"Siren's Song" (1945)
THERE'S music in the axle box,As it talks beneath the load,
And music in the steel-shod wheel.
As it grinds along the road.
And the wordless song they whisper,
To the jingle of trace and chain,
Brings peace and a quiet contentment,
When you're on the road again. With the dusty town behind you.
Where you met a mate or two,
And swopped a yarn and had a drink,
And thought you were happy too.
"Till one day you heard the music,
Of steel wheels on the spinifex track,
And watched 'till a scrub belt swallowed
A team on the road outback. Then you heard a muted whisper,
As the dust haze drifted from sight,
Like the sound of distant horsebells,
In the calm of a moonless night.
And you saw the wind-swept shadows,
Breathe over the spinifex corn,
As the darkness fled from the ranges,
In the sheen of a frosted morn. Then the town seemed suddenly empty,
And you yearned to be off again,
Where the long miles stretch to the skyline,
Of the sand track across the plain.
With the sound of the axle-box creaking,
And steel wheels grinding the sand,
Through the span of a long day turning
On the road to the hinterland. For the song of Circe in the fable.
Haunting the wanderer's dreams,
Is the song that whispers for ever,
In the swing and sway of the teams.
And the creak of the axle box turning,
To the music of trace and chain,
Brings peace and a quiet contentment
Once you're out on the road again. Peter Graeme. Notes From the Western Australian Newspaper The Western Mail 6 Jul 1945 p. 35.