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The Old Bush Home

Edward S. Sorenson

On lone Orara’s banks we knelt,
    To gather the flowers and fern;
Hard by Orara’s stream we dwelt,
    ‘Mid deep woods wild and stern.
And when some faint limn’d ghost appears,
    My fancies fondly roam
Across the gulf of the vanished years,
    Back to that old bush home.

We climbed the rugged stone-girt hills,
    Through bramble and brush and vine,
And midway ‘tween two leaping rills,
    Dear girl, I called you mine!
The air was sweet with myrtle flow’r,
    And somewhere towards the dome,
The bell-birds sang that even hour,
    And blessed the old bush home.

I still can see your love-lit eyes,
    And feel your lips’ caress;
Your brown hair bared to the autumn skies,
    I feel each clinging tress.
Then every sound was sweet to hear,
    From mountain, crag and comb,
The world went well and the skies were clear,
    And dear was the old bush home.

The rude bark roof seemed better then
    Than all your slates or tiles,
Because She came from the haunts of men
    To enchant it with her smiles;
But the autumn sped, and the winter’s frost
    Lay white as Orara’s foam,
And o’er the hills and the vales she cross’t,
    Afar from the old bush home.

Then cross the rails did I watch and hark
    Till I heard the mopokes call;
And the world went awry, the skies grew dark,
    When she came not with the fall;
Tho’ she vowed that morn on Orara’s shore,
    Again in a year she’d come,
The years went by, and she came no more
    To brighten the old bush home.

And sad and alone with a dog for mate,
    At last I rode away,
With a light good-bye, when the day was late,
    And the hills and the vales were grey.
And now, when the restless ghost appears,
    My fancies fondly roam
Across the gulf of the vanished years,
    Back to the old bush home.

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