By Charles Harpur

With clowns to make our laws, and knaves
To rule us as of old,
In vain our soil is rich, in vain
'Tis seamed with virgin gold!
But the present only yields us nought,
The future only lours,
Till we have a braver Manhood
In this Southern Land of Ours.

What would pygmean statesmen but
Our new-world prospects blast,
By chaining Enterprise and Thought
To the misyielding past;
With all its misery for the mass,
And fraud upholden powers:
But we'll have a braver system
In this Southern Land of ours!

And lo, the unploughed Future, boys!
May yet be all our own,
If hearts that love their Native Soil
Determine, (this alone,)
To sow its years for crops of truth,
And border them with flowers,
Till we have a nobler Manhood
In this Southern Land of ours.