The Lean, Brown Man

There's a big, brown man in the hinterland
Whom the nation had forgot;
He's a stolid man and a patient man
And he does not talk a lot:
And the seasons frown or the seasons smile
As he toils to sow, to reap;
And as he toils he thinks the while;
And his thoughts are long and deep.

There's a silent man in the hinterland
A land of earth-stained clowns
To the little street-bred people cooped
In the noisy seaboard towns
In the towns where many a catch-cry's raised
And devious scheme devised,
Where the talkers reign, and thoughts, like men,
Grow smug and standardised.

There's a quite man in the hinterland
Who scorns the shifts and tricks
Of the little men that talk and scheme
In the game of politics.
They have wooed him long with sly pretence
Thro' many a season past.
He was deemed a fool, and he suffered much;
But his patience ends at last.

There's a patient man in the hinterland
Who has scant time for words,
For the sounding phrase and the cries they raise
To sway the thoughtless herds.
Long has he toiled, this patient man
That the folk be fed and housed
But guile shall know no sterner foe
Than the patient man aroused.