POETRY.

LET US NOT BE BITTER

Away with bitterness, my own dark people

Come stand with me, look forward, not back,

For a new time has come for us.

Now we must change, my people. For so long

Time for us stood still; now we know

Life is change, life is progress,

Life is learning things, life is onward.

White men had to learn civilised ways,

Now it is our turn.

Away with bitterness and the bitter past;

Let us try to understand the white men's ways

And accept them as they accept us;

Let us judge the white people by the best of their race.

The prejudiced ones are less than we,

We want them no more than they want us.

Let us not be bitter, that is an empty thing,

A maggot in the mind.

The past is gone like our childhood days of old,

The future comes like dawn after the dark,

Bringing fulfilment.

BY Oodgeroo Noonuccal