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.