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
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Related quotes
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
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Reedy River
Ten miles down Reedy River
A pool of water lies,
And all the year it mirrors
The changes in the skies,
And in that pool's broad bosom
Is room for all the stars;
Its bed of sand has drifted
O'er countless rocky bars.
Around the lower edges
There waves a bed of reeds,
Where water rats are hidden
And where the wild duck breeds;
And grassy slopes rise gently
To ridges long and low,
Where groves of wattle flourish
And native bluebells grow.
Beneath the granite ridges
The eye may just discern
Where Rocky Creek emerges
From deep green banks of fern;
And standing tall between them,
The grassy she-oaks cool
The hard, blue-tinted waters
Before they reach the pool.
Ten miles down Reedy River
One Sunday afternoon,
I rode with Mary Campbell
To that broad, bright lagoon;
We left our horses grazing
Till shadows climbed the peak,
And strolled beneath the she-oaks
On the banks of Rocky Creek.
Then home along the river
That night we rode a race,
And the moonlight lent a glory
To Mary Campbell's face;
And I pleaded for our future
All through that moonlight ride,
Until our weary horses
Drew closer side by side.
Ten miles from Ryan's Crossing
And five miles below the peak,
I built a little homestead
On the banks of Rocky Creek;
I cleared the land and fenced it
And ploughed the rich, red loam,
And my first crop was golden
When I brought my Mary home.
Now still down Reedy River
The grassy she-oaks sigh,
And the water-holes still mirror
The pictures in the sky;
And over all for ever
Go sun and moon and stars,
While the golden sand is drifting
Across the rocky bars
But of the hut I builded
There are no traces now.
And many rains have levelled
The furrows of the plough;
And my bright days are olden,
For the twisted branches wave
And the wattle blossoms golden
On the hill by Mary's grave.
poem by Henry Lawson
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The Song And The Sigh
The creek went down with a broken song,
'Neath the sheoaks high;
The waters carried the song along,
And the oaks a sigh.
The song and the sigh went winding by,
Went winding down;
Circling the foot of the mountain high,
And the hillside brown.
They were hushed in the swamp of the Dead Man's Crime,
Where the curlews cried;
But they reached the river the self-same time,
And there they died.
And the creek of life goes winding on,
Wandering by;
And bears for ever, its course upon,
A song and a sigh.
poem by Henry Lawson
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The Stringy-Bark Tree
There's the whitebox and pine on the ridges afar,
Where the iron-bark, blue-gum, and peppermint are;
There is many another, but dearest to me,
And the king of them all was the stringy-bark tree.
Then of stringy-bark slabs were the walls of the hut,
And from stringy-bark saplings the rafters were cut;
And the roof that long sheltered my brothers and me
Was of broad sheets of bark from the stringy-bark tree.
And when sawn-timber homes were built out in the West,
Then for walls and for ceilings its wood was the best;
And for shingles and palings to last while men be,
There was nothing on earth like the stringy-bark tree.
Far up the long gullies the timber-trucks went,
Over tracks that seemed hopeless, by bark hut and tent;
And the gaunt timber-finder, who rode at his ease,
Led them on to a gully of stringy-bark trees.
Now still from the ridges, by ways that are dark,
Come the shingles and palings they call stringy-bark;
Though you ride through long gullies a twelve months you’ll see
But the old whitened stumps of the stringy-bark tree.
poem by Henry Lawson
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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
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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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Sheoaks That Sigh When The Wind Is Still
Why are the sheoaks forever sighing?
(Sheoaks that sigh when the wind is still)—
Why are the dead hopes forever dying?
(Dead hopes that died and are with us still.)
As you make it and what you will.
Why are the ridges forever waiting?
Ridges that waited ere one man came,
Still by the towns with their life vibrating
Lonely ridges that wait the same.
Ridges and gullies without a name.
Why is the strong heart forever peering
Into the future that speaks no ill?
Why is the kind heart forever cheering,
Even at times when the fears are still?
As you make it, and what you will.
Why is the distance forever drawing?
(The wide horizon is round us still!)
Why is resentment forever gnawing
Against a world that may mean no ill?
Why are so many forever sawing
On strings that rasp and can never thrill—Soothe or thrill?
As you make it, and what you will.
poem by Henry Lawson
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The Days when we went Swimming
The breezes waved the silver grass,
Waist-high along the siding,
And to the creek we ne'er could pass
Three boys on bare-back riding;
Beneath the sheoaks in the bend
The waterhole was brimming -
Do you remember yet, old friend,
The times we 'went in swimming'?
The days we 'played the wag' from school -
Joys shared - and paid for singly -
The air was hot, the water cool -
And naked boys are kingly!
With mud for soap the sun to dry -
A well planned lie to stay us,
And dust well rubbed on neck and face
Lest cleanliness betray us.
And you'll remember farmer Kutz -
Though scarcely for his bounty -
He leased a forty-acre block,
And thought he owned the county;
A farmer of the old world school,
That grew men hard and grim in,
He drew his water from the pool
That we preferred to swim in.
And do you mind when down the creek
His angry way he wended,
A green-hide cartwhip in his hand
For our young backs intended?
Three naked boys upon the sand -
Half buried and half sunning -
Three startled boys without their clothes
Across the paddocks running.
We've had some scares, but we looked blank
When, resting there and chumming,
One glanced by chance upon the bank
And saw the farmer coming!
And home inmpressions linger yet
Of cups of sorrow brimming;
I hardly think that we'll forget
The last day we went swimming.
poem by Henry Lawson
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The Brass Well
'Tis a legend of the bushmen from the days of Cunningham,
When he opened up the country and the early squatters came.
Tis the old tale of a fortune missed by men who did seek,
And, perhaps, you haven’t heard it—The Brass Well on Myall Creek.
They were north of running rivers, they were south of Queensland rains,
And a blazing drought was scorching every grass-blade from the plains;
So the stockmen drove the cattle to the range where there was grass,
And a couple sunk a well and found what they believed was brass.
‘Here’s some bloomin’ brass!’ they muttered when they found it in the clay,
And they thought no more about it and in time they went away;
But they heard of gold, and saw it, somewhere down by Inverell,
And they felt and weighed it, crying: ‘Why! we found it in the well!’
And they worked about the station and at times they took the track,
Always meaning to save money, always meaning to go back—
‘Always meanin’,’ like the bushmen, who go drifting round like wrecks,
And they’d get half way to Myall, strike a pub and blew their cheques.
Then they told two more about it and those other two grew old,
And they never found the brass well and they never found the gold.
For the scrub grows dense and quickly and, though many went to seek,
No one ever struck the lost track to the Well on Myall Creek.
And the story is forgotten and I’m sitting here, alas!
With a woeful load of trouble and a woeful lack of brass;
But I dream at times that I might find what many went to seek,
And my luck might lead my footsteps to the Well at Myall Creek.
poem by Henry Lawson
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Lily
I scorn the man—a fool at most,
And ignorant and blind—
Who loves to go about and boast
“He understands mankind.”
I thought I had that knowledge too,
And boasted it with pride—
But since, I’ve learned that human hearts
Cannot be classified.
In days when I was young and wild
I had no vanity—
I always thought when women smiled
That they were fooling me.
I was content to let them fool,
And let them deem I cared;
For, tutored in a narrow school,
I held myself prepared.
But Lily had a pretty face,
And great blue Irish eyes—
And she was fair as any race
Beneath the Northern skies—
The sweetest voice I ever heard,
Although it was unschooled.
So for a season I preferred
By Lily to be fooled.
A friend embittered all my life
With careless words of his;
He said I’d “never win a wife
With such an ugly phiz.”
I laughed the loudest at the wit.
Though loud the laughter rung—
So be it to his credit writ—
He never knew it stung.
As far as human nature goes,
The cynic I would teach
That fruit’s not always sour to those
For whom none hangs in reach.
I only gazed as captives might
Gaze through their prison bars—
Fair women seemed to me as bright
Though far away, as stars.
And Lily was to me a star
As fair as those above,
As beautiful but just as far
From my revengeful love.
The love I bore was not exempt
From hate, if this might be;
I hated her for that contempt
I thought she had for me.
The “sour grapes” are often sweet
To lips that cannot touch,
And it is soothing to repeat:
“It does not matter much.”
But O to think that fruit so dear
To me in manhood’s prime,
Though seeming far, was clustered near
And red-ripe all the time.
My fault, perhaps, in Heav’n above
May not be deemed a sin.
I never thought that she would love
Or I’d the power to win.
And even now it puzzles me—
The butt of station chaff,
For I was plain as man could be
And awkward as a calf.
I would have liked to break the bow
That Lily never bent—
I thought she’d only laugh to know
How well her shafts were sent.
If my contempt had power to gall
Or careless sneers to touch
The heart that loved me after all,
She must have suffered much.
Ah! I was blind, and could not see
The plain things in my way.
When Lily’s mistress twitted me
About the “wedding day”,
I answered with a careless word
And half-unconscious sneer—
I never thought that Lily heard,
Nor dreamed that she was near.
We talked of other things and joked,
Till tongues began to tire—
Then I and Lily’s master smoked
Our pipes beside the fire.
The day wore on, and then she brought
The kettle to the hob,
And as she turned to go I thought
I heard a stifled sob.
I spoke; she never answered me.
I sneered, “I’ll not forget;
Above all things I hate to see
A woman in a pet!”—
Those cruel words, that were the last
That Lily ever heard—
I’ve heard them shrieking in the blast
And twittered by the bird.
Deep in the creek that wandered near
There lay a grassy pool,
’Neath oaks that sighed through all the year
And kept the water cool.
The stars that pierced the reedy bower
Made water lilies bright,
And underneath her sister flower
Our Lily slept that night.
She’d brought a pole the pool to sound
(It must have tried her strength).
We found it lying on the ground
And wet for half its length.
We found it there upon the grass,
But ah! it was not all!
An open prayer book lay, alas!
Beside poor Lily’s shawl.
We drew her out and laid her down
Upon a granite ledge—
The water from her dripping gown
Went trickling o’er the edge.
Like drops into a pool of fears
I saw the crystals dart,
Or one by one like scalding tears
That plash upon the heart.
The circles died upon the shore,
The frogs began to croak.
The wind that passed to list once more
Went sighing through the oak—
The oak that seemed to say to me
(I think I hear it yet),
“Above all things I hate to see
A woman in a pet!”
The blackest thoughts are swift to fill
The evil minds of men—
I knew the meaning of the looks
They bent upon me then;
And then I did as cowards do:
I vanished like a cur;
For many years I never knew
Where they had buried her.
But, drawn by that same power that brings
The slayer to the slain,
Or driven like the bird that wings
Against the storm in vain,
I journeyed from another shore
Across the weary wave
And wandered by the creek once more,
And sought for Lily’s grave.
I rode across the ridges brown
And through a rocky pass,
And took the track that led me down
To great white flats of grass.
I passed the homestead’s skeleton
That rotted in the sun,
And by the broken stockyards on
The long-deserted run.
Whole beds of reeds were covered o’er
With coats of yellow mud,
And all along the creek I saw
The traces of a flood.
I reached the place where Lily died.
The banks were washed away;
Before me on the other side
There rose a wall of clay.
I saw a thing that seemed a weed
Outgrowing from the “face”;
I stood and marvelled that a seed
Had grown in such a place.
I climbed the bank, and with a rod
I pushed the weed about—
And from the dry and crumbling sod
I saw a skull roll out!
I started back from where I stood,
For she was buried there!
I’d seen the coffin’s rotting wood.
The weed was Lily’s hair!
They’d laid her in the rushes dank
Upon a sandy bend;
The floods had washed away the bank
And reached the coffin’s end.
Ah, coward heart and conscience, too!
Did I reclaim the dead?
Ah, no, I did as cowards do—
A second time I fled!
And still I see the flying form,
I see myself again—
A madman riding through the storm
With terror in his brain.
That night the rain in torrents dashed,
The sky seemed flushed with blood,
And here and there the she-oaks crashed
Beneath the yellow flood.
And still I see the murderous sky
That never seems to change,
And hear the flood go growling by
That thundered from the range.
My inner sight as years went o’er
Grew sharp instead of dull,
And nearly every night I saw
The coffin and the skull.
Three ghastly things, unaltered still,
I knew would haunt my night—
I knew would fill my dreams until
I buried them from sight.
I journeyed to the creek once more
When five long years had flown,
And buried in the sand I saw
A piece of fashioned stone:
And bit by bit and bone by bone
In those long years of rain,
The cruel creek had claimed its own
And buried it again!
I clambered down the bank and knelt
And scraped away the sand,
And graven on the stone, I felt
Her name beneath my hand;
And in the she-oak over me
The wind was sneering yet:
“Above all things I hate to see
A woman in a pet.”
poem by Henry Lawson
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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 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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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
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Dark Becomes Dawn
Dark as pitch - Dawn spreads light
Dark as dead - Dawn expires graves
Dark withers - Dawn freshness wears
Dark un-paths - Dawn re-strides.
Dark dapples gray - Dawn paints days
Dark specters doubt - Dawn assuredness' gate
Dark limitless plain - Dawn corrals night
Dark swifts shadows - Dawn hastens un-obscures.
Dark dissolves pace - Dawn zeniths one's range
Dark devours - Dawn sun rises
Dark bends down relief - Dawn uplifts sight
Dark dismantles - Dawn scatters golden arrows.
Dark de-flames - Dawn matches day
Dark invisibles - Dawn globes light
Dark unfolds dark dreams - Dawn un-sanctions screams
Dark submissively retires - Dawn crimson splendor.
'2008'
poem by Robert Sheridan
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High And Dry
Last night, I think, I put that home fire out,
Came in late to a cold dark house.
I guess she thinks she got me good this time.
She took all of hers, and most of mine.
She left me high, but I aint dry,
Well, I've got beer and tears to cry.
Well I should be feelin' low,
Up that creek that we all know.
That woman left me high, but I aint dry.
Say bar tender fill 'er up again.
Let's us keep me in the shape I'm in.
And if I can't get her memory to drown,
Well, I'll take it for a swim all over town.
She left me high, but I aint dry,
Well, I've got beer and tears to cry.
Well I should be feelin' low,
Up that creek that we all know.
That woman left me high, but I aint dry.
Hell, I should be feelin' low,
Up that creek that we all know.
Yeah, that woman left me high, but I aint dry.
song performed by by Kenny Chesney
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Soldier Birds
I mind the river from Mount Frome
To Ballanshantie’s Bridge,
The Mudgee Hills, and Buckaroo,
Lowe’s Peak, and Granite Ridge.
The “tailers” in the creek beneath,
The rugged she-oak boles,
The river cod where shallows linked,
The willowed water-holes.
I mind the blacksoil river flats,
The red soil levels, too,
The sidings where below the scrub
The golden wattles grew;
The track that ran by Tierney’s Gap,
The dusk and ghost alarms,
The glorious morning on the hills,
And all the German farms.
I mind the blue-grey gully bush,
The slab-and-shingle school,
The “soldier birds” that picked the crumbs
Beneath the infants’ stool.
(Ah! did those little soldier birds,
That whispered, ever know
That one of us should rise so high
And sadly sink so low?)
I mind the lessons that we droned
In books from Irish schools,
The canings and the keepings-in
For breaking bounds and rules.
Ah! little did the teacher dream
That one of us, perchance,
Might write in London to be read
In Germany and France.
I mind the days we played at camp
With billy-can and swag,
I mind the notes sent home by girls
When someone “played the wag.”
Ah! little did the master think
(Who’d lost the roving star)
What truants in their after years
Would play the wag so far.
I mind when first he gave to me
A pen and ink to write,
And, last, the “Fourth Class Forms” he made
I shared with Lucy White.
The other boys were other boys,
With cricket ball and bat,
They had a fine contempt for girls,
But they got over that.
The “rounders” where the girls came in—
The Tomboy and the rest—
The earnest game of Pris’ners’ Base—
The game that I liked best.
The kangarooing on the ridge,
And in the brown moonlight,
The “possuming” across the flats,
With dogs and gun at night.
The “specking” in old diggers’ heaps
For “colours” after rain,
The horse-shoes saved against the time
The circus came again,
And sold to Jimmy Siver-right—
The blacksmith on the flat;
The five-corners, the swimming hole—
Oh! I remember that!
I mind the holland “dinner bags”—
A book bag of green baize—
The bread and dripping, bread and meat,
And bread and treacle days.
The bread and butter swopped for meat,
The crumb we swopped for crust—
We’ve married—and divorced—since then,
And most old homes are dust.
It was the time, it was the place—
Australia’s hardest page—
When boys were cast for farming work
At fourteen years of age.
It was the time, it was the place,
The latter “Early Day,”
When boys ride home from old bark schools
And to the world away.
I’ve drifted through Port Said since then,
Naples and Leicester Square,
And Collins and Macquarie Streets—
I know the secrets there.
Ah me! The country boy and girl,
The country lass and lad,
As innocent as soldier birds,
Though we thought we were bad!
But, spite of all their daring truth,
And some work that shall last,
The bitter years of my brave youth
Are better in the past.
This does not call for bitterness,
Nor does it call for tears,
The purest little thing perhaps
I’ve printed here for years.
The railway runs by Mudgee Hills,
Old farms are lost or lone,
And children’s children sadly go
To schools of brick and stone.
Yet are the same. The Mudgee Hills
And Mudgee skies as fair—
And the little grey-clad soldier birds
Are just as busy there.
poem by Henry Lawson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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I Always Remember The Cool Shade Of The Bamboo Grove
his poverty takes him to long walks
on the paths of hill and mountains for days
the sun scorches his back
he wears his buri hat and covers
his body with big anahaw leaves
he passes the same river that winds
towards his nipa hut, ten times
he plunges his weary feet on
the running waters of the creek
the heavy work he does indeed
turns him into a man of the plough
and the rugged muddy fields
the sweat of his brow and the sighs
of his unbroken spirit, the trials
and the tribulations of his insignificance
above all these, he passes by the
bamboo grove where a creek runs gently by
he remembers her again
his first love his first plunge naked into the water
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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A Young Rebel
The sun is setting behind the range,
his golden rays pour down
On a little figure, childish, strange,
Bending over a volume worn,
Whose green-clad cover, dusty and torn,
Bears a 'harp without a crown'.
The young eyes turn to the distant west,
Where the sunset colours glow,
And thoughts are thrilling the childish breast
Of gallant, valorous deeds long done,
Of glorious battles, fought and won
In the days of long ago.
His fancy peoples the lonely glen
With the ghosts of the vanished past,
Till he hears the tramp of armed men,
And O'Niall's plumed horsemen ridge
While the 'Red Hand' flutters in all its pride
Above them on the blast.
And just where the road winds into the creek
Where the jasmine stars the shade,
With the soft wind kissing her blushful cheek,
Beautiful grey-eyed Dierdrie stands
Stretching to Naisi her snowy hands--
Half -welcoming, half- dismayed.
The purple hues of the gully change
With the deepening shades of night,
And, far in a nook of the distant range
Is Michael Dwyer, of the Wicklow glen,
Holding his desperate stand again,
'Gainst the redcoat soldier's might.
The west wind rises across the creek,
And with it the crash of steel
Carries a flush to the listener's cheek—
'Tis only the crash of branches dry,
But in it he hears the battle-cry,
And the patriot's words of zeal.
And martyred shades come thronging around,
To the roll-call of Liberty;
Louder their eager voices sound,
Till towering tree-tops and glowing sky,
Are echoing back the defiant cry----
'Michael answer for me!'
The moon is rising above the creek,
The shining stars look down
On a little dreamer, whose pillowed cheek
Rests, in a volume worn,
Whose green-clad cover, dusty and torn,
Bears ' Harp without a Crown'.
poem by Alice Guerin Crist
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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 Flour Bin
By Lawson's Hill, near Mudgee,
On old Eurunderee –
The place they called "New Pipeclay",
Where the diggers used to be –
On a dreary old selection,
Where times were dry and thin,
In a slab and shingle kitchen
There stood a flour bin.
'Twas "ploorer" with the cattle,
'Twas rust and smut in wheat,
'Twas blight in eyes and orchards,
And coarse salt-beef to eat.
Oh, how our mothers struggled
Till eyes and brain were dull –
Oh, how our fathers slaved and toiled
To keep those flour bins full!
We've been in many countries,
We've sailed on many seas;
We've travelled in the steerage
And lived on land at ease.
We've seen the world together
Through laughter and through tears –
And not been far from baker's bread
These five and thirty years.
The flats are green as ever,
The creeks go rippling through;
The Mudgee Hills are showing
Their deepest shades of blue;
Those mountains in the distance
That ever held a charm
Are fairer than a picture
As seen from Cox's farm.
On a German farm by Mudgee,
That took long years to win,
On the wide bricked back verandah
There stands a flour bin;
And the dear old German lady –
Though the bakers' carts run out –
Still keeps a "fifty" in it
Against a time of drought.
It was my father made it,
It stands as good as new,
And of the others like it
There still remain a few.
God grant, when drought shall strike us,
The young will "take a pull",
And the old folk their strength anew
To keep those flour bins full.
poem by Henry Lawson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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