The King Of Our Republic
By Henry Lawson
He is coming! He is coming! without heralds, without cheers.
He is coming! He is coming! and hes been with us for years:
And, if you should pause to wonder whos the man of whom I sing,
Tis the King of our Republic, and the man we shall call King.
No, he comes not to amuse us, and he comes not to explain,
With the bathos of the old things over all the land again.
The debatable and tangled, and the vain imagining
Shall be swept out of our pathway by the man that well call King.
He is coming! He is coming! He has heard our spirit call;
Hell be greatest man since Cromwell in the English nations all,
And hell take his place amongst us while the rest are wondering,
Shall the King of our Republic, and the man we will call King.
If you find him stern, unyielding, where his living task is set,
I have told you that a tyrant shall uplift the nation yet;
He will place his countrys welfare over all and everything,
Shall the King of our Republic, and the man that well call King.
Yet his heart shall still be gentle with his brothers gone astray,
For the Great Man of Australia shall be simple in his day,
Modest, kindly, but unyielding, while the watching world shall ring
With the name of our Republic and the man that we call King.