Classic Poem

O take it from the harness room and from the dust and dirt,
The old side-saddle and the old black riding skirt.
A girl as God had made her, and a Bush girl of the World,
How strongly glowed her brown eyes, how close her black hair curled!
My hand it was her stepping-stone, my heart beneath her knees —
And Granny rode before us with her grey hair in the breeze.

We came from far as Ryan's Rise, from far as Reedy Creek,
And picnicked in the gully at the back of Granite Peak.
The belle was Tottie Johnson and the joker Bentley's Jim,
In hiding in the Ranges with blue paper after him.
We saw young trooper Campbell pass against the sunset red;
His heart was in his girl-wife's grave, his cap-peak square ahead.

We rode to warn and succour and to lie for one who sinned,
And Mother rode before us with her dark hair in the wind;
Because we came of Gypsies and of long and dark descent,
And for because our grandfathers dared English laws in Kent.
And Granny stayed at home and prayed for just one sinner more —
The housemaid at the rectory in Dorset long before.

How strangely and how changefully do memories come to me,
Like raindrops on the hot, white dust, or dust on decks at sea.
They come like sunset islands seen in the afterglow,
Or glimpses of white sunlight in the gully long ago.
The young men dream of futures far more fair than life at home,
The old man dreams of his young days as though they were to come.

And four are left of Gypsy blood — a grey-haired, dark-eyed set;
A sister and three brothers who have never quarrelled yet.
And one is nursing wounded men who fought across the sea,
And one is preaching words of love that are not Romany.
And one in high society has learned how to behave —
But one by stolen candle-light is writing in a cave.

Since Gypsies went a-wandering, and landless folk were they,
They marked the land and shared the land, and hold the land to-day.
Since gallowses of England groaned with the Gypsy best,
And Gypsy mothers sat in stocks all day with brat at breast —
Since English law held Gypsy law as but the law of brute —
The housemaid at the rectory has taught us how to shoot.

" My brothers, oil your Winchesters, and see they work all right,
A hunted man is starving out by Granite Peak to-night. "
This message goes by mulga-wire, with face as black as sin,
This message flies on brumby back, and he half-broken in.
You'll take it from a girl's white hand and tell it to a mate.
(Be sure you bring the preacher, for his saintliness shoots straight.)

The outline of an old grey horse that other eyes would miss —
No trooper's horse could climb the ridge so quietly as this.
The low tones of a sister's voice break clear from yonder tree —
My brothers from the gullies' head are working up to me.
Sharp shots at daybreak in the Gap, the last scene swift and clear.
The break-neck ride adown the spur — and I am dying here.

Two dead men lie by Granite Peak, and troopers more than two;
And, sister, I must say my last and long good-bye to you.
So tell the story to your sons as on through life they push.
And tell the reason, if you like, why we took to the Bush.

And tell of spirits broken by the laws that puppies make,
Nor plague in stock nor blight in crop nor drought on soil could break,
O tell the story of our homes and of Australia's past —
The red tape round our father's neck that strangled him at last.
Red tape or rope — 'twas much the same, but, sister, do not fret,
I shot the son of him who killed our father — Gypsy yet!