The words of Dorothea Mackellar's poem-song seemed apt.
"Her beauty and her terror," sang the choir of Canberra's Kingsford-Smith School in the Great Hall of Parliament House.
They had come to parliament on Thursday to perform at the start of a "ping pong diplomacy" event - the Bennelong Cup.
But the angelic singing came at a hellish time, a gunman having killed a soldier guarding an Ottawa war memorial before storming into Canada's halls of parliament.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott had just addressed reporters, telling them the incident 16,000km away confirmed "the threat to free countries and free institutions is very real indeed".
However, he assured Australians their own parliament building was ready and able to respond to any hostile acts.
"We will do everything we humanly can to keep our country and its people safe," he said.
Mr Abbott then swiftly left the public area of Parliament House accompanied by security guards and entered the Great Hall to welcome teams from Japan, Korea and China taking on Australian players in what he dubbed the Davis Cup of table tennis.
While it was an "uncertain and difficult world", he told the gathered ambassadors and other dignitaries, it must remain the "people's house".
As the Great Hall echoed to the sound of rapid-fire forehands and backhands, the uncertain world at least for a moment became a world unified by a love of sport and a pride in each others' sunburnt countries.
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