Homes made brighter and purer, hearts more glad and elate;
Woman, co-equal with Man, sharing the duties of State;
Sees Humanity, Justice, and Love going hand in hand–
Progress and Peace and Plenty blessing this beauteous land!
IV.
Over a world-wide Empire he casts his sweeping glance;
Argosies, commerce-laden, on the ocean’s broad expanse
Sees, as they speed on errands of love, goodwill, and peace,
Bearing joy to the nations and wasteful War’s surcease;
Sees one free flag waving o’er all the Pacific Isles,
Canada grand in her strength, Australia wreathed in smiles,
Africa cleansed and purged of the alien helot strain–
Our race, pure, glad, triumphant, through all the proud domain.
These lands have heard him and heeded; his words were as pregnant seed,
And the golden grain is an Empire united in thought and deed.
Why, then, should women weep or the hearts of men be sad?
The fruit of his life’s long travail he sees, and his soul is glad.
V.
Sleep, tired Worker, and, sleeping, see
Those glorious visions teeming–
See, in the days of the Yet to Be,
The world more glad and men more free,
Brotherhood reigning from sea to sea
And the Banners of Progress streaming!
Sweet be your rest on that windy hill,
While all that we wish for and work for still–
The final triumph of Good o’er Ill–
You see in your peaceful dreaming![1]
- ↑ From the New Zealand Times.
