En.Citatepedia^®.ro

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
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The Last Muster

All day we had driven the starving sheep to the scrub where the axes ply,
And the weakest had lagged upon weary feet and dropped from the ranks to die;
And the crows Hew up from the rotting heaps and the ewes too weak to stand,
And the fences Haunted red skins like flags, and the dour drought held the land.
And at night as I lay a-dreaming, I woke, and a silver moon
Shone fair on a dancing river and laughed to a broad lagoon,
And the grass turned over the fences and rippled like ripening grain,
And clouds hung low on the hilltops, and earth smelt sweet with the rain.

And in at the open window the lowing of cattle came -
A mob that had never a laggard and never a beast that was lame;
And wethers, a thousand thousand, and ewes with their lambs beside,
Moved over the green flats feeding, spread river to ranges wide.

And horses whinnied below me, and leaning I watched them pass,
Lusty and strong and playful like horses on spring-tide grass
When they whinny one to another, strong-voiced, and a gallop brings
Foam to the Hank, be it only from paddock to stockyard wings.

Slowly they moved in the moon-mist, heads low in the cool night-dew,
Snatching the long bush grasses, breast-high as they wandered through;
Slowly they moved in the moon-mist, and never a horse on the plains
Was red with the gall of the collar or marked with a chafe of the chains.

And behind them a hundred drovers rode slow on their horses white,
All brave with their trappings of silver that Hashed in the silver light;
Buckle and stirrup and bridle, and spurs for their better speed -
Singing behind the cattle like drovers on royal feed.

And I cooeed, and one came over that rode on the nearest wing,
And I called to him, "Ho, there, drover! say, whose is the mob you bring?"
Then he reined his horse by the window, all silver-bitted and shod,
And spoke, and his words rang sadly, "These are the cattle of God!"

So I said to him, "Where are they bound for?" and he raised his hand to the West:
They are bound for the star-fenced pastures on God's own rivers, to rest."
And I asked him "Where did you muster?" and he answered me sadly again,
"From every gully and sandhill, from every valley and plain,

"From the swamps of the green kapunyah, from the reeds at the red creek-side,
From the thickets of twisted mulga, from the clay-pans furrowed and dried,
From the track to the Western goldfields, from the ruts of the Great North Road,
Where the dingoes go and the crows fly low we have gathered the beasts of God."

And I said, "Then has God repented because that He sent no rain?
And has God looked down in His pity on the poor dumb beasts He has slain?"
But the drover turned in his saddle and answered, his eyes in mine,
"Not so; for the beasts were slaughtered by man of his greed's design:

"God gave to them feed and water and pastures so wild and wide
They had fed him a thousand million from here to the ocean side;
But man in his greed came after and fenced them on hill and plain
And cursed the God in His heaven that would not send them His rain;

"And man's be the blame of the bleaching bone and the shame of the rotting hide,
And the pity of lorn lambs crying alone on the wind-swept mountain-side,
Of the weak horse down in his harness, of the bullock dead by the dray,
Of the moan of the thirsty cattle for ever and ever and aye!"

And he spoke to his steed and left me - moved out on the mist it seemed,
And I woke to the red burned acres, and knew that I had but dreamed.

poem by William Henry Ogilvie
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Christmas For Cowboys

Tall in the saddle, we spend christmas day, driving the cattle on the snow
Covered-plains.
All of the good gifts given today, ours is the sky and the wide open range.
Back in the city they have different ways, football and eggnog and christmas
Parades.
Ill take the blanket, Ill take the reins, christmas for cowboys and wide-open
Plains.
A campfire for warmth as we stop for the night, the stars overhead are
Christmas tree lights.
The wind sings a hymn as we bow down to pray, christmas for cowboys and
Wide-open plains.
Tall in the saddle we spend christmas day, driving the cattle on the
Snow-covered plains.
So many gifts have been opened today, ours is the sky and the wide open range.
Its christmas for cowboys and wide open plains.

song performed by by John Denver
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Cuppacumalonga

'Rover, rover, cattle-drover, where go you to-day?'
I go to Cuppacumalomga, fifty miles away;
Over plains where Summer rains have sung a song of glee,
Over hills where laughing rills go seeking for the sea,
I go to Cuppacumalonga, to my brother Bill.
Then come along, ah, come along!
Ah, come to Cuppacumalonga!
Come to Cuppacumalonga Hill!

'Rover, rover, cattle-drover, how do you get there?'
For twenty miles I amble on upon my pony mare,
The walk awhile and talk awhile to country men I know,
Then up to ride a mile beside a team that travels slow,
And last to Cuppacumalonga, riding with a will.
Then come along, ah, come along!
Ah, come to Cuppacumalonga!
Come to Cuppacumalonga Hill!

'Rover, rover, cattle-drover, what do you do then?'
I camp beneath a kurrajong with three good cattle-men;
Then off away at break of day, with strong hands on the reins,
To laugh and sing while mustering the cattle on the plains -
For up to Cuppacumalonga life is jolly still.
Then come along, ah, come along!
Ah, come to Cuppacumalonga!
Come to Cuppacumalonga Hill!

'Rover, rover, cattle-drover, how may I go too?'
I'll saddle up my creamy colt and he shall carry you -
My creamy colt who will not bolt, who does not shy nor kick -
We'll pack the load and take the road and travel very quick.
And if the day brings work or play we'll meet it with a will.
So Hi for Cuppacumalonga!
Come Along, ah, come along!
Ah, come to Cuppacumalonga Hill!

poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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Over the Ranges and Into the West

Let others sing praise of their sea-girted isles,
But give me the bush with its limitless miles;
Then it’s over the ranges and into the West,
To the scenes of wild boyhood; we love them the best.

We’ll ride and we’ll ride from the city afar,
To the plains where the cattle and sheep stations are;
Where stockmen ride hard, and the drover starts forth
On his long, lonely journey ’way up in the North.

When your money is low, and your luck has gone down,
There’s no place so lone as the streets of a town;
There’s nothing but worry, and dread and unrest,
So we’ll over the ranges and into the West.

The drought in the West may spread ruin around,
But the dread drought of life in the city is found;
And I’d far sooner tread on the long dusty way,
Where each one you meet says, “Good day, mate, good day.”

poem by Henry Lawson
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By Hut, Homestead And Shearing Shed,

By hut, homestead and shearing shed,
By railroad, coach and track-
By lonely graves where rest the dead,
Up-Country and Out-Back:
To where beneath the clustered stars
The dreamy plains expand-

My home lies wide a thousand miles
In Never-Never Land.
It lies beyond the farming belt,
Wide wastes of scrub and plain,
A blazing desert in the drought,
A lake-land after rain;
To the skyline sweeps the waving grass,
Or whirls the scorching sand-
A phantom land, a mystic realm!
The Never-Never Land.

Where lone Mount Desolation lies
Mounts Dreadful and Despair-
'Tis lost beneath the rainless skies
In hopeless deserts there;
It spreads nor-west by No-Man's Land
Where clouds are seldom seen
To where the cattle stations lie
Three hundred miles between.

The drovers of the Great Stock Routes
The strange Gulf country Know
Where, travelling from the southern droughts,
The big lean bullocks go;
And camped by night where plains lie wide,
Like some old ocean's bed,
The watchmen in the starlight ride
Round fifteen hundred head.

Lest in the city I forget
True mateship after all,
My water-bag and billy yet
Are hanging on the wall;
And I, to save my soul again,
Would tramp to sunsets grand
With sad-eyed mates across the plain
In Never-Never Land.

poem by Henry Lawson
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Never, Never Land

By hut, homestead and shearing shed,
By railroad, coach and track-
By lonely graves where rest the dead,
Up-Country and Out-Back:
To where beneath the clustered stars
The dreamy plains expand-

My home lies wide a thousand miles
In Never-Never Land.
It lies beyond the farming belt,
Wide wastes of scrub and plain,
A blazing desert in the drought,
A lake-land after rain;
To the skyline sweeps the waving grass,
Or whirls the scorching sand-
A phantom land, a mystic realm!
The Never-Never Land.

Where lone Mount Desolation lies
Mounts Dreadful and Despair-
'Tis lost beneath the rainless skies
In hopeless deserts there;
It spreads nor-west by No-Man's Land
Where clouds are seldom seen
To where the cattle stations lie
Three hundred miles between.

The drovers of the Great Stock Routes
The strange Gulf country Know
Where, travelling from the southern droughts,
The big lean bullocks go;
And camped by night where plains lie wide,
Like some old ocean's bed,
The watchmen in the starlight ride
Round fifteen hundred head.

Lest in the city I forget
True mateship after all,
My water-bag and billy yet
Are hanging on the wall;
And I, to save my soul again,
Would tramp to sunsets grand
With sad-eyed mates across the plain
In Never-Never Land.

poem by Henry Lawson
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Australian Scenery

The Mountains
A land of sombre, silent hills, where mountain cattle go
By twisted tracks, on sidelings deep, where giant gum trees grow
And the wind replies, in the river oaks, to the song of the stream below.
A land where the hills keep watch and ward, silent and wide awake
As those who sit by a dead campfire, and wait for the dawn to break,
Or those who watched by the Holy Cross for the dead Redeemer's sake.

A land where silence lies so deep that sound itself is dead
And a gaunt grey bird, like a homeless soul, drifts, noiseless, overhead
And the world's great story is left untold, and the message is left unsaid.

The Plains
A land as far as the eye can see, where the waving grasses grow
Or the plains are blackened and burnt and bare, where the false mirages go
Like shifting symbols of hope deferred -- land where you never know.
Land of plenty or land of want, where the grey Companions dance,
Feast or famine, or hope or fear, and in all things land of chance,
Where Nature pampers or Nature slays, in her ruthless, red, romance.

And we catch a sound of a fairy's song, as the wind goes whipping by,
Or a scent like incense drifts along from the herbage ripe and dry
-- Or the dust storms dance on their ballroom floor, where the bones of the cattle lie.

poem by Andrew Barton Paterson
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From Loraine

I have seen the plains lying baked and bare,
When drought and famine hold revel there,
And the cattle sink where the rotting shoals
Of the fish float dead in the waterholes.

I have seen the plains when the flood brings down
The leagues of its waters, sullen and brown,
When only the tops of the swaying trees
Mark the creek that wound thro’ the level leas,
And all is a sea to the straining eyes
Save some lonely hut on a distant rise.

I have seen the plains in the mad delight
Of the racing flames in their crimson flight,
When the whip of the wind will not stay or spare,
And woe to the rider who lingers there!

But, O! the plains when their beauty burst
On our wondering eyes as we crossed them first!
When the sun shone bright and a soft wind blew,
And the sky was clear with a fairy hue,
And afar, like an isle in a sea of mist,
Rose a mountain cap, as of amethyst.
And the big-horned cattle, knee-deep in grass,
Wheeled scattered legions to watch us pass,
As we drifted onwards from group to group;
And swift as a bolt came the wild hawk’s swoop,
When the brown quail whirled ’neath our horses’ feet
Or the bronzewing broke from his ground retreat
And the lazy bustard on laggard wing
Out of easy gunshot was loitering;
And for miles around us, at daylight’s close,
The little flock pigeons in coveys rose,
And the squadrons flew, with a gathering force,
Till an army darkened the watercourse.

Thus we crossed the plains to their utmost rim,
To the timbered belts round the mountains grim,
Chain upon chain, to the north and west,
Rose the swelling ridge and the purple crest,
And the gorges hid from the light of God
Where the foot of a white man had never trod.

poem by George Essex Evans
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Ballad Of The Drover

Across the stony ridges,
Across the rolling plain,
Young Harry Dale, the drover,
Comes riding home again.
And well his stock-horse bears him,
And light of heart is he,
And stoutly his old pack-horse
Is trotting by his knee.

Up Queensland way with cattle
He travelled regions vast;
And many months have vanished
Since home-folk saw him last.
He hums a song of someone
He hopes to marry soon;
And hobble-chains and camp-ware
Keep jingling to the tune.

Beyond the hazy dado
Against the lower skies
And yon blue line of ranges
The homestead station lies.
And thitherward the drover
Jogs through the lazy noon,
While hobble-chains and camp-ware
Are jingling to a tune.

An hour has filled the heavens
With storm-clouds inky black;
At times the lightning trickles
Around the drover's track;
But Harry pushes onward,
His horses' strength he tries,
In hope to reach the river
Before the flood shall rise.

The thunder from above him
Goes rolling o'er the plain;
And down on thirsty pastures
In torrents falls the rain.
And every creek and gully
Sends forth its little flood,
Till the river runs a banker,
All stained with yellow mud.

Now Harry speaks to Rover,
The best dog on the plains,
And to his hardy horses,
And strokes their shaggy manes;
`We've breasted bigger rivers
When floods were at their height
Nor shall this gutter stop us
From getting home to-night!'

The thunder growls a warning,
The ghastly lightnings gleam,
As the drover turns his horses
To swim the fatal stream.
But, oh! the flood runs stronger
Than e'er it ran before;
The saddle-horse is failing,
And only half-way o'er!

When flashes next the lightning,
The flood's grey breast is blank,
And a cattle dog and pack-horse
Are struggling up the bank.
But in the lonely homestead
The girl will wait in vain -
He'll never pass the stations
In charge of stock again.

The faithful dog a moment
Sits panting on the bank,
And then swims through the current
To where his master sank.
And round and round in circles
He fights with failing strength,
Till, borne down by the waters,
The old dog sinks at length.

Across the flooded lowlands
And slopes of sodden loam
The pack-horse struggles onward,
To take dumb tidings home.
And mud-stained, wet, and weary,
Through ranges dark goes he;
While hobble-chains and tinware
Are sounding eerily.

The floods are in the ocean,
The stream is clear again,
And now a verdant carpet
Is stretched across the plain.
But someone's eyes are saddened,
And someone's heart still bleeds
In sorrow for the drover
Who sleeps among the reeds.

poem by Henry Lawson
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The Ballad Of The Drover

Across the stony ridges,
Across the rolling plain,
Young Harry Dale, the drover,
Comes riding home again.
And well his stock-horse bears him,
And light of heart is he,
And stoutly his old pack-horse
Is trotting by his knee.

Up Queensland way with cattle
He travelled regions vast;
And many months have vanished
Since home-folk saw him last.
He hums a song of someone
He hopes to marry soon;
And hobble-chains and camp-ware
Keep jingling to the tune.

Beyond the hazy dado
Against the lower skies
And yon blue line of ranges
The homestead station lies.
And thitherward the drover
Jogs through the lazy noon,
While hobble-chains and camp-ware
Are jingling to a tune.

An hour has filled the heavens
With storm-clouds inky black;
At times the lightning trickles
Around the drover's track;
But Harry pushes onward,
His horses' strength he tries,
In hope to reach the river
Before the flood shall rise.

The thunder from above him
Goes rolling o'er the plain;
And down on thirsty pastures
In torrents falls the rain.
And every creek and gully
Sends forth its little flood,
Till the river runs a banker,
All stained with yellow mud.

Now Harry speaks to Rover,
The best dog on the plains,
And to his hardy horses,
And strokes their shaggy manes;
`We've breasted bigger rivers
When floods were at their height
Nor shall this gutter stop us
From getting home to-night!'

The thunder growls a warning,
The ghastly lightnings gleam,
As the drover turns his horses
To swim the fatal stream.
But, oh! the flood runs stronger
Than e'er it ran before;
The saddle-horse is failing,
And only half-way o'er!

When flashes next the lightning,
The flood's grey breast is blank,
And a cattle dog and pack-horse
Are struggling up the bank.
But in the lonely homestead
The girl will wait in vain --
He'll never pass the stations
In charge of stock again.

The faithful dog a moment
Sits panting on the bank,
And then swims through the current
To where his master sank.
And round and round in circles
He fights with failing strength,
Till, borne down by the waters,
The old dog sinks at length.

Across the flooded lowlands
And slopes of sodden loam
The pack-horse struggles onward,
To take dumb tidings home.
And mud-stained, wet, and weary,
Through ranges dark goes he;
While hobble-chains and tinware
Are sounding eerily.

. . . . .

The floods are in the ocean,
The stream is clear again,
And now a verdant carpet
Is stretched across the plain.
But someone's eyes are saddened,
And someone's heart still bleeds
In sorrow for the drover
Who sleeps among the reeds.

poem by Henry Lawson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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From the Gulf

Store cattle from Nelanjie! The mob goes feeding past,
With half-a-mile of sandhill 'twixt the leaders and the last;
The nags that move behind them are the good old Queensland stamp-
Short backs and perfect shoulders that are priceless on a camp;
And these are men that ride them, broad-cheated, tanned, and tall,
The bravest hearts amongst us and the lightest hands of all:
Oh, let them wade in Wonga grass and taste the Wonga dew,
And let them spread, those thousand head-for we've been droving tool

Store cattle from Nelanjie! By half-a-hundred towns,
By northern ranges rough and red, by rolling open downs
By stock-routes brown and burnt and bare, by floodwrapped river-bends,
They've hunted them from gate to gate-the drover has no friends!
But idly they may ride to-day beneath the scorching sun
And let the hungry bullocks try the grass on Wonga run;
No overseer will dog them here to "see the cattle through,"
But they may spread their thousand head-for we've been droving too!

Store cattle from Nelanjie! They've a naked track to steer;
The stockyards at Wodonga are a long way down from here;
The creeks won't run till God knows when, and half the holes are dry;
The tanks are few and far between and water's dear to buy:
There's plenty at the Brolga bore for all his stock and mine-
We'll pass him with a brave God-speed across the Border Line;
And if he goes a five-mile stage and loiters slowly through,
We'll only think the more of him-for we've been droving too I

Store cattle from Nelanjie! They're mute as milkers now;
But yonder grizzled drover, with the care-lines on his brow,
Could tell of merry musters on the big Nelanjie plains,
With blood upon the chestnut's flanks and foam upon the reins;
Could tell of nights upon the road when those same mild-eyed steers
Went ringing round the river bend and through the scrub like spears;
And if his words are rude and rough, we know his words are true,
We know what wild Nelanjies are-and we've been droving too !

Store cattle from Nelanjie! Around the fire at night
They've watched the pine-tree shadows lift before the dancing light;
They've lain awake to listen when the weird bushvoices speak,
And heard the lilting bells go by along the empty creek;
They've spun the yarns of hut and camp, the tales of play and work,
The wondrous tales that gild the road from Normanton to Bourke;
They've told of fortunes foul and fair, of women false and true,
And well we know the songs they've sung-for we've been droving too!

Store cattle from Nelanjie! Their breath is on the breeze;
You hear them tread, a thousand head, in blue-grass to the knees;
The lead is on the netting-fence, the wings are spreading wide,
The lame and laggard scarcely move so slow the drovers ride!
But let them stay and feed to-day for sake of Auld Lang Syne;
They'll never get a chance like this below the Border Iodine;
And if they tread our frontage down, what's that to me or you?
What's ours to fare, by God they'll shared for we've been droving tool

poem by William Henry Ogilvie
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The Maranoa Drovers

The night is dark and stormy, and the sky is clouded o'er;
Our horses we will mount and ride away,
To watch the squatters' cattle through the darkness of the night,
And we'll keep them on the camp till break of day.

For we're going, going, going to Gunnedah so far,
And we'll soon be into sunny New South Wales;
We shall bid farewell to Queensland, with its swampy coolibah
Happy drovers from the sandy Maranoa.

When the fires are burning bright through the darkness of the night,
And the cattle camping quiet, well, I'm sure
That I wish for two o'clock when I call the other watch
This is droving from the sandy Maranoa.

Our beds made on the ground, we are sleeping all so sound
When we're wakened by the distant thunder's roar,
And the lightning's vivid flash, followed by an awful crash
It's rough on drovers from the sandy Maranoa.
We are up at break of day, and we're all soon on the way,
For we always have to go ten miles or more;
It don't do to loaf about, or the squatter will come out
He's strict on drovers from the sandy Maranoa.

We shall soon be on the Moonie, and we'll cross the Barwon, too;
Then we'll be out upon the rolling plains once more;
We'll shout "Hurrah! for old Queensland, with its swampy coolibah,
And the cattle that come off the Maranoa."

poem by Andrew Barton Paterson
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The Cattle-Dog's Death

The Plains lay bare on the homeward route,
And the march was heavy on man and brute;
For the Spirit of Drought was on all the land,
And the white heat danced on the glowing sand.

The best of our cattle-dogs lagged at last,
His strength gave out ere the plains were passed,
And our hearts grew sad when he crept and laid
His languid limbs in the nearest shade.

He saved our lives in the years gone by,
When no one dreamed of the danger nigh,
And the treacherous blacks in the darkness crept
On the silent camp where the drovers slept.

‘The dog is dying,’ a stockman said,
As he knelt and lifted the shaggy head;
‘’Tis a long day’s march ere the run be near,
‘And he’s dying fast; shall we leave him here?’

But the super cried, ‘There’s an answer there!’
As he raised a tuft of the dog’s grey hair;
And, strangely vivid, each man descried
The old spear-mark on the shaggy hide.

We laid a ‘bluey’ and coat across
The camping pack of the lightest horse,
And raised the dog to his deathbed high,
And brought him far ’neath the burning sky.

At the kindly touch of the stockmen rude
His eyes grew human with gratitude;
And though we parched in the heat that fags,
We gave him the last of the water-bags.

The super’s daughter we knew would chide
If we left the dog in the desert wide;
So we brought him far o’er the burning sand
For a parting stroke of her small white hand.

But long ere the station was seen ahead,
His pain was o’er, for the dog was dead
And the folks all knew by our looks of gloom
’Twas a comrade’s corpse that we carried home.

poem by Henry Lawson
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By Momba Tracks

THE hearts of the everlasting-flowers
Shall steal the gold o' the sun
When the winter rains have done their work
And the winter days are done,
And the desert pea shall hue the rocks
By the tracks of Momba run.
The dew shall gleam on the silken webs
That the night-time spider weaves,
And scatter its gems on the saltbush plains
And drip from the homestead eaves,
And the quandong fruit take ruddy fire
In the green of the quandong leaves.
The bees shall saunter from bloom to bloom
And burthen their honey-sacs;
And the drovers ride in the sunset light
On the long, long winding tracks;
But never a man shall pause to pray
By the graves of the Barrier blacks.
Deep dug they lie in the mulga scrub,
These graves of a dwindling race,
Stone-piled and bare, where the windy noons
Swift lights and shadows trace!
And the lone, heaped mound is the only sign
Of a dead man's burial-place.
They passed away like a feeble flame
Before the white man's breath
(Wherever the white man sets his feet
The white man comes with death):
And they lie deep-celled in the moisty mould,
And the wind their requiem saith.

poem by Roderic Quinn
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By the Grey Gulf-water

Far to the Northward there lies a land,
A wonderful land that the winds blow over,
And none may fathom or understand
The charm it holds for the restless rover;
A great grey chaos -- a land half made,
Where endless space is and no life stirreth;
There the soul of a man will recoil afraid
From the sphinx-like visage that Nature weareth.
But old Dame Nature, though scornful, craves
Her dole of death and her share of slaughter;
Many indeed are the nameless graves
Where her victims sleep by the Grey Gulf-water.
Slowly and slowly those grey streams glide,
Drifting along with a languid motion,
Lapping the reed-beds on either side,
Wending their way to the North Ocean.
Grey are the plains where the emus pass
Silent and slow, with their dead demeanour;
Over the dead man's graves the grass
Maybe is waving a trifle greener.
Down in the world where men toil and spin
Dame Nature smiles as man's hand has taught her;
Only the dead men her smiles can win
In the great lone land by the Grey Gulf-water.

For the strength of man is an insect's strength
In the face of that mighty plain and river,
And the life of a man is a moment's length
To the life of the stream that will run for ever.
And so it comes that they take no part
In small world worries; each hardy rover
Rides like a paladin, light of heart,
With the plains around and the blue sky over.
And up in the heavens the brown lark sings
The songs the strange wild land has taught her;
Full of thanksgiving her sweet song rings --
And I wish I were back by the Grey Gulf-water.

poem by Andrew Barton Paterson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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A Dry Savannah

Sun burning the arid safari plains,
Dusty tracks on a dry savannah.
Constant heat, no cool welcome rains,
Inhabited land of the true Afrikaner.

Giraffe, Elephant, Antelope and Lion,
Wandering free, this kingdom's theirs.
Strength and power, with limbs of iron,
One can so easily be taken unawares.

Hunters seek and beasts they perish,
Ivory claimed and illicit money made,
Sadness reigns, these we should cherish,
Skins and tusks, both are an illegal trade.

Veldt of Africa, look at the slain,
Dust rising up as the lorries roll,
Roasting land of the blood red stain,
No protection for them at the waterhole.

Sun burning the arid safari plains,
Dusty tracks on a dry savannah,
Noble creatures roaming these terrains,
Inhabited land of the true Afrikaner.

poem by Ernestine Northover
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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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
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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This Hard Land

Hey there mister can you tell me what happened to the seeds Ive sown
Can you give me a reason sir as to why theyve never grown
Theyve just blown around from town to town
Till theyre back out on these fields
Where they fall from my hand
Back into the dirt of this hard land
Now me and my sister from germantown
We did ride
We made our bed sir from the rock on the mountainside
We been blowin around from town to town
Lookin for a place to stand
Where the sun burst through the cloud
To fall like a circle
Like a circle of fire down on this hard land
Now even the rain it dont come round
It dont come round here no more
And the only sound at nights the wind
Slammin the back porch door
It just stirs you up like it wants to blow you down
Twistin and churnin up the sand
Leavin all them scarecrows lyin face down
Face down in the dirt of this hard land
From a building up on the hill
I can hear a tape deck blastin home on the range
I can see them bar-m choppers
Sweepin low across the plains
Its me and you frank were lookin for lost cattle
Our hooves twistin and churnin up the sand
Were ridin in the whirlwind searchin for lost treasure
Way down south of the rio grande
Were ridin cross that river
In the moonlight
Up onto the banks of this hard land
Hey frank wont ya pack your bags
And meet me tonight down at liberty hall
Just one kiss from you my brother
And well ride until we fall
Well sleep in the fields
Well sleep by the rivers and in the morning
Well make a plan
Well if you cant make it
Stay hard, stay hungry, stay alive
If you can
And meet me in a dream of this hard land

song performed by by Bruce Springsteen
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Never-Never Country

By homestead, hut, and shearing-shed,
By railroad, coach, and track --
By lonely graves of our brave dead,
Up-Country and Out-Back:
To where 'neath glorious the clustered stars
The dreamy plains expand --
My home lies wide a thousand miles
In the Never-Never Land.

It lies beyond the farming belt,
Wide wastes of scrub and plain,
A blazing desert in the drought,
A lake-land after rain;
To the sky-line sweeps the waving grass,
Or whirls the scorching sand --
A phantom land, a mystic land!
The Never-Never Land.

Where lone Mount Desolation lies,
Mounts Dreadful and Despair --
'Tis lost beneath the rainless skies
In hopeless deserts there;
It spreads nor'-west by No-Man's-Land --
Where clouds are seldom seen --
To where the cattle-stations lie
Three hundred miles between.

The drovers of the Great Stock Routes
The strange Gulf country know --
Where, travelling from the southern drought
The big lean bullocks go;
And camped by night where plains lie wide,
Like some old ocean's bed,
The watchmen in the starlight ride
Round fifteen hundred head.

And west of named and numbered days
The shearers walk and ride --
Jack Cornstalk and the Ne'er-do-well
And the grey-beard side by side;
They veil their eyes -- from moon and stars,
And slumber on the sand --
Sad memories steep as years go round
In Never-Never Land.

By lonely huts north-west of Bourke,
Through years of flood and drought,
The best of English black-sheep work
Their own salvation out:
Wild fresh-faced boys grown gaunt and brown --
Stiff-lipped and haggard-eyed --
They live the Dead Past grimly down!
Where boundary-riders ride.

The College Wreck who sank beneath,
Then rose above his shame,
Tramps west in mateship with the man
Who cannot write his name.
'Tis there where on the barren track
No last half-crust's begrudged --
Where saint and sinner, side by side,
Judge not, and are not judged.

Oh rebels to society!
The Outcasts of the West --
Oh hopeless eyes that smile for me,
And broken hearts that jest!
The pluck to face a thousand miles --
The grit to see it through!
The communion perfected! --
And -- I am proud of you!

The Arab to true desert sand,
The Finn to fields of snow,
The Flax-stick turns to Maoriland,
While the seasons come and go;
And this old fact comes home to me --
And will not let me rest --
However barren it may be,
Your own land is the best!

And, lest at ease I should forget
True mateship after all,
My water-bag and billy yet
Are hanging on the wall;
And if my fate should show the sign
I'd tramp to sunsets grand
With gaunt and stern-eyed mates of mine
In the Never-Never Land.

poem by Henry Lawson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Camp Fires of the Past

A thousand, thousand camp fires every night,
in ages gone, would twinkle to the dark
from crest and valley in the rolling bush,
from mulga scrub and mallee scrub, from dunes
of Central sand, from gaps in straggling ranges,
from gibber plains and plains of iron-wood,
through leaves and in the open, from the mangroves
by shore of Carpenteria, from rocks
and beaches of the Bight.....for countless aeons,
a thousand, thousand camp fires burned each night,
and, by the fires, the Old Men told their tales
which held their listeners spellbound.... Every night
among the fires men chanted to the beat
of stick and boomerangs and clap of hands,
or drone-and-boom of didgeridoo, the songs
rising and falling, trailing, quickening,
while eyes gleamed bright, through smoke drift, bodies shone
and dusked in fitful glow amid the shadows.......

poem by Rex Ingamells
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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