Your wife and your friends may desert you
And call you a — — Rat,
And all the wide world may reproach you;
But your Country will never do that.

You might lose all your faith in what's human
And hate for the present and past.
You may damn it all: Land, Man, and Woman;
But you'll fight for your country at last!

Be honest, kindly, simple, true;
Seek good in all, scorn but pretence;
Whatever sorrow come to you,
Believe in Life's Beneficence!

The World's all right; serene I sit,
And cease to puzzle over it.
There's much that's mighty strange, no doubt;
But Nature knows what she's about;
And in a million years or so
We'll know more than to-day we know.
Old Evolution's under way —
What ho! the World's all right, I say.

Could things be other than they are?
All's in its place, from mote to star.
The thistledown that flits and flies

It's mighty lonesome-like and drear.
Above the Wild the moon rides high,
And shows up sharp and needle-clear
The emptiness of earth and sky;
No happy homes with love a-glow;
No Santa Claus to make believe:
Just snow and snow, and then more snow;
It's Christmas Eve, it's Christmas Eve.

And here am I where all things end,
And Undesirables are hurled;
A poor old man without a friend,
Forgot and dead to all the world;
Clean out of sight and out of mind …
Well, maybe it is better so;
We all in life our level find,

Sun, with a million eyes: spyer of every window toward the east.
Sun, that scorches our faces.
Sun: light and fire …

The flame you jet begets life:
All has risen from sun-fire …

I too was sun-fire …

The sun is in me: I jet him forth into a new generation: into speech, love, labor.

The sun rises and sets, and then arises again.
I rise and set, and my child rises again.

Thy fires in a woman and in a man draw one to the other:
In thy radiance we behold each other,

I hony make to be the sweet applause.
Of many men, which due desert doth cause;
Hony is sweet, and breedeth great delight
Naturally, unto the appetite.

Me hony then, right noble Sir, that's nu ,
Of due applause is rendred unto you,
Having your due deserts, which doth nu crave,
Vertue most rightly its deserts might have:
Nu hony then select, the world you gave.

Bill Bullock came to Sydney, and the Jews got holt of him,
So he went and bought a " cady " that had wire round the brim —
He'd a pocket full of money and a big heart free from care —
And he bought a pair of " side-springs " like his father used to wear.

Bob-tailed coat, biled rag, no collar, and he never wore a vest:
He was somewhat out of fashion when he reckoned he was dressed.
To complete the tout ongsemble, for his sainted mother's sake,
He had bought a pair of trousers like his Granny used to make.

When Kattegat now or the Belt you sail,
No more will you sight
The Danish proud frigate, no more will you hail
The red and white;
No more will the ringing command be heard
In Wessel's tongue,
No rollicking music, no jocund word,
'Neath Dannebrog sung.
No dance will you see, no laughter meet,
As the white sails shine,
From mast and from stern no garland you greet,
Of arts the sign.
But all that we owned of the treasures on board
The deeps now hold;
One sad winter night to the sea-waves were poured
Our memories old.

Ah, had I the wings now,
Wings of the mounting condor to clear the clouds,
Clear the heavy clouds and soar to the day-dying sun,
To the sun, beyond these streets,
To the sun, beyond this lash of the winter rains ...

But the day lags, binding me:
The day lags and my pent-up heart beats at its bars,
At its prison-bars beats, captive and dark.
Ah, had I the fire now, had I the joy now, had I the wings now
To clear the clouds of my rain-swept soul,
And soar in the heavens, sun-bathed.

The clover was in blossom, an' the year was at the June,
When Flap-jack Billy hit the town, likewise O'Flynn's saloon.
The frost was on the fodder an' the wind was growin' keen,
When Billy got to seein' snakes in Sullivan's shebeen.

Then in meandered Deep-hole Dan, once comrade of the cup:
" Oh Billy, for the love of Mike, why don't ye sober up?
I've got the gorgus recipay, 'tis smooth an' slick as silk —
Jest quit yer strangle-holt on hooch, an' irrigate with milk.
Lackteeal flooid is the lubrication you require;

The day is but a breezy dream,
The sky is like a bloom;
Life flows, a fragrant, bubbling stream,
Alone a lilied flume.

The wandering butterfly is lost
In films of mystery,
From supple flower to flower is tossed
The worried bumblebee.

On high some idle spirit sings,
Half sleeping, as it flies,
Dropping from its charmid wings
The dews of Paradise.

The pines are dozing, and the sea
Is murmuring in its sleep;
All round the sky rim drowsily
Some shadowy wonders creep.

The mosses drop their curtains low,