In the Days When the World Was Wide [24]
run, For the squatter wouldn't let you -- and your work was never done; When you had to leave the missus in a lonely hut forlorn While you `rose up Willy Riley' -- in the days ere you were born?
Ah! we read about the drovers and the shearers and the like Till we wonder why such happy and romantic fellows strike. Don't you fancy that the poets ought to give the bush a rest Ere they raise a just rebellion in the over-written West? Where the simple-minded bushman gets a meal and bed and rum Just by riding round reporting phantom flocks that never come; Where the scalper -- never troubled by the `war-whoop of the push' -- Has a quiet little billet -- breeding rabbits in the bush; Where the idle shanty-keeper never fails to make a draw, And the dummy gets his tucker through provisions in the law; Where the labour-agitator -- when the shearers rise in might -- Makes his money sacrificing all his substance for The Right; Where the squatter makes his fortune, and `the seasons rise and fall', And the poor and honest bushman has to suffer for it all; Where the drovers and the shearers and the bushmen and the rest Never reach the Eldorado of the poets of the West.
And you think the bush is purer and that life is better there, But it doesn't seem to pay you like the `squalid street and square'. Pray inform us, City Bushman, where you read, in prose or verse, Of the awful `city urchin who would greet you with a curse'. There are golden hearts in gutters, though their owners lack the fat, And we'll back a teamster's offspring to outswear a city brat. Do you think we're never jolly where the trams and buses rage? Did you hear the gods in chorus when `Ri-tooral' held the stage? Did you catch a ring of sorrow in the city urchin's voice When he yelled for Billy Elton, when he thumped the floor for Royce? Do the bushmen, down on pleasure, miss the everlasting stars When they drink and flirt and so on in the glow of private bars?
You've a down on `trams and buses', or the `roar' of 'em, you said, And the `filthy, dirty attic', where you never toiled for bread. (And about that self-same attic -- Lord! wherever have you been? For the struggling needlewoman mostly keeps her attic clean.) But you'll find it very jolly with the cuff-and-collar push, And the city seems to suit you, while you rave about the bush.
. . . . .
You'll admit that Up-the Country, more especially in drought, Isn't quite the Eldorado that the poets rave about, Yet at times we long to gallop where the reckless bushman rides In the wake of startled brumbies that are flying for their hides; Long to feel the saddle tremble once again between our knees And to hear the stockwhips rattle just like rifles in the trees! Long to feel the bridle-leather tugging strongly in the hand And to feel once more a little like a native of the land. And the ring of bitter feeling in the jingling of our rhymes Isn't suited to the country nor the spirit of the times. Let us go together droving, and returning, if we live, Try to understand each other while we reckon up the div.
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
Ah! we read about the drovers and the shearers and the like Till we wonder why such happy and romantic fellows strike. Don't you fancy that the poets ought to give the bush a rest Ere they raise a just rebellion in the over-written West? Where the simple-minded bushman gets a meal and bed and rum Just by riding round reporting phantom flocks that never come; Where the scalper -- never troubled by the `war-whoop of the push' -- Has a quiet little billet -- breeding rabbits in the bush; Where the idle shanty-keeper never fails to make a draw, And the dummy gets his tucker through provisions in the law; Where the labour-agitator -- when the shearers rise in might -- Makes his money sacrificing all his substance for The Right; Where the squatter makes his fortune, and `the seasons rise and fall', And the poor and honest bushman has to suffer for it all; Where the drovers and the shearers and the bushmen and the rest Never reach the Eldorado of the poets of the West.
And you think the bush is purer and that life is better there, But it doesn't seem to pay you like the `squalid street and square'. Pray inform us, City Bushman, where you read, in prose or verse, Of the awful `city urchin who would greet you with a curse'. There are golden hearts in gutters, though their owners lack the fat, And we'll back a teamster's offspring to outswear a city brat. Do you think we're never jolly where the trams and buses rage? Did you hear the gods in chorus when `Ri-tooral' held the stage? Did you catch a ring of sorrow in the city urchin's voice When he yelled for Billy Elton, when he thumped the floor for Royce? Do the bushmen, down on pleasure, miss the everlasting stars When they drink and flirt and so on in the glow of private bars?
You've a down on `trams and buses', or the `roar' of 'em, you said, And the `filthy, dirty attic', where you never toiled for bread. (And about that self-same attic -- Lord! wherever have you been? For the struggling needlewoman mostly keeps her attic clean.) But you'll find it very jolly with the cuff-and-collar push, And the city seems to suit you, while you rave about the bush.
. . . . .
You'll admit that Up-the Country, more especially in drought, Isn't quite the Eldorado that the poets rave about, Yet at times we long to gallop where the reckless bushman rides In the wake of startled brumbies that are flying for their hides; Long to feel the saddle tremble once again between our knees And to hear the stockwhips rattle just like rifles in the trees! Long to feel the bridle-leather tugging strongly in the hand And to feel once more a little like a native of the land. And the ring of bitter feeling in the jingling of our rhymes Isn't suited to the country nor the spirit of the times. Let us go together droving, and returning, if we live, Try to understand each other while we reckon up the div.
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