THE EMPIRE OF THE SOUTH.

Otago Witness, Issue 2239, 28 January 1897, Page 45

THE EMPIRE OF THE SOUTH.

j There's a voice coming ovsr the mountains, a voice ? coming out of the Wetit— |- A voice to awaken the sleepers that lie in their ; deadly rest ; ' The sound of an army advancing, a noise of the ; tramping of feet, j Ho longer the thought of the dreamer or the I murmur that dies in the street:, j But tha Lands of the Mo: nibg awaking to stand in their atreaßth with their peers— r Tho-voice of a nation arising- an empire born of the years. { No longer tho patriot passion pent up in a corner j to rust ; No longer the union that may be, but the wide- I spreading empire' that must ; f No longer a rhyme of the saddle— the only true theme of our own — But s;ng of the millions arising— the Queeu of the Somh on her throne ; And the continent isle in her splendour, girt round by the lands of the sin. One people in triumph or Borrow, one people unitad and free. I O men of the eacalypt forest, Omen of the might; j grey plain, > Disunion is now a dishonour ; join hands with us j over the main ! O men of tho tropical rivers that roll in their I tropical calm, 0 men of the eMnel-nrossed denerts, O men of the ; reef and the palm, I From the wind-ruffled isles of tha Maori we call to you over the sea : "Join hands with us, let us be brothers — one people unite! and free." One flag— let it float on in triumph far over a peace-loving land, While we conquer the mine and the forest with the sword never drawn in our hand ; Lit the strife be with pen and with ballot till every foul alley be clean ; Down, down with the slave and the tyrant and away with the shams that have been I But if despots of class and of party would fetter the isles of the sea. Let her voice through tbo smoke and the thunder proclaim that the South will be free ! David M'Kee Wright. 1 Dunedin, January £0.