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Among The Gums

Edward S. Sorenson

‘Tis sweet and grand through the green and grey
    To ride in the dawn again,
Down Stockyard Creek where the duckbills play
    And over the spreading plain;
By the gossamer nets that the spider weaves
    In the tussocks and bending broom,
‘Mid the symphonies of the wind-stirred leaves—
                Grey gum-leaves—
    And the scent of the wattle bloom.

From dawn till dusk on the overland,
    To the clinking of bit and bar,
To follow the mobs with the droving band
    And watch them by moon and star.
On the olden tracks where the tramping beeves
    Drift onward from day to day,
To the rustle of grass and the swish of leaves—
                Long gum-leaves—
    And the whisper of winds at play.

The pack-horse jogs through the dancing haze,
    With a tune in his far-borne load,
The camp-fires burn with a cheery blaze
    By the side of the open road,
Where lean men sprawl on the blue-grass sheaves,
    With a laugh, though the day was hard,
And yarn ‘neath the stars and the drooping leaves—
                Sweet gum-leaves—
    Of the run and the shed and yard.

The ‘possums play round the yarran boles
    In the bend of a long lagoon;
The bullfrogs croak in the gilgal holes
    Agleam ‘neath the rising moon;
The swan calls down as his black form cleaves
    Through the mid-air, sweet and clear;
And the crickets croon ‘mong the grass and leaves—
                Dry gum-leaves—
    With the horse-bells tinkling near.

On the saltbush hills and the blacksoil plains,
    Where tough old warriors work,
Or trace the tracks of the camel train
    From the Warri down to Bourke,
Old scenes renew, while a lone heart heaves
    To the bush days’ laughing whirl,
That oft calls back ‘mid the sun-kissed leaves—
                Green gum-leaves—
    The kiss of a bushland girl.

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