Possible Clues:

• Song verse
• There is an outstanding bit of poetry, by the sound of it
• Lines often repeated by stumped Aussie, caught out too
• Frost bit
• Verse has singular beat, variable at start of anthem
• Lines of poetry forming a pattern
• By the sound of it, not 17 across, a bit of poetry
• Fixed number of verse lines
• Lines initially stigmatising greater part of African state
• Laurel's spoken of, with a piece of poetry