WELL HAST THOU FOUGHT FOR OUR AUSTRALIAN FREEDOM - TO DR LANG

WELL HAST THOU FOUGHT FOR OUR AUSTRALIAN FREEDOM

To Doctor LANG

(Reverend Doctor John Dunmore LANG (25 August 1799 – 8 August 1878) was a turbulent Scottish-born Australian Presbyterian minister, writer, politician and activist. He was the first prominent advocate of an independent Australian nation.)

To Doctor LANG

- by Charles Harpur

Little, perhaps, thou valuest verse of mine—
Little hast read of what my hand has wrought,

Yet I with thy brave memory would entwine
The muse’s amaranths. For thou well hast fought

For freedom; well her sacred lessons taught;
Well baffled wrong; and delved with far design

Into those elements where treasures shine
Excelling those wherewith our hills are fraught.

And when thy glorious grey head shall make
One spot all-hallowed for the coming days—

Tombed in the golden land for whose sole sake
With labour thou hast furrowed all thy ways,—

Well a young nation shall thy worth appraise
Even through the grief which then shall o’er thee break

* * * Charles Harpur (1813-1868) was a native-born Australian poet, son of a transported convict who became a schoolteacher and his transportee wife.

PICTURE: Rev. John Dunmore LANG (25 Aug 1799 – 8 Aug 1878)