Here you will find the Poem Australia's Vision of poet Roderic Quinn
ALL still! and, high above, the sun In cloudless, golden reign ? A mirage in the quivering west ? A horseman on the plain! Silent, with hand above his eyes, With thoughts undreamed, unguessed, Like some bronze shape immovable, He gazes down the west. High overhead an eagle soars On proud, wide-spreading wings; Crouching, they watch with stricken eyes ? The furred and feathered things. No song, no sound! but arching skies With not a cloud to mar; O horseman, gazing down the west, What seest thou afar? Is you a mirage dream, indeed, Heat-born, shape-thronged, sublime? Or but a mirror of the things That thou shalt know in time? What comes and goes in yonder haze? What moving things are these? Are they the masts of battleships, Or are they phantom trees? Speak thou, whose eyes are eagle-keen, Nor dimmed with old regrets; Are yonder shapes but spectral reeds, Or are they bayonets? Look well into the Vision's heart, O horseman on the plain! Trust nought except thine own true eyes ? For thine the loss or gain.
