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Project Gutenberg Australia HomeReturn to Index of Poems
O’er the tracks and round the shanty grass is growing,
It is little like this place we used to know;
White and silent stands the ghost-like naked tree,
Where the ring of axes echoed years ago;
Whilst a bleaker wind is blowing,
And the creek no longer flowing
Round the dear old wooded hills of Bimboree.
Merry were the days, remembered long years after,
That we spent among the settlers from the south,
When they tapped the kegs in camp where all was glee.
With a cheerful “here’s to ‘ee” in every mouth;
When each knotty boxwood rafter
Shook again with hearty laughter
That surprised the cockatoos on Bimboree.
There was poor old Jimmy Baxter from the Bogan,
Ever working with his bullock team and slide,
Payne, the “slasher,” who was mostly on the spree,
Yet the best of axemen from the Lachlan side;
And the dandy Johnny Rogan,
Who was after Kitty Logan,
Then the sweetest little girl on Bimboree.
She was always in the front rank at the muster,
When we’d shoot the brumbies ‘cross to Buckland’s yard;
In that dingo hunt, with habit flowing free,
‘Twas a race ‘twixt her and Bill, the “Reckless card,”
When he got his fatal buster
Where the honeysuckles cluster—
He’s been buried many years on Bimboree.
Oh, the jolly nights we spent among the ridges,
With the crack of rifles sounding far and near,
When old Dash, the dog, oft scented game for three,
Till the Southern Cross would turn and disappear,
Blazing oft among the gidgees,
By the myalls’ gibber bridges,
Till the coo-ee rang for home on Bimboree.
Working hard it was from first thing in the morning,
Splitting posts and rails to fence the paddocks in,
Working till there was no longer light to see,
Then the order was, “Let’s go in, boys, and win!”
Oh, the dances none were scorning
With the gay bush girls adorning
Then the many little huts of Bimboree.
Round the water holes that watered then the cattle,
Are the bones and hide and horns of Baxter’s team;
In the Never-Never country too is he;
Also Jack, who drowned himself at Logan’s stream.
Welcome men in peace, or battle,
Who could make the ranges rattle,
And rough-shod they crossed the bar at Bimboree.
All the traces of our Kitty now are hidden—
She’s a stout and hearty dame at Dandenong;
And Bill Buckland went, they say, to Kimberley.
As for Payne—why, none knows what with him went wrong;
From the shanty he had ridden,
Tho’ to none “good-byes” had bidden,
And was never seen again on Bimboree.
Look upon the desert, comrade; time is flying,
While we’re building up our castles but to fall;
We but toil to live, and live but death to dree.
So our energies are wasted after all:
E’en the timber that is lying
On the ground here dead and dying,
Speaks of wasted sweat and strength on Bimboree.
All the labour that we spent, despite the pleasure
We might just as well have stored in settled climes;
We can claim not of the harvest when it be,
E’en a portion for the moil of olden times;
Nor will they these blocks who measure
For themselves the memory treasure
Of the brave and pioneers of Bimboree.
Even for each little trifle that we’re fighting,
We can claim no more than we can claim the sky;
Men are struggling now for home as struggled we.
Tho’ those homes will be another’s by and by;
Youth to-day its troth is plighting
While the souls of age are blighting
So it happened long ago on Bimboree.
When our ears are deaf to this worlds idle chatter,
Blind will be our eye to spots now dear to us;
Stanch all sordid cravings, then, and happy be,
It is only want that causes all the fuss,
For to whom it falls no matter,
Whether tyrant, god, or hatter,
We have had our day who named it Bimboree.
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