Explore "The Free Selector" by Andrew Barton Paterson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
(A Song of 1861.)
Ye sons of industry, to you I belong, / And to you I would dedicate a verse or a song, / Rejoicing o'er the victory John Robertson has won / Now the Land Bill has passed and the good time has come / Now the Land Bill, &c.
No more with our swags through the bush need we roam / For to ask of another there to give us a home, / Now the land is unfettered and we may reside / In a home of our own by some clear waterside. / In a home of our own, &c.
On some fertile spot which we may call our own, / Where the rich verdure grows, we will build up a home. / There industry will flourish and content will smile, / While our children rejoicing will share in our toil. / While our children, &c.
We will plant our garden and sow our own field, / And eat from the fruits which industry will yield, / And be independent, what we long for have strived, / Though those that have ruled us the right long denied. / Though those that have ruled us, &c.