To the Sons of the Golden South (Stand up!),
And the life we live and know,
Let a fellow sing o’ the little things he cares
about,
If a fellow fights for the little things he cares
about
With the weight of a single blow!
To the smoke of a hundred coasters,
To the sheep on a thousand
hills,
To the sun that never blisters,
To the rain that never chills—
To the land of the waiting spring-time,
To our five-meal, meat-fed
men,
To the tall, deep-bosomed women,
And the children nine and
ten!
And the children nine and ten (Stand up!),
And the life we live and know,
Let a fellow sing o’ the little things he cares
about,
If a fellow fights for the little things he cares
about
With the weight of a two-fold blow!
To the far-flung fenceless prairie
Where the quick cloud-shadows
trail,
To our neighbour’s barn in the offing
And the line of the new-cut
rail;
To the plough in her league-long furrow
With the gray Lake gulls behind—
To the weight of a half-year’s winter
And the warm wet western wind!
To the home of the floods and thunder,
To her pale dry healing blue—
To the lift of the great Cape combers,
And the smell of the baked
Karroo.
To the growl of the sluicing stamp-head—
To the reef and the water-gold,
To the last and the largest Empire,
To the map that is half unrolled!
To our dear dark foster-mothers,
To the heathen songs they
sung—
To the heathen speech we babbled
Ere we came to the white man’s
tongue.
To the cool of our deep verandas—
To the blaze of our jewelled
main,
To the night, to the palms in the moonlight,
And the fire-fly in the cane!
To the hearth of our people’s people—
To her well-ploughed windy
sea,
To the hush of our dread high-altar
Where The Abbey makes us We;
To the grist of the slow-ground ages,
To the gain that is yours
and mine—
To the Bank of the Open Credit,
To the Power-house of the
Line!
We’ve drunk to the Queen—God
bless her!—
We’ve drunk to our mothers’
land;
We’ve drunk to our English brother
(And we hope he’ll understand).
We’ve drunk as much as we’re
able,
And the Cross swings low for
the morn;
Last toast—and your foot on
the table!—
A health to the Native-born!
A health to the Native-torn (Stand up!),
We’re six white men mow,
All bound to sing o’ the little things we care
about,
All bound to fight for the little things we care about
With the weight of a six-fold blow!
By the might of our cable-tow (Take hands!),
From the Orkneys to the Horn,
All round the world (and a little loop to pull it
by),
All round the world (and a little strap to buckle
it),
A health to the Native-born!