Important People

The success of the Scout movement throughout the whole world has been amply proven by the present triumphant gathering in Melbourne. Great and important people, these Important far beyond our ken Who mark with adult sophistries Their serious air of sober men, Their fancy garb, their solemn fuss, With code and law, their tender age. Soon shall they count for more than us Stale actors on an outworn stage. They are, say we, mere children drawn By make-believe from many lands; Yet soon, at some swift morrow's dawn Earth's destiny top these small hands Must pass; and, should their creed prevail, As well it may for all earth's good, They shall have triumphed where we fail, In peace and long-sought brotherhood. Here rests a new world's shining hope, And we, a mad world's residue, Doomed lately in dark ways to grope, May yet, thro' them, find dreams come true Dreams that our blunted senses sought To grasp in one exalted hour, And lost - the good for which men fought Brought into everlasting flower. Important people? Who are we To greet with patronising smiles Their creed of regained chivalry We who are cheated by crude wiles Of greed and folly, and became Flotsam, forlorn and tempest-tossed? . . . . More precious far their childish game Than wisdom in our chaos lost.