Conscription
It has to be, in storm, or calm, or breezes
That fan a land in indolence to sleep;
It has to be, where poverty or ease is,
And vice in hilltop homes or alleys deep.
It has to be, in real or fancied danger,
In fixed and sure, or false security —
Where Sport is God! 'tis patent to the stranger
Who's roamed the world and knows — It has to be!
It has to be while city weeds in dozens —
All thoughts of home and manliness forgot —
Stare at the sickly star that tempts and cozens,
And spit between the race-board and the pot:
In city bars, where fat-fed, narrow workers,
And sleek-dressed billet loafers, and the like,
Can talk — the moral cowards and the shirkers! —
Of nothing but the races or the strike!
It has to be, while lying politicians
Whose jobs are engineered and billets made
Drag statecraft down, to save their snug positions,
Much lower than the meanest lawyer's trade,
And honest institutions — while their founders
Turn in their honoured graves amongst the great —
Are used to advertise the blatant bounders
And criminals and fools who run the State!
It has to be! — while honest eyes grow dim in
The wasted West, where strive Australia's friends;
And politicians fool our cackling women
And lead them on — to serve their wretched ends.
While Gent. One rules, much meaner than a louse is,
And makes more laws to prey on misery.
And while the land is cursed by fourteen Houses
Of Parliament, Conscription has to be.
While each good cause — our own brave sick and wounded —
The widows and the orphans — C HRIST Himself —
Is pounced upon, and its first soldiers hounded,
For paltry self-advertisement or pelf;
While every scheme conceived to serve Australia
Is stolen from the hands that seem to win,
And " fathered " , spieled, and tinselled with regalia,
And staffed by cliques official and their kin.
It's got to be! While Greed drags to the city
A nation's health and strength and wealth and life
To grease the hogs who have no thought of pity
For nation, shop-slaves, husband, child or wife;
While plate-glass rag-shop windows spreading faster
The great importing craze that has no name,
Use murder, rape and misery and disaster
To advertise their " business " — and our shame.
It has to come, while Grand Hotels, my brothers,
Are palaces of " graft " and infamy;
And well-bred boys go faster than all others,
And well-bred girls go faster to the sea
Of ruined girlhood; and the cigaretted,
Straw-hatted " High School " youths (if nothing more)
Swill ginger-beer while mother-slaves are fretted
In genteel boarding-houses on " the Shore " .
Make men of weeds! Give muscle thought and feeling!
Reduce the Fat (and here and there make men)!
Give brains to brawn! The pregnant time is stealing
Close to our shores — Ah! you shall know it then!
Fear not the plunge! — If we can only strike it,
The track is clear to perfect nationhood.
And — you'll get used to discipline and like it,
For I was disciplined and found it good.
That fan a land in indolence to sleep;
It has to be, where poverty or ease is,
And vice in hilltop homes or alleys deep.
It has to be, in real or fancied danger,
In fixed and sure, or false security —
Where Sport is God! 'tis patent to the stranger
Who's roamed the world and knows — It has to be!
It has to be while city weeds in dozens —
All thoughts of home and manliness forgot —
Stare at the sickly star that tempts and cozens,
And spit between the race-board and the pot:
In city bars, where fat-fed, narrow workers,
And sleek-dressed billet loafers, and the like,
Can talk — the moral cowards and the shirkers! —
Of nothing but the races or the strike!
It has to be, while lying politicians
Whose jobs are engineered and billets made
Drag statecraft down, to save their snug positions,
Much lower than the meanest lawyer's trade,
And honest institutions — while their founders
Turn in their honoured graves amongst the great —
Are used to advertise the blatant bounders
And criminals and fools who run the State!
It has to be! — while honest eyes grow dim in
The wasted West, where strive Australia's friends;
And politicians fool our cackling women
And lead them on — to serve their wretched ends.
While Gent. One rules, much meaner than a louse is,
And makes more laws to prey on misery.
And while the land is cursed by fourteen Houses
Of Parliament, Conscription has to be.
While each good cause — our own brave sick and wounded —
The widows and the orphans — C HRIST Himself —
Is pounced upon, and its first soldiers hounded,
For paltry self-advertisement or pelf;
While every scheme conceived to serve Australia
Is stolen from the hands that seem to win,
And " fathered " , spieled, and tinselled with regalia,
And staffed by cliques official and their kin.
It's got to be! While Greed drags to the city
A nation's health and strength and wealth and life
To grease the hogs who have no thought of pity
For nation, shop-slaves, husband, child or wife;
While plate-glass rag-shop windows spreading faster
The great importing craze that has no name,
Use murder, rape and misery and disaster
To advertise their " business " — and our shame.
It has to come, while Grand Hotels, my brothers,
Are palaces of " graft " and infamy;
And well-bred boys go faster than all others,
And well-bred girls go faster to the sea
Of ruined girlhood; and the cigaretted,
Straw-hatted " High School " youths (if nothing more)
Swill ginger-beer while mother-slaves are fretted
In genteel boarding-houses on " the Shore " .
Make men of weeds! Give muscle thought and feeling!
Reduce the Fat (and here and there make men)!
Give brains to brawn! The pregnant time is stealing
Close to our shores — Ah! you shall know it then!
Fear not the plunge! — If we can only strike it,
The track is clear to perfect nationhood.
And — you'll get used to discipline and like it,
For I was disciplined and found it good.
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