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Old Jim Shore

He prospered in an olden day
When down the rutted waggon track,
Thro' scenes that seem a world away,
His bullocks lumbered forth and back;
A tall old man, deep voiced, erect
Despite the load of years he bore,
His patriarchal beard, grey flecked,
He won from all men deep respect,
Doyen of drivers - old Jim Shore.

'Gee-off, Headman. Come here, Tony.
Darkey, Redman! Woo there, Roany.'
Goad upraised in stern pretending
Writhed aloft, yet ne'er descending
To fulfilment of the threat.
Men have said that never yet
Had Jim's whip-lash marked a hide
Of the sleek beasts that were his pride.
'Get on, Rodney! Steady, Moonlight!'
Thro' the disk or dappled moonlight,
Down the deep green ways of yore
Went the team of old Jim Shore.

The times have changed; it could not last,
The glamor of those halcyon days.
The loud exhaust, the siren's blast
Wake echoes now by old bush ways.
Yet oft, when dusk steals down the sky,
I sit again by my house door
To hear a ghostly team go by,
And, mingling with the night wind's sigh,
That rich deep voice of old Jim Shore.

'Gee-off, Headman. Stand up, Tony.
Darkey, Redman! Come here Roany!'
At the yoke I see them straining;
Waggon timbers are complaining;
As, from some vague spirit land,
I see the driver wave a hand,
As long ago he used to wave
Ere the years claimed him, and the grave.
'Up there , Major! Darby! Drummer!'
Again, as on some long lost summer,
The team drifts by and disappears
Down the green aisles of vanished years.

poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Old Town Types No.1 - The Old Town

Fierce on the wheat-sown Mallee plain
The ruthless summer suns burned down,
And dust-storms, heralding the rain,
Swept thro' the street and on again
While tradesfolk cursed in the old white town.
Of sand and line-stone stoutly built,
She'd lived to prosper and to wilt,
Because, as all wiseacres knew,
'They went and brought the railway thro'.'

Deep-voiced, bewhiskered townsfolk these,
Remnant of pioneering days,
Full of high tales and memories
Of wild, rough work and wilder sprees,
When coach and teamster went their ways;
When men pushed out to newer land
And cash came easy to the hand
And went: The golden days men knew
'Before that put that railway thro'.'

Yet even in those days of stress -
Or seeming stress - the old town knew
Nothing of wnat or wretchedness;
For wealth was there and work to bless
All men who sought them work to do.
To me, a child in those far years,
Now as a time-dimmed dream appears
The olden life that once I knew
After the railway wandered thro'.

Like myths in some long-fabled tale -
Figures and scenes to conjure with
They seem. Yet 'spite the deepening veil,
Their memories grow never stales;
Big George, the lumper; Toll, the smith;
Long John, the snob - long have they slept
While suns burned down and dustorm swept
Across the Mallee plains they knew
Before men brought the railway thro'.

poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Haunted Beach

Upon a lonely desart Beach
Where the white foam was scatter'd,
A little shed uprear'd its head
Though lofty Barks were shatter'd.
The Sea-weeds gath'ring near the door,
A sombre path display'd;
And, all around, the deaf'ning roar,
Re-echo'd on the chalky shore,
By the green billows made.

Above, a jutting cliff was seen
Where Sea Birds hover'd, craving;
And all around, the craggs were bound
With weeds--for ever waving.
And here and there, a cavern wide
Its shad'wy jaws display'd;
And near the sands, at ebb of tide,
A shiver'd mast was seen to ride
Where the green billows stray'd.

And often, while the moaning wind
Stole o'er the Summer Ocean;
The moonlight scene, was all serene,
The waters scarce in motion:
Then, while the smoothly slanting sand
The tall cliff wrapp'd in shade,
The Fisherman beheld a band
Of Spectres, gliding hand in hand--
Where the green billows play'd.

And pale their faces were, as snow,
And sullenly they wander'd:
And to the skies with hollow eyes
They look'd as though they ponder'd.
And sometimes, from their hammock shroud,
They dismal howlings made,
And while the blast blew strong and loud
The clear moon mark'd the ghastly croud,
Where the green billows play'd!

And then, above the haunted hut
The Curlews screaming hover'd;
And the low door with furious roar
The frothy breakers cover'd.
For, in the Fisherman's lone shed
A MURDER'D MAN was laid,
With ten wide gashes in his head
And deep was made his sandy bed
Where the green billows play'd.

A Shipwreck'd Mariner was he,
Doom'd from his home to sever;
Who swore to be thro' wind and sea
Firm and undaunted ever!
And when the wave resistless roll'd,
About his arm he made
A packet rich of Spanish gold,
And, like a British sailor, bold,
Plung'd, where the billows play'd!

The Spectre band, his messmates brave
Sunk in the yawning ocean,
While to the mast he lash'd him fast
And brav'd the storm's commotion.
The winter moon, upon the sand
A silv'ry carpet made,
And mark'd the Sailor reach the land,
And mark'd his murd'rer wash his hand
Where the green billows play'd.

And since that hour the Fisherman
Has toil'd and toil'd in vain!
For all the night, the moony light
Gleams on the specter'd main!
And when the skies are veil'd in gloom,
The Murd'rer's liquid way
Bounds o'er the deeply yawning tomb,
And flashing fires the sands illume,
Where the green billows play!

Full thirty years his task has been,
Day after day more weary;
For Heav'n design'd, his guilty mind
Should dwell on prospects dreary.
Bound by a strong and mystic chain,
He has not pow'r to stray;
But, destin'd mis'ry to sustain,
He wastes, in Solitude and Pain--
A loathsome life away.

poem by Mary Darby Robinson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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On the Bay

When the salt wave laps on the long, dim shore,
And frets the reef with its windy sallies,
And the dawn's white light is threading once more
The purple firs in the landward valleys,
While yet the arms of the wide gray sea
Are cradling the sunrise that is to be,
The fisherman's boat, through the mist afar,
Has sailed in the wake of the morning star.

The wind in his cordage and canvas sings
Its old glad song of strength and endeavor,
And up from the heart of the ocean rings
A call of courage and cheer forever;
Toil and danger and stress may wait
Beyond the arch of the morning's gate,
But he knows that behind him, upon the shore,
A true heart prays for him evermore.

When a young moon floats in the hollow sky,
Like a fairy shallop, all pale and golden,
And over the rocks that are grim and high,
The lamp of the light-house aloft is holden;
When the bay is like to a lucent cup
With glamor and glory and glow filled up,
In the track of the sunset, across the foam,
The fisherman's boat comes sailing home.

The wind is singing a low, sweet song
Of a rest well won and a toil well over,
And there on the shore shines clear and strong
The star of the homelight to guide the rover:
And deep unto deep may call and wail
But the fisherman laughs as he furls his sail,
For the bar is passed and the reef is dim
And a true heart is waiting to welcome him!

poem by Lucy Maud Montgomery
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The Witch Of Mull

'Witch of Mull, the strangers here
Come to wreak their vengeance drear:
Call the wind and call the wrack;
Drown them, drive them, beat them back!'