Page:The Secret Key and Other Verses - Evans.djvu/33

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

{

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The morning star hath been withdrawn,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!