Eric Bogle - Something Of Value Lyrics
"SOMETHING OF VALUE"-Eric BogleI can see the Southern Cross tonightWhile here below, bathed in it's lightThe Dreamtime land safe, snug and tight is sleepingWrapped in complacency and contentednessNo discordant sounds disturb our restWhile the gentle souls we've dispossesed are weepingWe took it all by the gun and the swordBy the right of our race and in the name of our GodThough as outcasts ourselves, transported, condemnedNone knew better than we the injustice of menWe took it all in our hunger and needEnslaved by our past and consumed by our greedAnd left them to beg for the scraps at our doorWhile we called them drunkards and wasters and whoresThey've been drowning, drowning in their tearsfor the last two hundread yearsFrom England's New Jerusalemto the Dreamtime land the tall ships camewith human cattle in convict chains to bind themIn the grim fight just to stay aliveDreams must struggle to surviveFew could see the glitt'ring prize before themWe had it all in the palm of our handA new hope, a new dream, a new life, a new landOne last chance to break from the chains of the pastTo build something of value, build something to lastThis ancient land was a vast empty pageWaiting for the great writers of a brand new ageThe future was ours to protect or profaneA paradise lost, a paradise gainedNow tell me, is paradise here,after two hundred years?So now, beneath the Southern Crossit's time to tally up the costof what we've gained and what we've lost foreverThough much has gone we can't replaceThose of us who love this placeTogether now, must turn and face the futureSo here's to us all, we're frail humankindwho wander through life mostly helpless and blindTo our courage and cowardice, our humor and painOur hundred steps forward, ninety-nine back againYes here's to us all, the wise and the foolsThe indifferent, the caring, the kind and the cruelAs we march to the beat of an uncertain drumStumbling towards what we may yet becomeTowards the brave new frontiers,of the next two hundred years
