Sydney Exhibition Cantata

Part I Chorus     Songs of morning, with your breath     Sing the darkness now to death;     Radiant river, beaming bay,     Fair as Summer, shine to-day;     Flying torrent, falling slope,     Wear the face as bright as Hope;     Wind and woodland, hill and sea,     Lift your voices sing for glee!     Greet the guests your fame has won     Put your brightest garments on. Recitative and Chorus     Lo, they come the lords unknown,     Sons of Peace, from every zone!     See above our waves unfurled     All the flags of all the world!     North and south and west and east     Gather in to grace our feast.     Shining nations! let them see     How like England we can be.     Mighty nations! let them view     Sons of generous sires in you. Solo Tenor     By the days that sound afar,     Sound, and shine like star by star;     By the grand old years aflame     With the fires of Englands fame     Heirs of those who fought for right     When the worlds wronged face was white     Meet these guests your fortune sends,     As your fathers met their friends;     Let the beauty of your race     Glow like morning in your face. Part II Solo Bass     Where now a radiant city stands,     The dark oak used to wave,     The elfin harp of lonely lands     Above the wild mans grave;     Through windless woods, one clear, sweet stream     (Sing soft and very low)     Stole like the river of a dream     A hundred years ago. Solo Alto     Upon the hills that blaze to-day     With splendid dome and spire,     The naked hunter tracked his prey,     And slumbered by his fire.     Within the sound of shipless seas     The wild rose used to blow     About the feet of royal trees,     A hundred years ago. Solo Soprano     Ah! haply on some mossy slope,     Against the shining springs,     In those old days the angel Hope     Sat down with folded wings;     Perhaps she touched in dreams sublime,     In glory and in glow,     The skirts of this resplendent time,     A hundred years ago. Part III Children     A gracious morning on the hills of wet     And wind and mist her glittering feet has set;     The life and heat of light have chased away     Australias dark, mysterious yesterday.     A great, glad glory now flows down and shines     On gold-green lands where waved funereal pines. Solo Soprano     And hence a fair dream goes before our gaze,     And lifts the skirts of the hereafter days,     And sees afar, as dreams alone can see,     The splendid marvel of the years to be. Part IV Basses and Chorus     Father, All-Bountiful, humbly we bend to Thee;     Heads are uncovered in sight of Thy face.     Here, in the flow of the psalms that ascend to Thee,     Teach us to live for the light of Thy grace.     Here, in the pause of the anthems of praise to Thee,     Master and Maker pre-eminent Friend     Teach us to look to Thee give all our days to Thee,     Now and for evermore, world without end!