60 Classic Australian Poems for Children Read Free Page A

a day!’
    And sheds his vest. For coats no man had need.
    Then Rogan shoves his plate aside
    And sighs, as sated men have sighed,
    At many boards in many climes
    On many other Christmas times.
    â€˜By gum!’ he says, ‘That was a slap-up feed!’

    Then, with his black pipe well alight,
    Old Rogan brings the kids delight
    By telling o’er again his yarns
    Of Christmas tide ’mid English barns
    When he was, long ago, a farmer’s boy.
    His old eyes glisten as he sees
    Half glimpses of old memories,
    Of whitened fields and winter snows,
    And yuletide logs and mistletoes,
    And all that half-forgotten, hallowed joy.
    The children listen, mouths agape,
    And see a land with no escape
    For biting cold and snow and frost—
    A land to all earth’s brightness lost,
    A strange and freakish Christmas land to them.
    But Rogan, with his dim old eyes
    Grown far away and strangely wise
    Talks on; and pauses but to ask
    â€˜Ain’t there a drop more in that cask?’
    And father nods; but Mother says ‘Ahem!’
    The sun slants redly thro’ the gums
    As quietly the evening comes,
    And Rogan gets his old grey mare,
    That matches well his own grey hair,
    And rides away into the setting sun.
    â€˜Ah, well,’ says Dad. ‘I got to say
    I never spent a lazier day.
    We ought to get that top fence wired.’
    â€˜My!’ sighs poor Mum. ‘But I am tired!
    An’ all that washing up still to be done.’
    The Herald , 1931

9
The Circus
CJ Dennis
    Hey, there! Hoop-la! the circus is in town!
    Have you seen the elephant? Have you seen the clown?
    Have you seen the dappled horse gallop round the ring?
    Have you seen the acrobats on the dizzy swing?
    Have you seen the tumbling men tumble up and down?
    Hoop-la! Hoop-la! the circus is in town!
    Hey, there! Hoop-la! Here’s the circus troupe!
    Here’s the educated dog jumping through the hoop.
    See the lady Blondin with the parasol and fan,
    The lad upon the ladder and the india-rubber man.
    See the joyful juggler and the boy who loops the loop.
    Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Here’s the circus troupe!
    A Book for Kids , 1921

10
Clancy of the Overflow
Banjo Paterson
    I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better
    Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan, years ago,
    He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him,
    Just ‘on spec,’ addressed as follows, ‘Clancy, of “The Overflow.”’
    And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected,
    (Which I think the same was written with a thumb-nail dipped in tar)
    â€™Twas his shearing mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it:
    â€˜Clancy’s gone to Queensland droving, and we don’t know where he are.’

    In my wild erratic fancy visions come to me of Clancy
    Gone a-droving ‘down the Cooper’ where the Western drovers go;
    As the stock are slowly stringing, Clancy rides behind them singing,
    For the drover’s life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know.
    And the bush hath friends to meet him and their kindly voices greet him
    In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars,
    And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended,
    And at night the wond’rous glory of the everlasting stars.

    I am sitting in my dingy little office, where a stingy
    Ray of sunlight struggles feebly down between the houses tall,
    And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty city
    Through the open window floating, spreads its foulness over all.
    And in place of lowing cattle, I can hear the fiendish rattle
    Of the tramways and the ’busses making hurry down the street,
    And the language uninviting of the gutter children fighting,
    Comes fitfully and faintly through the ceaseless tramp of feet.
    And the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt me
    As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste,
    With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms