Since Nellie Came To Live Along The Creek
MY HUT is built of stringy-bark, the window’s calico,
The furniture a gin-case, one bush-table, and a bunk;
Thick as wheat on my selection does the towering timber grow,
And the stately blue-gums’ taproots to the bedrock all are sunk;
Then the ferns spring up like nettles,
And the ti-tree comes and settles
On my clearing if I spell-oh for a week;
But I work for love of labour
Since I’ve got a handy neighbour,
And Miss Nellie’s come to live along the creek.
Time was when Death sat by me, and he stalked me through the trees;
Then my arm was weak as water, and my heart a weary thing;
I was sullen as a wombat on such still, wan days as these,
And my wedges all were rusty, and my axe had lost its ring.
Then a fear like sickness bound me,
And I cursed the trees around me,
For quite hopeless seemed the struggle I’d begun
And at night-time, cowed and sinking,
I would sit there thinking, thinking,
Gazing grimly down the barrels of my gun.
Then I felt the bush must crush me with its dreadful, brooding wings,
And its voices seemed to mock me, till I thought that I was mad
Like the mopoke, and the jackass, and the other loony things;
For beside my old dog, Brumbie, not a living mate I had.
Then each sapling was a giant,
And the stumps were all defiant,
And my friends were very few and far to seek;
But the bush is bright and splendid,
And my melancholy’s ended,
Since Miss Nellie came to live along the creek
I would swear she was the sweetest if the world was full of girls:
She’s as graceful as a sapling, and her waist is neat and slim;
She is dimpled o’er with smiling, and has glossy, golden curls,
And her eyes peep out like violets ’neath her sunhat’s jealous rim.
If I think I see her flitting
On the sun-crowned hill, or sitting
’Neath the fern-fronds where the creek sleeps, deep and cool,
Then my stroke is straight and steady,
And the white chips run and eddy,
And I laugh aloud at nothing, like a fool.
Now my axe rings like a sabre, and my heart exults with pride
When the green gums sweep the scrub down, and they thunder and rebound,
And then lie with limbs all shattered, reaching out on either side,
Like giants killed in battle, with their faces to the ground.
Now the bush has many pleasures,
And a wondrous store of treasures,
And a thousand tales its eerie voices speak;
But its strange night hushes, seeming
Sent to lure to mystic dreaming,
Have no terrors, now Miss Nellie’s on the creek.
I am happy when the thunder bumps and bellows on the hill,
And the tall trees writhe and wrestle with the fury of the gale,
Or when sunshine floods the clearing, and the bushland is so still
That I hear the creek’s low waters tinkle, tinkle on the shale.
In the thought that she is near me
There’s a charm to lift and cheer me,
And a power that makes me mighty seems to flow
From Miss Nellie’s distant coo-ey,
Or her twin lips red and dewy
When she comes by here, and shyly calls me ‘Joe.’
She can work from dawn to nightfall, and look handsome all the day;
At her smile my garden flourished, and the vines grew green and strong,
And the bush falls back before it, and it strikes the scrub away,
For it lingers ever with me, and it stirs me like a song.
Now I labour in all weathers,
And the logs are merest feathers,
Nor my heart nor yet my hand is ever weak,
And a higher thing my prize is
Than all else that life comprises—
Pretty Nell, who’s come to live along the creek.
poem by Edward George Dyson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Related quotes
Eurunderee
There are scenes in the distance where beauty is not,
On the desolate flats where gaunt appletrees rot.
Where the brooding old ridge rises up to the breeze
From his dark lonely gullies of stringy-bark trees,
There are voice-haunted gaps, ever sullen and strange,
But Eurunderee lies like a gem in the range.
Still I see in my fancy the dark-green and blue
Of the box-covered hills where the five-corners grew;
And the rugged old sheoaks that sighed in the bend
O'er the lily-decked pools where the dark ridges end,
And the scrub-covered spurs running down from the Peak
To the deep grassy banks of Eurunderee Creek.
On the knolls where the vineyards and fruit-gardens are
There's a beauty that even the drought cannot mar;
For I noticed it oft, in the days that are lost,
As I trod on the siding where lingered the frost,
When the shadows of night from the gullies were gone
And the hills in the background were flushed by the dawn.
I was there in late years, but there's many a change
Where the Cudgegong River flows down through the range,
For the curse of the town with the railroad had come,
And the goldfields were dead. And the girl and the chum
And the old home were gone, yet the oaks seemed to speak
Of the hazy old days on Eurunderee Creek.
And I stood by that creek, ere the sunset grew cold,
When the leaves of the sheoaks are traced on the gold,
And I thought of old things, and I thought of old folks,
Till I sighed in my heart to the sigh of the oaks;
For the years waste away like the waters that leak
Through the pebbles and sand of Eurunderee Creek.
poem by Henry Lawson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Above Eurunderee
There are scenes in the distance where beauty is not,
On the desolate flats where gaunt appletrees rot.
Where the brooding old ridge rises up to the breeze
From his dark lonely gullies of stringy-bark trees,
There are voice-haunted gaps, ever sullen and strange,
But Eurunderee lies like a gem in the range.
Still I see in my fancy the dark-green and blue
Of the box-covered hills where the five-corners grew;
And the rugged old sheoaks that sighed in the bend
O'er the lily-decked pools where the dark ridges end,
And the scrub-covered spurs running down from the Peak
To the deep grassy banks of Eurunderee Creek.
On the knolls where the vineyards and fruit-gardens are
There's a beauty that even the drought cannot mar;
For I noticed it oft, in the days that are lost,
As I trod on the siding where lingered the frost,
When the shadows of night from the gullies were gone
And the hills in the background were flushed by the dawn.
I was there in late years, but there's many a change
Where the Cudgegong River flows down through the range,
For the curse of the town with the railroad had come,
And the goldfields were dead. And the girl and the chum
And the old home were gone, yet the oaks seemed to speak
Of the hazy old days on Eurunderee Creek.
And I stood by that creek, ere the sunset grew cold,
When the leaves of the sheoaks are traced on the gold,
And I thought of old things, and I thought of old folks,
Till I sighed in my heart to the sigh of the oaks;
For the years waste away like the waters that leak
Through the pebbles and sand of Eurunderee Creek.
poem by Henry Lawson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Cripple Creek
1: well I married a wife in the month of june,
Married her up by the light of the moon.
We live down on cripple creek.
Weve been there about a week.
Chorus: Im a-goin down to cripple creek, Im goin on a run.
Goin down to cripple creek to have some fun.
Goin down to cripple creek, Im goin on a run.
Goin down to cripple creek to have some fun.
2: now cripple creek girls about half-grown,
Jump on a man like a dog on a bone.
Roll my pants up to my knees,
Cross on cripple creek a-when I please.
Chorus: Im a-goin down to cripple creek, Im goin on a run,
Goin down to cripple creek to have some fun.
Goin down to cripple creek, Im goin on a run.
Goin down to cripple creek to have some fun.
3: well Im goin to cripple creek, Im goin on a run.
Im a-goin to cripple creek to have some fun.
Chorus: Im a-goin to cripple creek, Im goin on a run,
Goin to cripple creek to have some fun.
song performed by by Monkees
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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When the Bush Begins to Speak
They know us not in England yet, their pens are overbold;
We're seen in fancy pictures that are fifty years too old.
They think we are a careless race - a childish race, and weak;
They'll know us yet in England, when the bush begins to speak;
When the bush begins to speak,
When the bush begins to speak,
When the west by Greed's invaded, and the bush begins to speak.
'The leaders that will be', the men of southern destiny,
Are not all found in cities that are builded by the sea;
They learn to love Australia by many a western creek,
They'll know them yet in England, when the bush begins to speak;
When the bush begins to speak,
When the bush begins to speak,
When the west by Greed's invaded, and the bush begins to speak.
All ready for the struggle, and waiting for the change,
The army of our future lies encamped beyond the range;
Australia, for her patriots, will not have far to seek;
They'll know her yet in England when the bush begins to speak;
When the bush begins to speak,
When the bush begins to speak,
When the west by Greed's invaded, and the bush begins to speak.
We'll find the peace and comfort that our fathers could not find,
Or some shall strike the good old blow that leaves a mark behind.
We'll find the Truth and Liberty our fathers came to seek,
Or let them know in England when the bush begins to speak;
When the bush begins to speak,
When the bush begins to speak,
When the west by Greed's invaded, and the bush begins to speak.
poem by Henry Lawson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Peter Simson's Farm
Simson settled in the timber when his arm was strong and true,
And his form was straight and limber; and he wrought the long day through
In a struggle, single-handed, and the trees fell slowly back,
Twenty thousand giants banded ’gainst a solitary jack.
Through the fiercest days of summer you might hear his keen axe ring
And re-echo in the ranges, hear his twanging crosscut sing;
There the great gums swayed and whispered, and the birds were skyward blown,
As the circling hills saluted o’er a bush king overthrown.
Clearing, grubbing, in the gloaming, strong in faith the man descried
Heifers sleek and horses roaming in his paddocks green and wide,
Heard a myriad corn-blades rustle in the breeze’s soft caress,
And in every thew and muscle felt a joyous mightiness.
So he felled the stubborn forest, hacked and hewed with tireless might,
And a conqueror’s peace went with him to his fern-strewn bunk at night:
Forth he strode next morn, delighting in the duty to be done,
Whistling shrilly to the magpies trilling carols to the sun.
Back the clustered scrub was driven, and the sun fell on the lands,
And the mighty stumps were riven ’tween his bare, brown, corded hands.
One time flooded, sometimes parching, still he did the work of ten,
And his dog-leg fence went marching up the hills and down again.
By the stony creek, whose tiny streams slid o’er the sunken boles
To their secret, silent meetings in the shaded waterholes,
Soon a garden flourished bravely, gemmed with flowers, and cool and green,
While about the hut a busy little wife was always seen.
Came a day at length when, gazing down the paddock from his door,
Simson saw his horses grazing where the bush was long before,
And he heard the joyous prattle of his children on the rocks,
And the lowing of the cattle, and the crowing of the cocks.
There was butter for the market, there was fruit upon the trees,
There were eggs, potatoes, bacon, and a tidy lot of cheese;
Still the struggle was not ended with the timber and the scrub,
For the mortgage is the toughest stump the settler has to grub.
But the boys grew big and bolder—one, a sturdy, brown-faced lad,
With his axe upon his shoulder, loved to go to work ‘like dad’,
And another in the saddle took a bush-bred native’s pride,
And he boasted he could straddle any nag his dad could ride.
Though the work went on and prospered there was still hard work to do;
There were floods, and droughts, and bush-fires, and a touch of pleuro too;
But they laboured, and the future held no prospect to alarm—
All the settlers said: ‘They’re stickers up at Peter Simson’s farm.’
One fine evening Pete was resting in the hush of coming night,
When his boys came in from nesting with a clamorous delight;
Each displayed a tiny rabbit, and the farmer eyed them o’er,—
Then he stamped—it was his habit—and he smote his knee and swore.
Two years later Simson’s paddock showed dust-coloured, almost bare,
And too lean for hope of profit were the cows that pastured there;
And the man looked ten years older. Like the tracks about the place,
Made by half a million rabbits, were the lines on Simson’s face.
As he fought the bush when younger, Simson stripped and fought again,
Fought the devastating hunger of the plague with might and main,
Neither moping nor despairing, hoping still that times would mend,
Stubborn-browed and sternly facing all the trouble Fate could send.
One poor chicken to the acre Simson’s land will carry now.
Starved, the locusts have departed; rust is thick upon the plough;
It is vain to think of cattle, or to try to raise a crop,
For the farmer has gone under, and the rabbits are on top.
So the strong, true man who wrested from the bush a homestead fair
By the rabbits has been bested; yet he does not know despair—
Though begirt with desolation, though in trouble and in debt,
Though his foes pass numeration, Peter Simson’s fighting yet!
He is old too soon and failing, but he’s game to start anew,
And he tells his hopeless neighbours ‘what the Gov’mint’s goin’ to do’.
Both his girls are in the city, seeking places with the rest,
And his boys are tracking fortune in the melancholy West.
poem by Edward George Dyson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Bear Creek
Way up on bear creek watching the sun go down.
Way up on bear creek watching the sun go down.
It makes me feel like, Im on my last go round.
The water on bear creek tastes like cherry wine.
The water on bear creek tastes like cherry wine.
You take one drink of it, your tasting it all the time.
If you stay on bear creek youll get like jesse james.
If you stay on bear creek youll get like jesse james.
Youll take two old pistols, and hold up that bear creek train.
Im going high high up on some lonesome hill.
Im going high high up on some lonesome hill.
Look down on bear creek, where my good gal used to live.
song performed by by John Prine
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Splitter
IN THE MORN when the keen blade bites the tree,
And the chips on the dead leaves dance,
And the bush echoes back right merrily
Blow for blow as the sunbeams glance
From the axe when it sweeps in circles true,
Then the splitter at heart is gay;
He exults in the work he’s set to do,
And he feels like a boy at play.
Swinging free with a stroke that’s straight and strong
To the heart of the messmate sent,
He is cheered by the magpie’s morning song
With the ring of the metal blent,
But the birds in their terror scatter high
When she falls with a rush and bound,
And the quivering saplings split and fly,
And the ranges all roar around.
Who is lord when the axeman mounts his spar,
And the breeze on his brown breast blows,
When the scent of the new wood floats afar,
And the gum from its red wounds flows?
With the bush at his back he laughs at care,
With a pipe and a right good mate—
There is drink in the billy, grub to spare,
And a bunk in the ten-by-eight.
When the sun’s in the west, from nooks aloft
Where the stringy is straight and tall,
Come the strains of a chorus quaint and soft,
Or the clink of the wedge and maul;
From the gully a murmur of broken talk
Or the song that the crosscut sings;
For the bush is a-dream, and high the hawk
Hangs at rest on his cradling wings.
But at night, by the tent, when tea is done
And when euchre’s begun to flag—
In the bush he may hear a distant gun
Or the neigh of a lonely nag—
Then the splitter has thoughts no longer gay,
And sorrows he cannot drown,
For he dreams of a girl who’s far away,
Or the joys of a spree in town.
poem by Edward George Dyson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Fairies
They don’t believe in fairies,
Those old folk wide and staid,
They’ve never caught the glitter
Of their wings in forest shade.
For them the bush is just a place
Of timber, cows and corn,
They’ve never been up our creek
On a cool November morn.
From mossy banks all dotted
With violets breaking through,
Beneath the frondled maidenhair
Their shy eyes peep at you.
They sleep ‘neath tasselled tea-trees,
The drowsy summer day,
Where the tiny crimson love-birds
Around them dart and play.
The dew-drenched nights of Summer,
When gum-trees are aflower,
In foamy waves of sweetness
Bring round the fairies’ hour.
This is the time of frolic,
When they go floating high,
On wispy shreds of river mist,
Across the shining sky.
What! Don’t believe in fairies!
When they’re round you everywhere!
See them- who needs to see them?
You simply know they’re there.
poem by Alice Guerin Crist
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Otter Creek
Past meadows, beyond trees, down muddy banks flows otter creek.
King fisher in branches, perched, poised.
Skydiver, bullet from above, silent splash, into otter creek.
Muscles plucked from their beds, shells discarded, gathered for fun, pass up not one.
Trout fry swim swiftly, cray fish beneath rocks avoid seeking hands, pincers poised, threatening stance.
Kids crossing fallen logs, catching frogs, skipping rocks, swimming in otter creek.
Mud wars rage, picnic blanket laid on the green glade near otter creek.
We follow paw prints, beneath willow tree roots, den site dug deep into muddy banks of otter creek.
Within the town of Franklinville, hot summers day, sister, niece, and I, our dad's.
Never saw the otters of the creek, only paw prints, left proof of an existence.
In memories I venture, hoping, just a glimpse.
To sit once again, past meadows, beyond trees, down muddy banks, there it flows, otter creek.
poem by Gary Kedron
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Courtship Of Young John
Fields of lucerne and waving wheat,
White-washed sheds, and cottage neat,
Nesting orchards and mulberry trees,
Scented flowers round hives of bees,
With the cool green creek behind it all,
Where the bell-bird chimed at evenfall
Far from the city’s stir and noise-
This was the home of the ‘Reilly boys.”
There were Matthew and Mark, both lean and grim,
Hard of feature, and strong of limb,
And Luke-poor-Luke had long lain still
In the graveyard under the windy hill,
But his twin remained, the youngest he,
A solemn ‘youth’ of forty-three,
By his elders bossed and put upon,
And always referred to as ‘that young John’.
Their house was speckless, and white as now,
But the dear old neighbour who kept it so,
Old Mrs. Schultz, who lived near by,
In the midst of her labours, found time to die.
And the bachelor brothers were sore perplexed,
Mournfully wondering what they’d do next,
Till Father O’Connell spoke words of cheer,
‘Now one should get married, at least, that’s clear”.
‘There’s Kitty Dempsey-her Aunt Miss Ann
Would like her to wed some decent man,
She’s kindly, and comely, and sensible too,
No end to the clever things she can do—“
And Matthew and Mark spoke up like one,
“She’d just do exactly for ‘that young John”.
But their much-tired victim flung off the yoke,
And these ’re the indignant words he spoke:
“I’ll not be the one to marry, now see;
The hardest jobs are all left to me:
The toughest cows in the milkin’ yard,
Anythin’ at all that is heavy and hard;
You’ve left me stumpin’ the apple-tree flat,
But, be all the powers, I won’t do that!”
Here the reverend adviser’s mirth had sway,
And the good priest hurriedly went his way.
‘Twas a pensive, drowsy afternoon,
The gums aflower and the birds in tune,
But as ‘that young John’ rode up the track,
The wrath in his heart was bitter and black,
For the brothers’ will had prevailed that day,
To send him forth on his courting way,
The maiden heart and hand to seek
Of Kitty Dempsey from over the creek,
And the wretch condemned to the gallow’s tree
Must have carried a cheerfuller heart than he.
On Dempsey’s verandah, the shrinking man
Met a welcome warm from little Miss Ann-
A brisk little lady not too old,
With a sweet lines face and a heart of gold,
And wistful eyes smiling bravely still
On a world that mostly had used her ill,
“Is it you that’s in it? You’re Welcome, John,
But you should have been here some hours a-gone.
For we’ve had a wedding this very day,
Our Kitty’s married and gone away—“
Oh! the glad relief that filled his breast,
As he told the tale of his fruitless quest
With a lightened heart, for the shyest man
Could have felt at ease with little Miss Ann,
As she gravely listened sitting near by,
And her awkward guest forgot to be shy.
‘Now to think of Kit missin’ a chance so grand,
And that home of yours needs a woman’s hand:
The mulberries now are ripenin’ fine
For makin’ pies, or mulberry wine.
I noticed them Sunday-passin’ to Mass-
And the pansy beds are full of grass,
And the fowls want fattenin, for Christmas Day—“
Here a sudden thought took John’s breath away;
For a little brown bird hid down in the creek,
With a merry eye and saucy beak,
Began to trill and ripple and sing,
Like the very essence of rapturous spring.
And Oh! the guile of that little brown bird,
‘Twas the oldest song that the world has heard,
And a flame he never had reckoned upon
Across the heart of ‘that young John’.
The little bird has been silent long,
And the magpies had piped their evensong,
But John had forgotten,
Mid dreams sublime
That he should have been home by milking time;
He sat in the twilight-a different man-
Still clasping the hand of small Miss Ann,
And wondering a little blissfully,
If so daring a chap could be really he.
But he little knew what a treasure he’d won.
What a wonderful life had just begun;
And how bright the sunshine that lay upon
The future pathway of ‘that young John’.
poem by Alice Guerin Crist
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On The Night Train
Have you seen the bush by moonlight, from the train, go running by?
Blackened log and stump and sapling, ghostly trees all dead and dry;
Here a patch of glassy water; there a glimpse of mystic sky?
Have you heard the still voice calling – yet so warm, and yet so cold:
"I'm the Mother-Bush that bore you! Come to me when you are old"?
Did you see the Bush below you sweeping darkly to the Range,
All unchanged and all unchanging, yet so very old and strange!
While you thought in softened anger of the things that did estrange?
(Did you hear the Bush a-calling, when your heart was young and bold:
"I'm the Mother-bush that nursed you; Come to me when you are old"?)
In the cutting or the tunnel, out of sight of stock or shed,
Did you hear the grey Bush calling from the pine-ridge overhead:
"You have seen the seas and cities – all is cold to you, or dead –
All seems done and all seems told, but the grey-light turns to gold!
I'm the Mother-Bush that loves you – come to me now you are old"?
poem by Henry Lawson
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Cripple Creek Ferry
Hey, hey cripple creek ferry
Butting through the overhanging trees
Make way for the cripple creek ferry
The waters going down its a mighty tight squeeze.
All alone the captain stands
Hasnt heard from his deck hands.
The gambler tips his hat and walks towards the door.
Its the second half of the cruise.
And you know he hates to lose.
Hey, hey cripple creek ferry
Butting through the overhanging trees
Make way for the cripple creek ferry
The waters going down its a mighty tight squeeze.
song performed by by Neil Young
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Progress
THEY’VE builded wooden timber tracks,
And a trolly with screaming brakes
Noses into the secret bush,
Into the birdless brooding bush,
And the tall old gums it takes.
And down in the sunny valley,
The snorting saw screams slow;
O bush that nursed my people,
O bush that cursed my people,
That flayed and made my people,
I weep to watch you go
poem by Frank Wilmot
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The Welcome,
DID you know, little child,
Ere you left the outer wild,
There were strong hands steady,
There were old songs ready,
There was love prepared to keep you with the hard earth reconciled?
Did you learn beyond the moon
All the happy sounds of noon?
A creek’s voice will greet you,
A wattle bend to meet you,
There are visions, there are voices: you will know them soon and soon.
Yes, for you will surely go
Where the deepest gullies grow,
They will feel you and take you,
With birds to lure and wake you,
They will set your spirit dancing, they will tell you all they know.
There beneath the radiant dome
Unafraid your feet will roam,
With the soft creek lapping,
And the loose bark flapping,
While the waving tree-ferns whisper, ‘Little girl, you’ve wandered home.’
poem by Nettie Palmer
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Matchmaker
Behind my house there is a quaint little pond
And every time it rains a little green frog responds
I know that he is lonely and cries into the night
He is longing to find a mate to be complete and all right
The heat is sweltering and he swims on afternoons
Longing for the rain during the night to voice his tunes
Sometimes he is resting on a moist mossy green rock
Looking around aware of his biological clock
On the other side there is a creek behind the pool
There is a small green frog all alone and it's cruel
So I went and captured the one by my pond
And brought it over to the creek to make a bond
Now my nights are filled with silence and peace
And one would think my good night's rest would increase
But instead I was wondering if the frogs getting along
Because if not - then what I did was totally wrong
This morning my neighbor that lives by the creek
Came over to complain about the noise at night's peak
She said that there is a whole family of green frog's right there
She will never know how happy I am about that - I swear
© 2011
poem by Kristina Louisa Carr
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By the creek
By the creek
Canoes are extinct and fishing net hung dry
On the mangrove, starved fishes initiate an exodus
By the creek
Idleness I saw in the abode of a young man
In search of oil greed in the wrong ways of the city
By the creek
The gliding seagulls no longer shower kisses on the waves
As gunboats threatens even the creatures underneath the aquatic ridges
By the creek
The night taunts me, of the horrors of the morrow
And the sorrow that lay await
By the creek
The crowd stood still, hungry in their eyes
And food monger, driven away by hostile wind
By the creek
I saw men living comfortably in squalor
Accompany by winds of mediocrity
And greed
By the creek
In addition, I saw the sea eating away farmlands
While the shore reclamation fund mound in politicians save
By the creek
I saw fleeing, vessels from foreign shores
And a deserted jetty a save heaven for militant
poem by Regha Julius
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The Little People
'Twas a long bush night; and the old hut light
Shone out thro' the open door
To flood the knees of the great bush trees
And the scrub that grew before.
And, as I dreamed where the firelight gleamed,
And watched the long hours lag,
Came there to my shack Kilkenny Jack
With his fiddle in its green baize bag.
So I bade him sit and rest a bit,
And we yarned of this and that.
Pipes well alight, we watched the night
As he on his old swag sat.
'Lonesome, indade, this life we lade,'
Said he, 'Why let time drag
For me an' you?' And he stooped and drew
His fiddle from its green baize bag.
Then the scrub before the old hut door
Was people suddenly
With elfin' folk who rose and spoke
Strange, mystic things to me.
Then into the glare from the bracken there
The Little People crept;
And, suddenly, by fern and tree
The fairies danced and leapt.
Kilkenny Jack he leant him back,
And his bow went to and fro;
And there outside the banshees cried
In mournful tones and low.
And where the light stabbed thro' the night
To cast dark shades about,
In many a place I saw the face
Of a leprechaun peep out.
Then the music stopped; and Jack he dropped
His fiddle, and was done;
And into the night in sudden fright
I saw the small folk run . . .
Then off he went, his small form bent
'Neath his old, familiar swag
Upon his back - Kilkenny Jack,
With his fiddle in its green baize bag.
poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Adventurers
This morning I got up before the sun
Had seized the hill,
And scrambled heart-hot, noisy, past each one
In sleep laid still.
There they lay helpless under the gold stars,
Good folk and kind,
By sleep the robber spoiled of heavenly wares,
Made deaf and blind.
The leaves cracked, the grass rustled as I passed.
I might have been
Myself the thief. Each minute seemed the last
Of freedom's teen.
But lonely down the hill in Levite's guise
Or priest's, I ran.
I had not proved myself, true loverwise,
Samaritan.
The wind went by me, pulling at my hair.
I left the track.
My last night's purpose terrible and fair
Came sweeping back.
Among the bracken under a white tree
I sat me down,
And slipped my shoulders very stealthily
From out my gown.
One minute I lay naked on the grass,
Then sat upright.
The hot wind had its will with me, and kissed
My bosom white.
The stars gleamed in the grey before the rose.
Were they not eyes
That peered and leered, and seemed about to close
In shocked surprise?
With the whole sky at gaze, there had I lain.
Had dared thus much.
I ran on frightened down the hill again,
With gown to clutch.
Down by the creek the blackberries grew thick,
And as I passed
They stretched long arms to hinder me and prick,
Make me shamefast?
Nay, they laughed, pulling at my slipping gown,
Would have laid bare
To chance men on the hillside looking down
The whiteness there.
Close by the blackwoods is the bathing pool
The men have made.
I was no sport for stars, no bramble's fool
In the trees' shade.
But when I stood with limbs and body free
And gleaming fair,
The little kind ferns screened and covered me
Like Agnes' hair.
I slipped into the shallow water, felt
The fine brown sand
Of the creek bottom, shuddered, splashed and knelt
Too cold to stand.
Happy and shivering, with trees overhead,
Fern walls around,
I listened to the water talking, led
To praise by sound.
So I have felt the wind and water's kiss,
Though I'm a maid.
Better be man than be a girl, and miss
Feeling afraid.
poem by Lesbia Harford
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Bitter Creek
Once I was young and so unsure
Id try any ill to find the cure
An old man told me
Tryin to scold me
oh, son, dont wade to deep in bitter creek,
(bitter creek)
Out where the desert meets the sky
Is where I go when I wanna hide
Oh, peyote (oh,peyote,mm)
She tried to show me
(tried to show me)
You know there aint no cause to weep
At bitter creek
(bitter creek)
Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo
Doo, doo doo doo doo doo doo doo
Were gonna hit the road for one last time
We can walk right in and steal em blind
All that money (all that money,ooh..)
No more runnin (no more runnin)
I cant wait to see the old mans face
When I win the race
(bitter creek)
Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo,
Doo doo doo doo doo
Doo..........
song performed by by Eagles
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Way Of The Bush
A night of storm and wind and rain,
Tall trees bowing beneath the blast
That shakes and rattles the window-pane,
And a thunderous roar as the creek goes past.
Inside there a pictures and flowers and books,
And a slim girl-wife with shingled hair;
The lamplight glimmers on cosy nooks,
And Desmond Keene in his easy chair
Thanks God for home and the days toil o’er;
When on the verandah a tramp of feet,
A frenzied knock on the kitchen door
Wondering he goes a neighbour to greet.
“The missus is dyin’ ” poor Simpson says,
‘Down in the ‘orspital-sent for me,
I gathered the kids, and brought ‘’em ‘ere,
I thought your missus might mind ‘em – see!”
“Mind them, of course, and I’ll go with you,
You’ll need a mate on a night like this.”
And soon the neighbours are ‘battling through’
Young Desmond cheered by his wife’s last kiss.
For this is the way of the bush my friends
Neighbourly service prompt at need
Freely given and freely sought,
For the bush recks nothing of caste or creed.
And the young wife’s hands are steady and firm
Though here soft lips tremble in voiceless prayer
As she smooths the wet and tangled curls
Of the young ones left in her gentle care.
There’s a solemn hush in the hospital ward
Where a grey-haired bushman bends in woe
Over the toil-worn face of one
Who has come to the journey we all must go.
But ‘Mother’ still has a smile for him,
And the kind grey eyes show a soul at rest,
While the poor thin hands that have toiled so long
Lie idly now on her quiet breast.
For this is the way of the bush my friends,
To struggle and strive year out year in,
And often to die and leave it all
When the lean years end and the good begin.
They brought her back to the home she loved,
And the neighbours came for miles around,
There were cars and buggies and horses ranged
Round the rough rail fence of the burying ground.
They smothered the children with gifts and tears
In the way of the bush that is dear to God,
And their homely kindness was pure and sweet
As the flowers they placed on the new-turned sod.
Courage and patience and sturdy toil
And kindness unstinted in others’ needs—
How the God that made them must love them all!
For the ‘way of the bush’ is His way indeed.
poem by Alice Guerin Crist
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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