The Secret Key and Other Verses/Ode for Commonwealth Day

by George Essex Evans

ODE FOR COMMONWEALTH DAY

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The morning star hath been withdrawn,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, 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, tear whom the strong have wrought,
 And poets sung with souls aflame,
Born of long hope and patient thought,
    A mighty name–
We pledge tbee faith that shall not swerve,
 Our Land, Our Lady, breathing high
The thought that makes it lore 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 sun-lit 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;

And the blithe Sun-maid, in whose veins
 For ever burns the tropic fire,
Whose cattle roam a thousand plains
 With opal and with pearl for tire;

And that sweet Harvester who twines
 The tender vine and binds the sheaf,
And the young Western Queen, who mines
    The desert reef,
And she, against whose flowery throne
 And orchards green the wave is hurled–
Australia claims them; They 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 Army 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–
 Here, where thy children's children stand
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 license 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!