Song of the Old Bushman (1922)
Old age is trying hard to get a Nelson
full on me,
And little imps are driving spikes in
shoulder blade and knee;
But still my soul is young enough to
sit a right good hack,
And many a time it rolls the swag and
starts upon the track.
From far Cape York to Albany,
From Sydney town to Broome
From Adelaide to Moreton Bay,
From Perth to old Taroom.
I'd like to go a-droving--would they
take me now as cook.
To lift from anywhere at all and land
In Muswellbrook ?
I'd like to be in Queensland when the
western sheds commence,
I'd like to sink a well or two and run
just one more fence.
From Darwin down to Wyalong,
From Dardanup to Nhill,
From Marble Bar to Humpybong
By way of Broken Hill.
The young lads now are just the same
as young lads long ago;
But if the distant fields are green, the
distant times are so.
At shaker or on windlass, as I watch
the merry crew,
I'm battling with the horses in the
early days of Cue.
From Southern Cross to Margaret,
From Yalgoo to the Peak;
From Mount Black (have they
found it yet?)
To dawn by Wilson's Creek.
Although I hate to think it, I'm afraid
when next I roam
I'll be rolling up the bluey for the Old
Men's Home,
But even so till age has got a strangle
hold on me.
In fancy I'll be roving in the days that
used to be
Through Brigalow and Mulga land
And rivers swollen wide,
By saltbush spinifex and sand
Towards the Great Divide.
D.B.G.
Notes
From the Perth Newspaper the Sunday Times 19 March 1922 p. 17.