Song of the Republic

1887 'The Republican Riot' at Sydney Town Hall: Hundreds of republicans with forged tickets (arranged by republican activist John Norton) crashed a Queen Victoria Golden Jubilee meeting called by the Mayor of Sydney, AJ Riley following the debacle of June 3 [qv].

The event was a significant in the milestone of Australia's national poet. Henry Lawson, then just a week shy of his 20th birthday, was fired up on reading the Sydney Morning Herald reports of the riot and sent to Sydney's prominent Bulletin magazine a poem under pseudonym 'Youth'.

'The Hymn of the Socialists' was published on June 18, and in the 'Correspondence' column of July 23 was a note "'H.A.L.' Will publish your 'Sons of the South'. You have in you good grit". 'Sons of the South' is now known as 'Song of the Republic':

SONS of the South, awake! arise!
    Sons of the South, and do.
Banish from under your bonny skies
Those old-world errors and wrongs and lies.
Making a hell in a Paradise
    That belongs to your sons and you.

Sons of the South, make choice between
    (Sons of the South, choose true),
The Land of Morn and the Land of E’en,
The Old Dead Tree and the Young Tree Green,
The Land that belongs to the lord and the Queen,
  And the Land that belongs to you ...

Encouraged, Lawson sent in another revolutionary piece, 'The Distant Drum', which was not quite so well received. Later, not having seen another note from Bulletin editor JF Archibald in 'Correspondence', Henry went to Archibald's office where the editor encouraged the young poet, and Lawson's career had begun.