| Walter Murdoch (1874–1970). The Oxford Book of Australasian Verse. 1918. |
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| 83. True America’s Message |
| | | By Bernard O’Dowd |
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| OUR manlier spirits hear and will obey | |
| The Word YOU waft Australia o’er the sea— | |
| ‘Be true, be brave, be merciful, be free!’ | |
| Not you, who, braggart, sent this wan array | |
| Of hell-ships vomiting their Will-to-Slay, | 5 |
| These armoured Hates and pallid Envies we, | |
| ’Mid rattled mobs and flags hysteric, see | |
| Tarnish the chaste horizon of our Bay: | |
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| But YOU we hear, our Comrades of the Cause, | |
| Who face hyæna Mammon in his den: | 10 |
| And YOU, who dared your seas of blood to spill | |
| To drag the swooning slave from vampire jaws: | |
| Yea, YOU who freed unborn Australia, when | |
| You singed King George’s beard at Bunker’s Hill. | |
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