156 MATESHIP WITH BIRDS 



across the rolling miles of the Darling Downs, pro- 

 claimed, with an expressive wave of the hand, his 

 joy in the couleur of the country. "I understand," 

 he said this soldier with the heart of a boy and 

 the soul of an artist "why your soldiers are so 

 merry. I understand the Spirit of Australia!" 



The Spirit of Australia! Hear E. S. Emerson, who 

 more than all others, has put Australian birds into 

 rhyme; analyse it in both Anzac man and bird: , 



Yet I've often thought, when resting, how this fighting spirit 

 flashed 



Into mastership within one fleeting year; 

 And I've wondered, as my comrades into war-old vet'rans 

 dashed, 



How it was they never showed a sign of fear. 

 But the riddle is no riddle as my thoughts the distance span, 



And in memory the mountain-track I take, 

 For I've seen a nesting Magpie swoop undaunted on a man; 



I have watched the 'Burra kill a tiger snake. 



The poet has seen, too, evidence of the pluck of 

 the Wagtail, the Pee-wee, the Swan, and many 

 another native bird, and he concludes : 



That's the spirt of Australia. Never mind how great the odds; 



Never mind how long and bitter is the strife 

 To the death the bush-birds wage it; and, by all the living gods, 



That's the spirit that our menace brought to life 



Oh, my native land, down under, with your sunshine and your 

 song, 



With the soul of all your bushlands for a throne, 

 Though our heritage was freedom, and our fathers bred us 

 strong, 



You have crowned us with a glory all your own. 



Is there, one wonders, any particular reason why 

 our black and white perching birds, above all 

 others, are a mixture of music and fight? On the 



