News of the Sun
The noon is on the cattle-track;
the air is void of sound,
except where crows, poised burning-black,
cry to the dusty ground.
Through mulga and mirage go none
but brazen Boolee now,
scorning the mercy of the sun
beneath the niggard bough.
But suddenly the mulga stirs;
the hot leaves flash like stars;
and, threading song on wing-beat whirrs,
burst flights of gay galahs.
poem by Rex Ingamells
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Noon On The Barrier Ranges
THE saltbush steeped in drowsy stillness lies,
The mulga seems to swoon,
A hawk hangs poised within the burning skies,
And it is noon.
The river-gums, their leaf-pores closed, distil
No fresh and cooling breath;
I stand upon an old hard-bitten hill,
Wide plains beneath.
Here stood tall mountains when the world was young,
Their peaks uplifted high;
Here was the song of many waters sung
In days gone by.
The monarch Change, whose will no power withstands
Vast lord of might
At work by night and day, with tireless hands
Planed down their height.
With such to see, and seeing ponder on,
Such mighty ruin wrought,
Why should we wonder at proud Babylon
Brought down to nought?
Be not amazed, though princes be displaced
And kingdoms overcast;
Are empires more than mountains, basalt-based,
That they should last?
A sense of things unreal, seen in dream,
Is over plain and heights —
The time-worn rocks, the crumbled earth, the gleam
Of mirage lights;
The horseman riding with a slackened rein
Alone, a silent man;
The weird, dust-sprites that whirl across the plain
A little span;
The earth-hued lizard, on the sun-baked rock
Stretched out in stirless sleep;
The far-off drover and his dusty flock
Of travelling sheep;
The hidden birds that break the hush, and call,
And sink again to rest,
The dust-storm, hanging, like a crimson shawl,
Within the west;
The white quartz glittering on the umber track,
The claypans cracked and bare;
The poised hawk, hanging like a menace black
In middle air;
The wonder of the spacious plain and sky,
The splendour of it all;
The all that is not I — so wide, so high,
And I so small!
The sun swings on, and up the western verge
The great shawl-cloud spreads wide,
Till sky and plain in oneness meet and merge,
Fierce-lit, red-dyed.
A wind, hell-hot and surged with fury, whips
The trees upon its path,
And all is sudden turmoil and eclipse,
And cries of wrath.
A choking darkness draws across the sun
And clouds his splendour o'er,
And though but half his pilgrimage be done,
'Tis noon no more.
poem by Roderic Quinn
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Lake Eliza
THE SAND was heavy on our feet,
A Christmas sky was o’er us,
And half a mile through dust and heat
Lake ’Liza lay before us.
‘You’ll have a long and heavy tramp’—
So said the last adviser—
‘You can’t do better than to camp
To-night at Lake Eliza.’
We quite forgot our aching shanks,
A cheerful spirit caught us;
We thought of green and shady banks,
We thought of pleasant waters.
’Neath sky as niggard of its rain
As of his gold the miser,
By mulga scrub and lignum plain
We’d tramp’d to Lake Eliza.
A patch to grey discoloured sand,
A fringe of tufty grasses,
A lonely pub in mulga scrub
Is all the stranger passes.
He’d pass the Lake a dozen times
And yet be none the wiser;
I hope that I shall never be
As dry as Lake Eliza.
No patch of green or water seen
To cheer the weary plodder;
The grass is tough as fencing-wire,
And just as good for fodder.
And when I see it mentioned in
Some local ADVERTISER,
’Twill make me laugh, or make me grin—
The name of ‘Lake Eliza.’
poem by Henry Lawson
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Mulga Bill's Bicycle
'Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that caught the cycling craze;
He turned away the good old horse that served him many days;
He dressed himself in cycling clothes, resplendent to be seen;
He hurried off to town and bought a shining new machine;
And as he wheeled it through the door, with air of lordly pride,
The grinning shop assistant said, "Excuse me, can you ride?"
"See here, young man," said Mulga Bill, "from Walgett to the sea,
From Conroy's Gap to Castlereagh, there's none can ride like me.
I'm good all round at everything, as everybody knows,
Although I'm not the one to talk - I hate a man that blows.
But riding is my special gift, my chiefest, sole delight;
Just ask a wild duck can it swim, a wildcat can it fight.
There's nothing clothed in hair or hide, or built of flesh or steel,
There's nothing walks or jumps, or runs, on axle, hoof, or wheel,
But what I'll sit, while hide will hold and girths and straps are tight:
I'll ride this here two-wheeled concern right straight away at sight."
'Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that sought his own abode,
That perched above the Dead Man's Creek, beside the mountain road.
He turned the cycle down the hill and mounted for the fray,
But ere he'd gone a dozen yards it bolted clean away.
It left the track, and through the trees, just like a silver streak,
It whistled down the awful slope towards the Dead Man's Creek.
It shaved a stump by half an inch, it dodged a big white-box:
The very wallaroos in fright went scrambling up the rocks,
The wombats hiding in their caves dug deeper underground,
As Mulga Bill, as white as chalk, sat tight to every bound.
It struck a stone and gave a spring that cleared a fallen tree,
It raced beside a precipice as close as close could be;
And then as Mulga Bill let out one last despairing shriek
It made a leap of twenty feet into the Dead Man's Creek.
'Twas Mulga Bill from Eaglehawk, that slowly swam ashore:
He said, "I've had some narrer shaves and lively rides before;
I've rode a wild bull round a yard to win a five-pound bet,
But this was the most awful ride that I've encountered yet.
I'll give that two-wheeled outlaw best; It's shaken all my nerve
To feel it whistle through the air and plunge and buck and swerve.
It's safe at rest in Dead Man's Creek, we'll leave it lying still;
A horse's back is good enough henceforth for Mulga Bill."
A.B. (Banjo) Paterson
poem by Andrew Barton Paterson
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Since the Country Carried Sheep
We trucked the cows to Homebush, saw the girls, and started back,
Went West through Cunnamulla, and got to the Eulo track.
Camped a while at Gonybibil - but, Lord! you wouldn't know
It for the place where you and Mick were stockmen long ago.
Young Merino bought the station, fenced the run and built a 'shed',
Sacked the stockmen, sold the cattle, and put on sheep instead,
But he wasn't built for Queensland. and every blessed year
One hears of 'labour troubles' when Merino starts to shear.
There are ructions with the rouseabouts, and shearers' strikes galore!
The likes were never thought of in the cattle days of yore.
And slowly, round small paddocks now, the 'sleeping lizards' creep,
And Gonybibil's beggared since the country carried sheep.
Time was we had the horses up ere starlight waned away,
The billy would be boiling by the breaking of the day;
And our horses - by Protection - were aye in decent nick,
When we rode up the 'Bidgee where the clearskins mustered thick.
They've built brush-yards on Wild Horse Creek, where in the morning's hush
We've sat silent in the saddle, and listened for the rush
Of the scrubbers - when we heard 'em, 'twas wheel 'em if you can,
While gidgee, pine and mulga tried the nerve of horse and man.
The mickies that we've branded there! the colts we had to ride!
In Gonybibil's palmy days - before the old boss died.
Could Yorkie Hawkins see his run, I guess his ghost would weep,
For Gonybibil's beggared since the country carried sheep.
From sunrise until sunset through the summer days we'd ride,
But stockyard rails were up and pegged, with cattle safe inside,
When 'twixt the gloamin' and the murk, we heard the well-known note -
The peal of boisterous laughter from the kookaburra's throat.
Camped out beneath the starlit skies, the tree-tops overhead,
A saddle for a pillow, and a blanket for a bed,
'Twas pleasant, mate, to listen to the soughing of the breeze,
And learn the lilting lullabies which stirred the mulga-trees.
Our sleep was sound in those times, for the mustering days were hard,
The morrows might be harder, with the branding in the yard.
But did yu see the station now! the men - and mokes - they keep!
You'd own the place was beggared - since the country carred sheep.
poem by Harry 'Breaker' Harbord Morant
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The Acorn
An acorn swung
On an oak-tree bough;
So long it had hung,
It would fain fall now
To the kindly earth,
That its germ within
Might burst into birth,
And its life begin.
And the autumn came
With its burning hand,
And each leaf grew a flame,
And each bough a brand.
And a worm came up
And began to eat
Though the hard, dry cup
To the acorn sweet.
And the acorn thought,
“I shall soon see now
The life I have sought,
When I fall from the bough;
For the worm gnaws through
Each tendon slight,
That about me grew,
And bound me tight.”
And with dying day
Came the zephyr’s sound;
And the acorn lay
Next morn on the ground;
But its germ was gone
By the worm’s sharp teeth;
And the ground it had won
Was its grave in death.
poem by Francis William Bourdillon
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Departure
Be it sight, sound, the smell, the touch.
Theres something,
Inside that we need so much,
The sight of a touch, or the scent of a sound,
Or the strength of an arquebus deep in the ground.
The wonder of flowers, to be covered, and then to burst up,
Thru tarmack, to the sun again,
Or to fly to the sun without burning a wing,
To lie in the meadow and hear the grass sing,
To have all these things in our memories hoard,
And to use them,
To help us,
To find...
song performed by by Moody Blues
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Beautiful Noise
Written by: neil diamond
What a beautiful noise
Comin up from the street
Got a beautiful sound
Its got a beautiful beat
Its a beautiful noise
Goin on everywhere
Like the clickety-clack
Of a train on a track
Its got a rhythm to spare
Its a beautiful noise
And its sound that I love
And its fit me as well
As a hand in a glove
Yes it does, yes it does
What a beautiful noise
Comin up from the park
Its the song of the kids
And it plays until dark
Its the song of the cars
On their furious flights
But theres even romance
In the way that they dance
To beat of the lights
Its a beautiful noise
And its a sound that I love
And it makes me feel good
Like a hand in a glove
Yes it does, yes it does
What a beautiful noise
Its a beautiful noise
Made of joy an of strife
Like a symphony played
By a passing parade
Its the music of life
What a beautiful noise
Comin up to my room
And its beggin for me
Just to give it a tune
song performed by by Neil Diamond
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Crows
THEN, suddenly, I was aware indeed
Of what he said, and was revolving it:
How, in the night, crows often take to wing,
Rising from off the tree-tops in Drumbarr,
And flying on: I pictured what he told.
The crows that shake the night-damp off their wings
Upon the stones out yonder in the fields,
The first live things that we see in the mornings;
The crows that march across the fields, that sit
Upon the ash-trees' branches, that fly home
And crowd the elm-tops over in Drumbarr;
The crows we look on at all hours of light,
Growing, and full, and going these black beings have
Another lifetime!
Crows flying in the dark
Blackness in darkness flying; beings unseen
Except by eyes that are like to their own
Trespassers' eyes!
And you, old man, with eyes so quick and sharp,
Who've told me of the crows, my fosterer;
And you, old woman, upon whose lap I've lain
When I was taken from my mother's lap;
And you, young girl, with looks that have come down
From forefathers, my kin ye have another life
I've glimpsed it, I becoming trespasser-
Blackness in darkness flying like the crows!
poem by Padraic Colum
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Song of the Old Boundary Rider
Fat and full of health are the valleys of the Condamine,
There the yellow maize and the green tobacco grow,
Through the little gardens runs the trailing passion-vine,
And softly to the North the white downs flow.
Here nothing changes, seed-time or harvest-time,
Mulga on the skyline, mulga round the place,
Riding round the fences I hear the bells of bullocks chime,
But homely sounds come rarer than a woman's face.
Lonely is the day and lonely is the firelight,
Lonely is the heart when the trees come creeping near,
When the bobock calls the very dogs are dumb with fright,
And when a voice starts singing it's my own voice that I hear.
Back let me ride to the valley of the Condamine,
There the little homesteads nestle in their green,
Opal where the mists rise, amber where the paddocks shine,
My own things round me and none to come between.
poem by Vance Palmer
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The Nights at Rocky Bar
Trapping brumbies in the moonlight! those were nights of reckless fun,
'Way back on Campbell's country - on the Goory-bibil run,
When saddled up and ready qur impatient nags would stand
While we squatted in the gunyah with their bridle-reins in hand.
And presently the hoof-beats of the brumbies' trot would sound
As they rattled o'er the ridges of the mulga-timbered ground;
They'd be thirsty, for that stretching trot had brought them from afar,
And the only water for them was the hole at Rocky Bar.
We would hear the stallions whinny, and then the water splash -
That latter was our signal-through the deadwood with a crash
We were at them-you on joker, I on Harlequin, and Mick
Would be with us, just as eager as his jumper, Elsternwick.
Our stockwhips in the stilly night like rifle-shots would ring
When we beat them on the Bilbee Flat and slewed 'em to the wing;
And when we had 'em yarded, oh, the clatter and the din!
How they kicked and squealed and snorted when they found themselves barr'd in!
The nights the brumbies tried to break straight back the way they came
Proved Harlequin as nimble as we knew him to he game;
In those rushing, frantic scrambles 'twas his cleverness I thank
That I didn't get a smasher down that rotten basalt bank.
One old 'Merino' came out, and some boundary rider's moke
He was riding - it was his fault that the chestnut stallion broke -
He sung out: 'Never mind him; let the beggar go away!'
But you didn't stop to listen, jack, to what he had to say.
And ere you brought the big horse back you had a roughish ride,
The Lord knows how you,rnanaged, mate, that night to save your hide!
Though bar a stake of sandalwood you weren't a great deal hurt,
Though the gidya ripped your moleskins, and the mulga rent your shirt.
That big timber took some dodging, but our hacks were tried and true,
And while their heads were left alone would mostly get us through;
But never a horse, save Harlequin', at night, 'twas my belief
Could race among those Bilbee holes and yet not come to grief.
And then we'd jog away to camp two miles below the Bar,
Where we'd find a pipe of Nailrod and a nobbler in the jar.
Ah! though our lines of life since then have lain in diverse ways,
We don't forget those gallops of the brumby-running days.
poem by Harry 'Breaker' Harbord Morant
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Song of the Cattle Hunters
While the morning light beams on the fern-matted streams,
And the water-pools flash in its glow,
Down the ridges we fly, with a loud ringing cry --
Down the ridges and gullies we go!
And the cattle we hunt -- they are racing in front,
With a roar like the thunder of waves,
As the beat and the beat of our swift horses' feet
Start the echoes away from their caves!
As the beat and the beat
Of our swift horses' feet
Start the echoes away from their caves!
Like a wintry shore that the waters ride o'er,
All the lowlands are filling with sound;
For swiftly we gain where the herds on the plain,
Like a tempest, are tearing the ground!
And we'll follow them hard to the rails of the yard,
O'er the gulches and mountain-tops grey,
Where the beat and the beat of our swift horses' feet
Will die with the echoes away!
Where the beat and the beat
Of our swift horses' feet
Will die with the echoes away!
poem by Henry Kendall
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On The Plains
Half-lost in film of faintest lawn,
A single star in armour white
Upon the dreamy heights of dawn
Guards dim frontier of the night,
Till plumed ray
And golden spray
Have washed its trembling light away.
The sun has peeped above the blue;
His level lances as they pass
Have shot the dew-drops thro' and thro',
And dashed with rubies all the grass,
And silver sound
Of horse-bells round
Floats softly o'er the jewelled ground.
The sunbeam and the wanton wind,
Among the feathery tufts at play,
Sing to the earth: "The night is blind,
But we will kiss your tears away."
With broad'ning glow
And rippling flow
Adown the laughing leagues they go.
The vagrant lark on wayward winds
Is fluttering low, is floating high;
No Northern trill of rapture rings
Tho' the vast temple of the sky;
But not in vain
Thy southern strain,
Thou brown-winged angel of the plain!
Here, where the days are dull and grey,
And youth has stilled his joyous song,
In fancy yet I love to stray
By creek, and plain, and billabong,
To the curlew's call
And the noiseless fall
Of the unshod hoof 'neath the gum-trees tall.
I hear one more the plovers "peet:"
The grey hawk wheels in dizzy height,
And swift beneath my horse's feet
The brown quail rises in his fright,
And the galahs fly
With pink breasts high,
A rosy cloud in a cloudless sky.
Afar I mark the emu's run;
The bustard slow, in motley clad;
And, basking in his bath of sun,
The brown snake on the cattle-pad,
And the reddish black
Of a dingo's back
As he loit'ring slinks on my horse's track.
And now I watch, with slackened rein,
The scattered cattle, hundreds strong,
As slowly moving home again
The lazy vanguard feeds along
To the waters cool
Of the tree-fringed pool
In the distant creek when the noon is full.
Slip girth and let the old horse graze;
The noon grows heavy on the air.
Kindle the tiny camp-fire's blaze,
And neath the shade, as monarch there,
Take thou thine ease:
For hours like these
A king had bartered satrapies!
Here lie and watch, thro' smoke-wreaths cool,
By yon sunk log and floating wrack,
The emporer of the silent pool,
The stately heron, white and black,
Afar from heat,
Upon his beat,
Knee-deep in shallowy retreat.
O mellow air! O sunny light!
O hope and youth that pass away!
Inscribe in letters of delight
Upon each heart one golden day -
To be there set
When we forget
There is a joy in living yet!
poem by George Essex Evans
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The Visitor
Corvus corax with croaking cries
Why look at me with one black eye?
Your presence here I’d not request
What seek you in black splendidness?
Why perch you there on bended bough
Hid beneath your feathery shroud?
Why stare at me with solemn bent
Why do you croak a dark lament?
Begone! Dark shiny messenger
Sound your dirgeful hymn elsewhere.
But still it perched unmoved in tree
And now both eyes transfixed on me.
Unfolded wings that made no sound
The visitor alight to ground
And plucked an iris growing near
I knew right then its purpose here.
poem by Albert Ahearn
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Into The Void
Im losing power and I dont know why
Not really sure if Ill live or die
I wanna leave but I cant get away
Its a strange sensation
Out of control being by myself
I feel this gravitation
Caught like a magnet and Im being pulled
Into the void
I wanna get away, get away
Into the void
Im being pulled, Im being pulled down
Into the void
This place is spinning, spinning around
Into the void
Fell like Im being pulled into a black hole
This crazy feelings screwing with my head
Im overloading and my gauges are red
State of confusions got ahold on me
I feel a hesitation
Im being (? )drug, pulled out of the track(? )
Dont like the situation
Caught like a magnet and Im being pulled
Into the void
I wanna get away, get away
Into the void
My head is spinning, spinning around round
Into the void
This force is getting, gettin stronger
Into the void
Fell like Im being pulled into a black hole
Into the void
Im being pulled, being pulled down down down
[solo]
Into the void
Dont like this feeling, Im being pulled down
Into the void
I wanna get away, get away
Into the void
Feel like its spinning, spinning around
Into the void
Im being pulled, being pulled down down down
Into the void
Get away, get away
Into the void
Fell like Im being pulled into a black hole
Into the void
song performed by by Kiss
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Burning Ground
And I take you down to the burning ground
And you change me up and you turned it around
In the wind and rain Im gonna see you again
In the morning sun and when the day is done
And you take my hand and you walk with me
Sometimes it feels like eternity
And I turn the tide I get back my pride
And I make you proud wont you say it out loud
When I take you down to the burning ground
To the burning ground, to the burning ground
To the burning ground, to the burning ground
And I take you down by the factory
And I show you like it has to be
And you understand how the work is done
And I pick up the sack in the midday sun
And I pull you through by the skin of your teeth
And I lift the veil, I see whats underneath
And you return to me and you sit on your throne
And you make me feel that Im not alone
And I take you down to the burning ground
To the burning ground, to the burning ground
To the burning ground
Hey man, whats that youre carrying?
Feels like lead
It weighs a ton - lets see if we can dump it by the side of the hill
Hey wait up, why dont you dump it on the burning ground
Dump it down there
Yeh man, dump the jute
Hey man dump the jute on the burning ground
Dump the jute?
Yeh you know, dump the jute
Dump the jute!
On the burning ground
On the burning ground
And you make me think what its all about
Sometimes I know gonna work it out
And I watch you run in the crimson sun
Tear my shirt apart open up my heart
And I watch you run
Down on your bended knees
By the burnt out well
Can you tell me please
Between heaven and hell
Wont you take me down
To the burning ground, to the burning ground
To the burning ground, to the burning ground
And you fall and pray, when you hear that sound
As were walking back to the burial mound
And you shake your head and you turn it around
And you see the flames from the burning ground
And you get down on your knees and pray
And I catch my breath as were running away
And I take the jute and I throw him down
On the burning ground, on the burning ground
On the burning ground, its on the burning ground.....
song performed by by Van Morrison
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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To A Butterfly (2)
I'VE watched you now a full half-hour,
Self-poised upon that yellow flower;
And, little Butterfly! indeed
I know not if you sleep or feed.
How motionless!---not frozen seas
More motionless! and then
What joy awaits you, when the breeze
Hath found you out among the trees,
And calls you forth again !
This plot of orchard-ground is ours;
My trees they are, my Sister's flowers;
Here rest your wing when they are weary;
Here lodge as in a sanctuary!
Come often to us, fear no wrong;
Sit near us on the bough!
We'll talk of sunshine and of song,
And summer days, when we were young;
Sweet childish days, that were as long
As twenty days are now.
poem by William Wordsworth
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Lamp Of Love
Light, oh where is the light?
Kindle it with the burning fire of desire!
There is the lamp but never a flicker of a flame--is such thy fate, my heart?
Ah, death were better by far for thee!
Misery knocks at thy door,
and her message is that thy lord is wakeful,
and he calls thee to the love-tryst through the darkness of night.
The sky is overcast with clouds and the rain is ceaseless.
I know not what this is that stirs in me--I know not its meaning.
A moment's flash of lightning drags down a deeper gloom on my sight,
and my heart gropes for the path to where the music of the night calls me.
Light, oh where is the light!
Kindle it with the burning fire of desire!
It thunders and the wind rushes screaming through the void.
The night is black as a black stone.
Let not the hours pass by in the dark.
Kindle the lamp of love with thy life.
poem by Rabindranath Tagore
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From The Far West
'Tis a song of the Never Never land—
Set to the tune of a scorching gale
On the sandhills red,
When the grasses dead
Loudly rustle, and bow the head
To the breath of its dusty hail:
Where the cattle trample a dusty pad
Across the never-ending plain,
And come and go
With muttering low
In the time when the rivers cease to flow,
And the Drought King holds his reign;
When the fiercest piker who ever turned
With lowered head in defiance proud,
Grown gaunt and weak,
Release doth seek
In vain from the depths of the slimy creek—
His sepulchre and his shroud;
His requiem sung by an insect host,
Born of the pestilential air,
That seethe and swarm
In hideous form
Where the stagnant waters lie thick and warm,
And Fever lurks in his lair:
Where a placid, thirst-provoking lake
Clear in the flashing sunlight lies—
But the stockman knows
No water flows
Where the shifting mirage comes and goes
Like a spectral paradise;
And, crouched in the saltbush' sickly shade,
Murmurs to Heaven a piteous prayer:
‘O God! must I
Prepare to die?'
And, gazing up at the brazen sky,
Reads his death-warrant there.
Gaunt, slinking dingoes snap and snarl,
Watching his slowly-ebbing breath;
Crows are flying,
Hoarsely crying
Burial service o'er the dying—
Foul harbingers of Death.
Full many a man has perished there,
Whose bones gleam white from the waste of sand—
Who left no name
On the scroll of Fame,
Yet died in his tracks, as well became
A son of that desert land.
poem by Barcroft Henry Thomas Boake
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A Parting
The year is on the wing, my love,
With tearful days and nights;
The clouds are on the wing above
With gathering swallow-flights.
The year is on the wing, my sweet,
And in the ghostly race,
With patter of unnumbered feet,
The dead leaves fly apace.
The year is on the wing, and shakes
The last rose from its tree;
And I, whose heart in parting breaks,
Must bid adieu to thee.
poem by Mathilde Blind
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The Drovers
Over the plains of the whitening grass
and the stunted mulga the drovers pass,
and in the red dust cloud, each side
of the cattle, the native stockmen ride.
And day after day lays bare the same
endless plains as the way they came,
and ever the cloven ranges lie
at the end of the land and the opal sky.
With creak of pack and saddle leather,
and chink of chain and bit together,
with moan of the herd with hobble and bell
they come to the tanks at the tea-tree well.
And through corroding blood-red hills
by sanded rivers the Gulf-rain fills,
far, where the morning star has shone
and paled above, their tracks are gone.
poem by Roland Robinson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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