Give us welcome, not aversion,

Give us choice, not cold coercion,

Status, not discrimination,

Human rights, not segregation.

You the law, like Roman Pontius,

Make us proud, not colour-conscious;

Give the deal you still deny us,

Give goodwill, not bigot bias;

Give ambition, not prevention,

Confidence, not condescension;

Give incentive, not restriction,

Give us Christ, not crucifixion.

Though baptised and blessed and Bibled

We are still tabooed and libelled.

You devout Salvation-sellers,

Make us neighbours, not fringe-dwellers;

Make us mates, not poor relations,

Citizens, not serfs on stations.

Must we native Old Australians

In our land rank as aliens?

Banish bans and conquer caste,

Then we'll win our own at last.

Note: This poem was prepared and presented to the 5th Annual General Meeting of the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, held in Adelaide, Easter 1962.

Gifts

‘I will bring you love’, said the young lover,

‘A glad light to dance in your dark eye.

Pendants I will bring of the white bone,

And gay parrot feathers to deck your hair.’

But she only shook her head.

‘I will put a child in your arms,’ he said,

‘Will be a great headman, great rain-maker.

I will make remembered songs about you

That all the tribes in all the wandering camps

Will sing for ever.’

But she was not impressed.

‘I will bring you the still moonlight on the lagoon,

And steal for you the singing of all the birds;

I will bring down the stars of heaven to you,

And put the bright rainbow into your hand.’

‘No,’ she said, ‘bring me tree-grubs.’

Spinners

Racism:

Destroy it?

How?

The monster

lives

because

It was created

Strong

With white iron will.

Created

To control

Black.

White monster

Uncontrolled

Controls

The maker.

Soon the monster maker

Will die.

A black black monster

With black iron will

Will live

And become master.

Created for the purpose

Of spinning

Wheels

1. in wheels

   1. in wheels.

A Song of Hope

Look up, my people,

The dawn is breaking,

The world is waking

1. To a new bright day,

When none defame us,

No restriction tame us,

Nor colour shame us,

1. Nor sneer dismay.

Now brood no more

On the years behind you,

The hope assigned you

1. Shall the past replace,

When a juster justice

Grown wise and stronger

Points the bone no longer

1. At a darker race.

So long we waited

Bound and frustrated,

Till hate be hated

1. And caste deposed;

Now light shall guide us,

No goal denied us,

And all doors open

1. That long were closed.

See plain the promise,

Dark freedom-lover!

Night's nearly over,

1. And though long the climb,

New rights will greet us,

New mateship meet us,

And joy complete us

1. In our new Dream Time.

To our fathers’ fathers

1. The pain, the sorrow;

To our children's children

1. The glad tomorrow.

The Woor Woman

Bhoori the hunter left the hill,

For now the western sky was red,

And all the world grew sad and still.