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Paroo Harry

Edward S. Sorenson

If you chanced on some far-western run to tarry,
    From round Wanaaring out to Pinnaroo,
You were sure to meet or hear of Paroo Harry,
    Who knocked about that part and loved it, too.
He never heard the siren call of far ways or of towns;
    He liked the narrow range and station work,
A jaunt to Urisino and a trek to Thurloo Downs—
    Though once upon a time he went to Bourke.

O’er the border was to him the Never Never,
    And foreign parts the region of the Frome;
One modest ambit held his life’s endeavor
    And the reedy Paroo River was his home.
When work was scarce he rambled round and round the beaten track,
    Or camped in scrubby bends where rabbits lurk,
But never left the river long before he wandered back—
    Though once upon a time he went to Bourke.

He had seen the trickle o’er the valleys spreading
    In the gladness of the too-infrequent rain;
He had seen it shrink, amid the red sands threading,
    Till it dwindled to a dust patch on the plain.
But lover-like it held him till his locks grew scant and grey,
    It held him spite of duststorms’ sting and murk;
Nor would he ever leave it even for a holiday—
    Though once upon a time he went to Bourke.

Neither kin nor plot of land had Paroo Harry.
    Nor mattered it to him if banks were shut,
For all he owned was just what he could carry
    When slack times sped him from the station hut.
But always he was happy while the river he could roam,
    Where nothing came to bother or to irk.
The Paroo was his mother and his everlasting home—
    Though once upon a time he went to Bourke.

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