Quote#Love
All that we love in olden lands and lore
Quote byBernard O'Dowd · 1866–1953
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: "The Bush", in The Oxford Book of Australasian Verse (1918), p. 136.
English (original)
All that we love in olden lands and lore Was signal of her coming long ago! Bacon foresaw her, Campanella, More, And Plato’s eyes were with her star aglow!
— Bernard O'Dowd
More from Bernard O'Dowd
Ah, Love, the earth is woe’s And sadly helpers needs: And, till its burden goes, Our work is—where it bleeds.
When, comrades, we thrill to the message of speaker in highway or hall, The voice of the poet is reaching the silenter poet in all: And again, as of old, when the flames are to leap up the turrets of Wrong, Shall the torch of the New …
And our reward? In this wan land, In clientage of Greed, Despised, polluted, maimed and banned, To wander and—to breed.
They teach and live the Golden Rule Of Young Democracy:—‘That culture, joy and goodliness Be th’ equal right of all: That Greed no more shall those oppress Who by the wayside fall:‘That each shall share what all men sow: That colour, …
Are you for Light, and trimmed, with oil in place, Or but a Will o’ Wisp on marshy quest? A new demesne for Mammon to infest? Or lurks millennial ’neath your face?
This is a rune I ravelled in the still, Arrogant stare of an Australian cow.