William Wentworth

And Australasia float, with flag unfurl'd,
A new Britannia in another world!

William Charles Wentworth (August 1790 – 20 March 1872) was an Australian statesman, author, explorer, lawyer, newspaper editor and pastoralist, who became one of the wealthiest and most powerful figures in colonial New South Wales. He was among the first colonists to articulate a nascent Australian identity.

Quotes

• Proud Queen of isles! Thou sittest vast, alone,
  A host of vassals bending round thy throne:
  Like some fair swan that skims the silver tide,
  Her silken cygnets strew'd on every side,
  So floatest thou, thy Polynesian brood
  Dispers'd around thee on thy Ocean flood,
  While ev'ry surge that doth thy bosom lave,
  Salutes thee "Empress of the Southern Wave."
• And, oh Britannia! should'st thou cease to ride
  Despotic Empress of old Ocean's tide;—
  Should thy tam'd Lion—spent his former might—
  No longer roar, the terror of the fight:—
  Should e'er arrive that dark, disastrous hour,
  When, bow'd by luxury, thou yield'st to pow'r;
  When thou, no longer freest of the free,
  To some proud victor bend'st the vanquish'd knee;—
  May all thy glories in another sphere
  Relume, and shine more brightly still than here;
  May this—thy last-born Infant—then arise,
  To glad thy heart, and greet thy Parent eyes;
  And Australasia float, with flag unfurl'd,
  A new Britannia in another world!
  • "Australasia", in G. B. Barton (ed.) The Poets and Prose Writers of New South Wales (Sydney: Gibbs, Shallard, & Co, 1866) pp. 19–29. See also: Notes and Queries (28 February 1885) p. 170