We sent a word across the seas that said,
"The house is finished and the doors are wide, Come, enter in.
A stately house it is, with tables spread, Where men in liberty and love abideWith hearts akin.
"Behold, how high our hands have lifted it! The soil it stands upon is pure and sweetAs are our skies.
Our title-deeds in holy sweat are writ,
Not red, accusing blood; and "neath our feet No foeman lies. "And England, Mother England, leans her face Upon her hand, and feels her blood burn youngAt what she sees:
The image here of that fair strength and graceThat made her feared and loved and sought and sung Through centuries.
Roderio Quinn
Author.-Roderio Joseph Quinn, a living Australian poet, was born at Sydney in 1869. Most of his poems were contributed to The Bulletin andThe Worker, but collections have been published under the titles of The Hidden Tide, The Circling Hearths, and collected poems.
General.-Here is part of a noble poem on Australian Federation. Notice the leading thought in each stanza, the message to England, the brief deion of the House, the effect on the mother country. Examine them carefully and see how the finer part of Australia is exalted above the baser. Have we or can we have a stately house where men in liberty and love abide with hearts akin? ls it true that it has been built by holy toil, and not by conquest? Is it true that what has been best in the history of Britain lives renewed in this southern land? If so, what are our duties as citizens ?
