Articles

Our Own Flag.

A poem by A.B.(Banjo) Paterson. In it I see the demise of Colonialism and the stirring of a new Nationalism. Banjo Paterson was born in 1864 near Orange. He went to the Boer War as a correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald and the Melbourne Argus. He spent WW1 in France in the ambulance corps and on his return was a freelance writer in Sydney until his death in 1941. I don't know exactly when he wrote this poem.

They mustered us up with a royal din,

In wearisome weeks of drought.

Ere ever the half of the crops were in,

Or the half of the sheds cut out.

.......

'Twas down with saddle and spurs and whip;

The swagman dropped his swag.

And we hurried us off to an outbound ship

To fight for the English flag.

.......

The English flag --- it is ours in sooth

We stand by it wrong or right.

But deep in our hearts is the honest truth

We fought for the sake of a fight.

.......

And the English flag may flutter and wave

Where the World-wide Oceans toss,

But the flag the Australian dies to save

Is the flag of the Southern Cross.

.......

If ever they want us to stand the brunt

Of a hard-fought, grim campaign,

We will carry our own flag up to the front

When we go to the wars again.