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Saw Pit Gully

Edward S. Sorenson

By twilit jungles, where steep spurs ended,
All lonely and wild and strange,
Where songs of waters and birds were blended,
Ran Sawpit Gully through gorges splendid,
Under the Moonbi Range.

There came the teams with their jungle treasure,
Skidding from north and south;
There swung the saws with a rhythmic measure,
And days of labor and days of pleasure
Were ours at the saw pit’s mouth.

Ripping the logs and the planks asunder,
Spitting out jets of dust,
From early morn till the sun went under
The steel fangs humm’d through the rich red plunder,
Torn from the hills august.

The dust made cushions—in bags we stuck it;
Our beds were of feath’ry fern ;
Our dinner bell was a leaky bucket,
We dropped our tools when the waddy struck it,
And carried up “bits to burn.”

We fared full well on a long plank table,
Women and girls and men,
Under a roof with no wall or gable,
And never was better in fact or fable
Than tea in our pint-pots then.

The whispering nights in the firelight found us
Gathered before the camps,
While dingoes howled ‘long the scrubs that bound us,
And here and there in the gloom around us
Twinkled the firefly lamps.

Then a jolly girl did enchantment render
O’er all did those hills enclose;
And five of six did betimes attend her,
For her soft eyes rivalled the bluebell’s splendor.
Her mouth was a fresh red rose.

Some sought her hand ‘neath the starry glory,
And one on a day of rain;
All five at last told the olden story,
And four went forth when the glens were hoary,
Nor came to the camps again.

Ghosts of days that are long gone over,
Passing in dumb review.
At places linger where they discover,
Down the way of the reckless rover
His fairest of heart-flowers grew.

And long they linger on Sawpit Gully,
That only the thunders change,
Where nought is now that can spoil or sully
But phantom saws that at night sound dully
Under the Moonbi Range.

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