Tracked me by the camps I'd quitted, used the waterholes I'd hollowed.

They'll go back and do the talking. They'll be called the Pioneers!

They will find my sites of townships-not the cities that I set there.

They will rediscover rivers-not my rivers heard at night.

By my own old marks and bearings they will show me how to get there,

By the lonely cairns I builded they will guide my feet aright.

Have I named one single river? Have I claimed one single acre?

Have I kept one single nugget-(barring samples)? No, not I.

Because my price was paid me ten times over by my Maker.

But you wouldn't understand it. You go up and occupy.

Ores you'll find there; wood and cattle; water-transit sure and steady

(That should keep the railway rates down), coal and iron at your doors.

God took care to hide that country till He judged His people ready,

Then He chose me for His Whisper, and I've found it, and it's yours!

THE EXPLORER

Yes, your 'Never-never country'-yes, your 'edge of cultivation'

And 'no sense in going farther'-till I crossed the range to see.

God forgive me! No, I didn't. It's God's present to our nation.

Anybody might have found it but-His Whisper came to Me!

O

THE WAGE-SLAVES

(1902)

H glorious are the guarded heights
Where guardian souls abide-
Self-exiled from our gross delights-
Above, beyond, outside:

An ampler arc their spirit swings

Commands a juster view

We have their word for all these things,
Nor doubt their words are true.

Yet we the bondslaves of our day,
Whom dirt and danger press―
Co-heirs of insolence, delay,

And leagued unfaithfulness—
Such is our need must seek indeed
And, having found, engage
The men who merely do the work
For which they draw the wage.

From forge and farm and mine and bench,
Deck, altar, outpost lone-

Mill, school, battalion, counter, trench,
Rail, senate, sheepfold, throne-

THE WAGE-SLAVES

Creation's cry goes up on high
From age to cheated age:

'Send us the men who do the work
For which they draw the wage.'

Words cannot help nor wit achieve,
Nor e'en the all-gifted fool,
Too weak to enter, bide, or leave
The lists he cannot rule.

Beneath the sun we count on none
Our evil to assuage,

Except the men that do the work
For which they draw the wage.

When through the Gates of Stress and Strain Comes forth the vast Event

The simple, sheer, sufficing, sane

Result of labour spent

They that have wrought the end unthought

Be neither saint nor sage,

But merely men who did the work
For which they drew the wage.

Wherefore to these the Fates shall bend (And all old idle things-)

Wherefore on these shall Power attend

Beyond the grasp of kings.

Each in his place, by right, not grace,
Shall rule his heritage-

The men who simply do the work
For which they draw the wage.

Not such as scorn the loitering street,
Or waste to earn its praise,
Their noontide's unreturning heat
About their morning ways:

But such as dower each mortgaged hour
Alike with clean courage-

Even the men who do the work

For which they draw the wage

Men like to Gods that do the work
For which they draw the wage-
Begin-continue-close the work
For which they draw the wage!