60 Classic Australian Poems for Children Read online

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 which they seem to close,

  To-morrow he will rise as bright

  As he this morning rose.

  How brightly gleams the orb of day

  Across the trackless sea!

  How lightly dance the waves that play

  Like dolphins in our lee!

  The restless waters seem to say,

  In smothered tones to me,

  How many thousand miles away

  My native land must be!

  Speak, Ocean! is my Home the same,

  Now all is new to me?—

  The tropic sky’s resplendent flame,

  The vast expanse of sea?

  Does all around her, yet unchanged,

  The well-known aspect wear?

  Oh! can the leagues that I have ranged

  Have made no difference there?

  * * *

  This version notes that this poem was written ‘in a lady’s album’ by ALG while he was sailing to Australia.

  * * *

  How vivid Recollection’s hand

  Recalls the scene once more!

  I see the same tall poplars stand

  Beside the garden door;

  I see the bird-cage hanging still;

  And where my sister set

  The flowers in the window-sill—

  Can they be living yet?

  Let woman’s nature cherish grief,

  I rarely heave a sigh

  Before emotion takes relief

  In listless apathy;

  While from my pipe the vapours curl

  Towards the evening sky,

  And ’neath my feet the billows whirl

  In dull monotony!

  The sky still wears the crimson streak

  Of Sol’s departing ray,

  Some briny drops are on my cheek,

  ’Tis but the salt sea spray!

  Then let our barque the ocean roam,

  Our keel the billows plough;

  I shed no tears at quitting home,

  Nor will I shed them now!

  Poems of Adam Lindsay Gordon, 1913

  14

  Freedom on the Wallaby

  Henry Lawson

  Australia’s a big country

  An’ Freedom’s humping bluey,

  An’ Freedom’s on the wallaby

  Oh! don’t you hear ’er cooey?

  She’s just begun to boomerang,

  She’ll knock the tyrants silly,

  She’s goin’ to light another fire

  And boil another billy.

  Our fathers toiled for bitter bread

  While loafers thrived beside ’em,

  But food to eat and clothes to wear,

  Their native land denied ’em.

  An’ so they left their native land

  In spite of their devotion,

  An’ so they come, or if they stole,

  Were sent across the ocean.

  Then Freedom couldn’t stand the glare

  O’ Royalty’s regalia,

  She left the loafers where they were,

  An’ came out to Australia.

  But
now across the mighty main

  The chains have come ter bind her,

  She little thought to see again

  The wrongs she left behind her.

  Our parents toiled to make a home,

  Hard grubbin’ ’twas an’ clearin’,

  They wasn’t crowded much with lords

  When they was pioneerin’.

  But now that we have made the land

  A garden full of promise,

  Old Greed must crook ’is dirty hand

  And come ter take it from us.

  * * *

  This poem was written for The Worker, the monthly official journal of the Federated Workers of Queensland.

  * * *

  So we must fly a rebel flag,

  As others did before us,

  And we must sing a rebel song

  And join in rebel chorus.

  We’ll make the tyrants feel the sting

  O’ those that they would throttle;

  They needn’t say the fault is ours

  If blood should stain the wattle!

  The Worker, 1891

  15

  Fur and Feathers

  Banjo Paterson

  The Emus formed a football team

  Up Walgett way;

  Their dark-brown sweaters were a dream

  But kangaroos would sit and scream

  To watch them play.

  ‘Now, butterfingers,’ they would call,

  And such-like names;

  The emus couldn’t hold the ball

  —They had no hands—but hands aren’t all

  In football games.

  A match against the kangaroos

  They played one day.

  The kangaroos were forced to choose

  Some wallabies and wallaroos

  That played in grey.

  The rules that in the West prevail

  Would shock the town;

  For when a kangaroo set sail

  An emu jumped upon his tail

  And fetched him down.

  A whistler duck as referee

  Was not admired.

  He whistled so incessantly

  The teams rebelled, and up a tree

  He soon retired.

  The old marsupial captain said,

  ‘It’s do or die!’

  So down the ground like fire he fled

  And leaped above an emu’s head

  And scored a try.

  Then shouting, ‘Keep it on the toes!’

  The emus came.

  Fierce as the flooded Bogan flows

  They laid their foemen out in rows

  And saved the game.

  On native pear and Darling pea

  They dined that night:

  But one man was an absentee:

  The whistler duck—their referee—

  Had taken flight.

  The Animals Noah Forgot, 1933

  16

  The Geebung Polo Club

  Banjo Paterson

  It was somewhere up the country, in a land of rock and scrub,

  That they formed an institution called the Geebung Polo Club.

  They were long and wiry natives from the rugged mountain side,

  And the horse was never saddled that the Geebungs couldn’t ride;

  But their style of playing polo was irregular and rash—

  They had mighty little science, but a mighty lot of dash:

  And they played on mountain ponies that were muscular and strong,

  Though their coats were quite unpolished, and their manes and tails were long.

  And they used to train those ponies wheeling cattle in the scrub,

  They were demons, were the members of the Geebung Polo Club.

  It was somewhere down the country, in a city’s smoke and steam,

  That a polo club existed, called ‘The Cuff and Collar Team’.

  As a social institution ’twas a marvellous success,

  For the members were distinguished by exclusiveness and dress.

  They had natty little ponies that were nice, and smooth, and sleek,

  For their cultivated owners only rode ’em once a week.

  So they started up the country in pursuit of sport and fame,

  For they meant to show the Geebungs how they ought to play the game;

  And they took their valets with them—just to give their boots a rub

  Ere they started operations on the Geebung Polo Club.

  Now my readers can imagine how the contest ebbed and flowed,

  When the Geebung boys got going it was time to clear the road;

  And the game was so terrific that ere half the time was gone

  A spectator’s leg was broken—just from merely looking on.

  For they waddied one another till the plain was strewn with dead,

  While the score was kept so even that they neither got ahead.

  And the Cuff and Collar Captain, when he tumbled off to die,

  Was the last surviving player—so the game was called a tie.

  Then the Captain of the Geebungs raised him slowly from the ground,

  Though his wounds were mostly mortal, yet he fiercely gazed around;

  There was no one to oppose him—all the rest were in a trance,

  So he scrambled on his pony for his last expiring chance,

  For he meant to make an effort to get victory to his side;

  So he struck at goal—and missed it—then he tumbled off and died.

  By the old Campaspe River, where the breezes shake the grass,

  There’s a row of little gravestones that the stockmen never pass,

  For they bear a crude inscription saying, ‘Stranger, drop a tear,

  For the Cuff and Collar players and the Geebung boys lie here.’

  And on misty moonlit evenings, while the dingoes howl around,

  You can see their shadows flitting down that phantom polo ground;

  You can hear the loud collisions as the flying players meet,

  And the rattle of the mallets, and the rush of ponies’ feet,

  Till the terrified spectator rides like blazes to the pub—

  He’s been haunted by the spectres of the

  Geebung Polo Club.

  The Antipodean, 1893

  17

  Going to School

  CJ Dennis

  Did you see them pass to-day, Billy, Kate and Robin,

  All astride upon the back of old grey Dobbin?

  Jigging, jogging off to school, down the dusty track—

  What must Dobbin think of it—three upon his back?

  Robin at the bridle-rein, in the middle Kate,

  Billy holding on behind, his legs out straight.

  Now they’re coming back from school, jig, jog, jig.

  See them at the corner where the gums grow big;

  Dobbin flicking off the flies and blinking at the sun—

  Having three upon his back he thinks is splendid fun:

  Robin at the bridle-rein, in the middle Kate,

  Little Billy up behind, his legs out straight.

  A Book for Kids, 1921

  18

  Hist!

  CJ Dennis

  Hist! ……. Hark!

  The night is very dark,

  And we’ve to go a mile or so

  Across the Possum Park.

  Step ……. light,

  Keeping to the right;

  If we delay, and lose our way,

  We’ll be out half the night.

  The clouds are low and gloomy. Oh!

  It’s just begun to mist!

  We haven’t any overcoats

  And—Hist! ……. Hist!

  (Mo ……. poke!)

  Who was that that spoke?

  This is not a fitting spot

  To make a silly joke.

  Dear ……. me!

  A mopoke in a tree!

  It jarred me so, I didn’t know

  Whatever it could be.

  But come along; c
reep along;

  Soon we shall be missed.

  They’ll get a scare and wonder where

  We—Hush! ……. Hist!

  Ssh! ……. Soft!

  I’ve told you oft and oft

  We should not stray so far away

  Without a moon aloft.

  Oo! ……. Scat!

  Goodness! What was that?

  Upon my word, it’s quite absurd,

  It’s only just a cat.

  But come along; haste along;

  Soon we’ll have to rush,

  Or we’ll be late and find the gate

  Is—Hist! ……. Hush!

  (Kok! ……. Korrock!)

  Oh! I’ve had a shock!

  I hope and trust it’s only just

  A frog behind a rock.

  Shoo! ……. Shoo!

  We’ve had enough of you;

  Scaring folk just for a joke

  Is not the thing to do.

  But come along, slip along—

  Isn’t it a lark

  Just to roam so far from home

  On—Hist! ……. Hark!

  Look! ……. See!

  Shining through the tree,

  The window-light is glowing bright

  To welcome you and me.

  Shout! ……. Shout!

  There’s someone round about,

  And through the door I see some more

  And supper all laid out.

  Now, run! Run! Run! …

  Oh, we’ve had such splendid fun—

  Through the park in the dark,

  As brave as anyone.

  Laughed, we did, and chaffed, we did,

  And whistled all the way,

  And we’re home again! Home again!