60 Classic Australian Poems for Children Read Free Page B

and weedy,
    For townsfolk have no time to grow, they have no time to waste.
    And I somehow rather fancy that I’d like to change with Clancy,
    Like to take a turn at droving where the seasons come and go,
    While he faced the round eternal of the cash-book and the journal—
    But I doubt he’d suit the office, Clancy, of ‘The Overflow.’
    The Bulletin
(Christmas edition), 1889

11
The Days of Cobb & Co.
GM Smith (Steele Grey)
    We have Telephones and Cables
    And Electric Telegraph,
    To flash the news to any point
    In a minute and a half.
    To sum it up what way you will,
    It’s anything but slow;
    It seems a vast improvement
    On the days of Cobb & Co.
    We have Electric trams and Cable trams
    The Motor and the Bike;
    You can get about the country now
    At any speed you like.
    We have railways to the backblocks,
    Where the iron horses go;
    And yet the times were better
    In the days of Cobb & Co.
    There was enterprise and money,
    And any amount of work;
    There was wool and fat stock rolling in
    From the Mitchell Plains and
    Bourke.
    There was merchandise and
    passengers
    To carry to and fro:
    There was life too,
    in Australia,
    In the days of
    Cobb & Co.

    To travel out a thousand miles
    You’d book yourself in town;
    They’d guarantee to pull you through,
    When you paid your money down.
    They travelled then by rough bush tracks,
    Through mountains, bog and snow;
    And deliver you well up to time
    Would good old Cobb & Co.
    They had some splendid drivers,
    Who could handle horses neat,
    To see them work their ribbons on
    Those bush tracks was a treat.
    And they’d get a change of coaches
    Every twenty miles or so;
    And they drove some slashing cattle,
    In the days of Cobb & Co.
    Our progress has been rapid,
    But the days are poorer now,
    Than the days of Jimmy Tyson, and
    Good old Jacky Dow.
    I remember well the sixties,
    And transit then was slow:
    But give to me the golden days,
    The days of Cobb & Co.
    The Days of Cobb & Co. and other verses , 1906

12
The Digger’s Song
Barcroft Henry Boake
    Scrape the bottom of the hole, gather up the stuff,
    Fossick in the crannies, lest you leave a grain behind.
    Just another shovelful and that’ll be enough,
    Now we’ll take it to the bank and see what we can find,
    Give the dish a twirl around,
    Let the water swirl around,
    Gently let it circulate, there’s music in the swish,
    And the tinkle of the gravel,
    As the pebbles quickly travel
    Around in merry circles on the bottom of the dish.
    Ah, if man could only wash his life, if he only could,
    Panning off the evil deeds, keeping but the good,
    What a mighty lot of digger’s dishes would be sold,
    Tho’ I fear the heap of tailings would be greater than the gold,
    Give the dish a twirl around,
    Let the water swirl around,
    Man’s the sport of circumstance however he may wish,
    Fortune, are you there now?
    Answer to my prayer now,
    Drop a half-ounce nugget in the bottom of the dish.
    Gently let the water lap, keep the corners dry,
    That’s about the place the gold’ll generally stay,
    What was that bright particle that just then caught my eye?
    I fear me by the look of things ’twas only yellow clay,
    Just another twirl around,
    Let the water swirl around,
    That’s the way we rob the river of its golden fish,
    What’s that? can’t we snare a one?
    Don’t say that there’s ne’er a one,
    Bah, there’s not a colour in the bottom of the dish!
    The Bulletin , 1891

13
An Exile’s Farewell
Adam Lindsay Gordon
    The ocean heaves around us still
    With long and measured swell,
    The autumn gales our canvas fill,
    Our ship rides smooth and well.
    The broad Atlantic’s bed of foam
    Still breaks against our prow;
    I shed no tears at quitting home,
    Nor will I shed them now!
    Against the bulwarks on the poop
    I lean, and watch the sun
    Behind the red horizon stoop—
    His race is nearly run.
    Those waves will never quench his light,
    O’er