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Project Gutenberg Australia HomeReturn to Index of Poems
Sombre and grey in the light of the morning,
Stands the rude hut that they built long ago;
Crumbling to pieces, with rank grass adorning
Garden and lawn and plantation below;
Railless and ant-eaten, leaning and charred,
Stand a few posts of the old cattle-yard.
‘Mid the tall gums in the dawnlight and dark,
Where are the terrors of Gibberagee now?
Bloodwood and blackbutt and stout ironbark,
What do they tell when they whisper and bow
Round the wild camp that was, cattlemen know,
Gibberagee Station long, long years ago?
Here the pioneers fought the brunt of life’s battle—
Sheoaks are wailing below for them still;
Here in the gloaming the low of their cattle
Called the black raiders to plunder and kill.
Boomerangs circled, and rifles replied;
White men and black men lie low where they died.
Hours did they watch when the forest had darkened,
Sitting in turn by the covered-up fire;
Through the lone night for a footfall they hearkened,
Guns to their hands, and encircled with wire.
Mother and daughter, as father and son,
Sentinel stood till the haven was won.
Quiet tho’ the morning, and glowing, it found them
Barred within doors like the steeds in their stalls,
Searching the slopes and the forest around them
Through the spy-holes they had made in the walls.
Still thro’ the wreckage those bored-brands appear,
High on the slabs—and one’s plugged with a spear.
Dearer the afterdays, never forgotten,
Neighbours selected and settled around;
What if their homes are now tumbled and rotten?
Ruins of their labour are litt’ring the ground?
Love and Romance in the wake of their teams,
Came to the bushland to brighten our dreams.
Under the ranges with Death we have gambled,
Over the gullies full gallop we’ve sped;
Through scented myrtle at even we’ve rambled.
Down where the creek and the gully are wed.
There, as the sunset shed amber and gold,
Over the forest, Love’s story was told.
Then in the glen over yonder we tarried,
Chopping a sugar-bag out of a box;
Do you remember the honey we carried
Home in the buckets o’er timber and rocks?
Girl, there are moments I ponder and pore
Over the treasures in Memory’s store.
On the green hillside where summer dews glistened
Pearl-like on discs that the bush spider weaves,
Oft we have cantered; or loitered and listened
Languidly, girl, to the whisper of leaves;
And, o’er the cattle runs, often we two
Chased the wild dog and the grey kangaroo.
Bred in the bush, was the rockhole our chalice,
Baptised in dewdrops and washed in the rain;
Lulled by the magpies and butcher birds—Alice,
Those are the days we would live o’er again;
That was the home in its splendour and pride,
Wild and romantic, for bushman and bride.
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