I hear the drums of war a-beating 

Upon these Southern shores, 

A sound this country once knew well 

And shall know again once more. 

Ushered in by Providence 

Or captured by Fate 

The drums of war are banging 

At the sliprails, at the gate.  

At the heated shimmering streets 

At the minds of those awake 

At the doors of those who sleep 

At the sliprails, at the gate. 

And Lawson’s lonely shore  

changes ever on. 

And Macquarie’s vision stirs, then sleeps, 

Sleeps on and on and on. 

And Gordon’s reckless sporting world  

Is here to laugh no more. 

For now our states are bound 

By seas of bureaucratic law. 

And I listen to the drumming 

In the wide, red distance thrumming 

While sunny spring and Christmas  

And a lawnmower faintly buzzing 

Wrest me from so foreboding a vision. 

And I see the future  

As through dirty windows brimming: 

Hark! beyond the dirt and grime 

This dream of ours is singing.  

And all the greats are there  

Namatjira, Banjo too. 

And the common folk that made us, 

The noble little they did do.  

But dirt and grime they blur 

The future that is bright 

Before the day awakes must come 

The dark and awful night. 

And a silence that is thunder  

Is empty through and through, 

Is fraught with giving up and giving out 

Awful loneliness too. 

But a silence that is stirring 

Is breaking through the clash  

And leading willing hearts home 

To Nature, God and rest.  

And I hear, between the sunny breezes 

Of this southern afternoon, 

The crying strains of a  

Travelling, lone black cockatoo. 

He is crying, crying, crying  

Giving reckless warning haste, 

And he is hoping, hoping, hoping  

Peace this nation will embrace. 

And you and I will listen, 

While this regaling shore, 

Shall beat, shall ring, shall sound again 

With the tremendous noise of war.