Prophecy?

SOMEONE sent us this poem, bj

Henry Lawson, Australia’s busr

poet. It is entitled “The Storm That Is To Come.” and it wa; written 40 YEARS AGO.

By our place in the midst of the farthest seas We are fated to stand alone— When the nations fly at each other’s throats, Let Australia look to her own.

Let her spend her gold on the barren West, For the land and its manhood’s sake, For the South must look to herself foi strength In the storm that is yet to break.

The rain comes down on the Western land, And the rivers run to waste; While the townsfolk rush for the special tram In their childish, senseless haste.

But never the pile of a lock we drive; But a few mean tanks we scratch— For the fate of a nation is noughl compared With the turn of a cricket match!

I have pictured long in the land I lov« What the land I love might be, Where the Darling rises from Queensland rains And floods rush out to the sea.

Will it be our fate to wake too late To the truth that we’ve been blind; With a foreign foe at our Harbour gate.

And blazing drought behind?