Classic Poem

In Nineteen Fifteen times are old,
And times are deadly slow;
I feel as if I had been born
A thousand years ago.
And all the things are nothing now
Those million years have seen,
And all the men shall be as nought —
In a billion and fifteen.

You build and build as children build,
Admittedly in vain,
A tower of cards, or dominoes,
To topple down again.
No matter what the first may be,
In numbers or in rank.
The last card is a rotten card,
Last domino a blank.

You build your Empires one by one,
And deem the world your own;
And nothing lasts but papyrus,
And nothing lasts but stone.
And they last only till the new
Has swept away the old,
And Mankind's history is told,
To be again retold.

But, let the Empires live or rot,
The kingdoms rise and fall,
We have a world of work to do,
Who never lived at all.
Who never had a history
Must make and keep one clean,
If they would live Australian!
Yes, I'm your year Fifteen.