On the Turning of the Sod of the Port Angusta and Government Gums Railway.
A summons comes all to-day,
The aged and the youth ;
A call from our adopted land
Significant of truth.
For progress is truth's other name.
And with the right apace ;
Must equal to perfection grow,
To humanize the race.
Each step the individual takes,
Compels the human mind ;
Its own traditions to resign,
New purposes to find.
And every man who resting now,
An idler in the strife ;
Will lose the future's sure reward,
The gain of earnest life.
The turning of the sod to-day,
Is but the distant chime
Of our slow, yet certain, march along
The dial plate of time.
The labor of our earnest men
Shall be rewarded now ;
The struggle of the past must wave
The breath for every brow.
No trifling jealousies should rise
To mar our history's page ;
All alike shall equal share
The goodly heritage.
We'll spring at once to vital power,
And cast aside our youth ;
With graceful heart and manly hand,
Grasping the naked truth.
This truth then should be learned by all,
That each-may act his part ;
And a noble flame of sympathy
Illuminate each heart.
Within the smallest seed, the germ
Of mighty forest's dwells
Each atom in the Universe,
At last its history tells.
So from the sod we've turned to-day,
What wonders may arise ;
What widening fields of human thought,
What human enterprise.
All honor then, to him for whom
We hold the laurel prize ;
The future now that takes its form,
We see through Boucaut's eyes.
Along our southern line of coast,
The noblest Port of all ;
0ur Governor's prophetic words
To every Briton call.
I see the farmer on tlie plain
Breaking the wiling ground ;
The miner on the distant hills,
Where Moonta's will be found.
I see each trusty arm can turn
Intelligence into toil ;
And nature in her bounty yields
The corn, the wine and oil.
And, lo, for miles beyond the hills,
No longer sheep I view;
But waving fields the old has given
Its birth-right to the new.
The road whose sod we turn to-day,
Will reach an iron hand
To India, till the East becomes
United to our land.
The merchandise of other Ports,
Will seek our sunny shores ;
The produce of the tropics shall
Be laid beside our doors.
Ships from all climes will anchor here,
With snowy sails unfurled ;
Upon the waters of a Gulf,
The envy of the World !
God speed the day when right and truth,
May all our counsels rule ;
And capital and labor meet,
Within the village school.
When human toil and human thought
Will fill the present hour ;
And man's capacity alone,
Be measure of his power.
The railway and the telegraph
Will speed that coming day,
When all intolerance must yield
To truth, its rightful sway.
Then trade as free, as light shall turn
All labor into gold ;
And peace soft bound, all human life
Beneath her wings enfold,
W. M.
Port Augusta, January 18, 1878.
Notes
From the South Australian Newspaper The Port Augusta Dispatch 26 Jan 1878 p. 3.
An ode to a growing empire replete with all the self agrandising postures of the Victorian era of British Colonialism
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