knew, raised towards the ceiling,
She looked like some young Pythoness
The secrets dark of Fate revealing,
Or goddess in divine distress
To higher powers for help appealing.
This invocation, standing so,
She sang in clear, sweet tones, but low:


Soul, from this narrow,
Mean life we know,
Speed as an arrow
From bended bow!
Seek, and discover,
On land or sea,
My destined lover,
Where’er he be.

How shalt thou know him,
My heart’s desire?—
His mien will show him,
His glance of fire.

High is his bearing,
His pride is high,
His spirit daring
Burns in his eye.

Birds have done mating;
The Spring is past;
My arms are waiting,
My heart beats fast.

“Oh, why,” she sighed, “has Fate awarded
This lot to me whose heart is bold?
My days by trifles are recorded,
My suitors men whose God is gold.
Oh for the Heroes helmed and sworded,
The lovers of the days of old,
Who broke for ladies many a lance
In gallant days of old Romance!

“Would I had lived in that great time when
A lady’s love was knight’s best boon;
When sword with sword made ringing rhyme, when
Mailed sea-kings fought from noon to moon,
And thought the slaughter grim no crime, when
The prize was golden-haired Gudrun.
Then I might find swords, broad and bright
And keen as theirs, for me to fight.

“But narrow bounds my life environ,
And hold my eager spirit in.
The men I see no heart of fire in
Their bodies bear. My love to win
A man must have a will of iron,
A soul of flame. Then sweet were sin
Or Death for him!” With ardent glance
Thus spake the daughter of the Manse.

Then, with a smile, she fell asleep in
Her white and dainty maiden bed.
The chaste, cold moon alone could peep in,
And view her tresses dark outspread
Upon an arm whose clasp might keep in
The life of one given up for dead:
And, as she drifted down the stream
Of Slumber deep, she dreamt a dream.

. . . . .
It was a banquet rich and rare,
The wine of France was foaming madly;
The proud and great of earth were there,
And all were slaves to serve her gladly,
And yet on them with haughty air
She gazed, half-scornfully, half-sadly;
The Lady of the Feast was she—
So ran her strange dream-fantasy.
A Prince was at her fair right hand,
And at her left a famous leader
Of hosts, with look of high command,
And—blacker than the tents of Kedar—
An Eastern King, barbaric, grand,
Sat near—their Queen they had decreed her.
Below the proud, the brave, the wise,
Sat charmed by her mesmeric eyes.

Then thus she spake: “O Lords of Earth!
Than you I know none nobler, braver;
And yet your fame, and rank, and birth,
And wealth in my sight find small favour,
For all too well I know their worth—
Long since for me they lost their savour.
The Spirit, fit to mate with mine,
Must be demoniac—or divine.

“A toast!” she cried. The gallant throng
Sprang up, their foaming glasses clinking.
“Satan! The Spirit proud and strong!
The bravest lover to my thinking!
The Wine of Life I’ve drunk too long:
The Wine of death I now am drinking!” . . .
“Our Queen she was a moment since—
Bear forth the body!” said the Prince.

. . . . .
A ghostly wind arose, all wet
With tears, and full of cries and wailing,
And wringing hands, and faces set
In bitter anguish unavailing;
It bore the soul of Margaret
To where a voice, in tones of railing,
Cried, “Spirit proud, thou hast done well!
Thou art within the Gates of Hell!”
The soul of Margaret passed slowly,
Yet bravely, through the Hall of Dread,
The roof whereof was hidden wholly
By black clouds hanging overhead.
No sound disturbed the melancholy
Deep silence—which itself seemed dead.
No wailing of the damned was heard,
No voice the fearful stillness stirred.

But that deep silence held in keeping
The secret of Eternal Woe—
That yet seemed like a serpent creeping
Around the walls. It was as though
The cries of pain and hopeless weeping
Had died out ages long ago.
No face was seen, no figure dread. . . .
Were all the damned and devils dead?

No lustre known on earth was gleaming
In that dread Hall, but some weird light
Around the pillars vast was streaming,
And down the vistas infinite;
A light like that men see in dreaming,
And, waking, shudder with affright.
Its glare a baleful splendour shed
For ever through the Hall of Dread.

Then suddenly she was aware
That from the walls, and all around her,
In motionless and burning stare,
Millions of eyes glowed, that spellbound her:
The everlasting dumb despair
That spoke from them made Pity founder;
And, as she passed along the floor,
She trod on burning millions more.

For floor and pillar, roof and all,
Were full of eyes, for ever burning—
’Twas these that lit the Dreadful Hall,
These were the damned beyond returning,
Sealed up in pillar, floor, and wall,
Without a tongue to voice their yearning,
Or grief, or hate, so God might know:
Their eyes alone could speak their woe.

Her way lit by the weird light flowing
From those sad, awful eyes, she passed
To where—her terror ever growing—
Upon a Throne, in fire set fast,
And like a Rose of fire far-glowing,
She saw a Figure, Veiled and Vast.
She trembled, for she knew full well
She stood before the Lord of Hell.

And then, an instant courage taking,
She knelt before the burning throne,
And, all her hopes of heaven forsaking,
She cried, “O Lord, make me thine own!
For men, though they be of God’s making,
I love not. Thee I love alone.”
The figure veiled spake thus: “Arise,
O Spirit proud—and most unwise!”

And as It spake, unveiling slowly,
A brow of awful beauty shone
On Margaret’s soul—yet Melancholy
And Woe Eternal sat thereon.
But, lo! the form was woman wholly.
A faint smile played her lips upon,
As in a voice low, sweet, and level
She said: “My dear, I am the Devil!”

With one wild wail of bitter scorning
The stricken soul of Margaret fled,
Sore harrowed by that dreadful warning;
And, shrieking, through the Hall of Dread
She passed . . . and woke . . . and it was morning,
And she was in her own white bed.