"The Ancient" is a poem by Australian poet Mary Gilmore. It was originally published in The Bulletin on 23 August 1917, and later in a number of Australian poetry anthologies.
The poem is also known by the title "Old Botany Bay", as it was reprinted in the author's 1918 collection The Passionate Heart.
Contents
Critical analysis
In his volume A History of Australian Literature, H. M. Green listed the poem as one of "a number of poems that paved the way for the modern revival of interest in...the convicts who...helped blaze the track for us".
Further publications
Freedom on the Wallaby : Poems of the Australian People edited by Marjorie Pizer, Pinchgut Press, 1953
The Penguin Book of Australian Verse edited by John Thompson, Kenneth Slessor and R. G. Howarth, Penguin Books, 1958
Favourite Australian Poems edited by Ian Mudie, Rigby, 1963
From the Ballads to Brennan edited by T. Inglis Moore, Angus & Robertson, 1964
Mary Gilmore : A Tribute edited by Barrie Ovenden, Dymphna Cusack, and T. Inglis Moore, Australasian Book Society, 1965
Songs for All Seasons : 100 Poems for Young People edited by Rosemary Dobson, Angus and Robertson, 1967
Silence Into Song : An Anthology of Australian Verse edited by Clifford O'Brien, Rigby, 1968
Australian Kaleidoscope edited by Barbara Ker Wilson, Collins, 1968
The Penguin Book of Australian Verse edited by Harry Heseltine, Penguin Books, 1972
Australia Fair : Poems and Paintings edited by Douglas Stewart, Ure Smith, 1974
Cross-Country : A Book of Australian Verse edited by John Barnes and Brian MacFarlane, Heinemann, 1984
The Illustrated Treasury of Australian Verse edited by Beatrice Davis, Nelson, 1984
My Country : Australian Poetry and Short Stories, Two Hundred Years edited by Leonie Kramer, Lansdowne, 1985
The Oxford Anthology of Australian Literature edited by Leonie Kramer and Adrian Mitchell, Oxford University Press, 1985
Anthology of Australian Religious Poetry edited by Les Murray, Collins Dove, 1986
The Penguin Book of Australian Women Poets edited by Susan Hampton and Kate Llewellyn, Penguin, 1986
The Arnold Anthology of Post-Colonial Literatures in English edited by John Thieme, Arnold, 1996
The Turning Wave : Poems and Songs of Irish Australia edited by Colleen Burke and Vincent Woods, Kardoorair Press, 2001
Hell and After : Four Early English-language Poets of Australia edited by Les Murray, Carcanet, 2005
Harbour City Poems : Sydney in Verse, 1788-2008 edited by Martin Langford, Puncher and Wattmann, 2009
Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature edited by Nicholas Jose, Kerryn Goldsworthy, Anita Heiss, David McCooey, Peter Minter, Nicole Moore, and Elizabeth Webby, Allen and Unwin, 2009
Antipodes : Poetic Responses edited by Margaret Bradstock, Phoenix Education, 2011
The poem was also translated into Esperanto.