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The Station Bullock-Dray

Edward S. Sorenson

It’s the dray that’s always wanted where there’s heavy work to do,
    Where the ways are rough and rugged, like itself,
That has blazed the tracks that thread the bush, and crossed some rivers, too;
    It’s the bit of gear that’s never “on the shelf.”
All the slabs we split for building, all the grey grass that we cut
    For the lean days when the horses needed hay,
All the fencing for the paddocks, and the wood for camp and hut,
    Have been carried on the station bullock-dray.

Though it stands out in the open where the handyman decrees,
    And of paint and tar its ancient wheels are bare;
Though it wobbles over rocky hills and bumps a thousand trees,
    It is rarely that it gets a craftsman’s care.
Long it was our trusty storeship, trekking by lone camps and dams,
    And it brought the mails as well from faraway;
But we weren’t in a hurry, and we had no telegrams.
    When our carriage was the station bullock-dray.

It has never tasted aught but grease to speed it to and fro,
    Nor has borne a name upon its battered side,
Since it brought us out to settle here so many years ago,
    When the bush around was trackless, wild and wide.
It is loose in all its bolts and joints, and every bar is bent;
    Its decking’s mostly lost or gone astray:
But there’s naught that jolts and rattles where our bushland days are spent
    That can rough it like the station bullock-dray.

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