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Battler’s Progress

Edward S. Sorenson

When first I met old Battling Bill,
    Out on the trade to Faraway,
Afoot he trudged, and on his back
He bore the rover’s heavy pack;
All that concerned him was to fill,
    His tucker bags from day to day.

When next I met him, making out
    To western huts and shearing sheds,
He had a sturdy hack to ride,
A pack horse jogging by his side,
Then grass was what he talked about,
    And water for his quadrupeds.

When next the battler crossed my track
    He had no time for plodders slow;
For in a gig, an envied bloke,
He sat serenely puffing smoke,
And carried feed for ways outback,
    Where feed through drought had ceased to grow.

When once again I met old Bill
    He’d had a rise; he drove a car!
A real old flivver, yet ‘twas grand
To see him chugging down the land,
With roll and bump o’er plain and hill,
    A new-born swell from Gwabegar.

But now the drovers passed him by,
    Since naught he knew of grass or soil;
And scores of old familiar camps
Saw but the flash of passing lamps;
His studies centred, wet or dry,
    In places where he’d get some oil.

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