Classic Poem

Sunrise at Burrinjuck

The Autumn sunrise is slowly gilding
The mountains marking the river's course;
And down by the great grey dam in building
The crane swings round like a weary horse;
And, high on the cable, the " flying foxes " ,
From the cable tower on the rocky height,
Seem to swerve with their swinging boxes,
Like damaged " gents " who've been out all night.

The crushing plant starts with its grinding clatter;
Sand and cement to the " mixers " pour;
And, far below, to a foreign chatter,
The wall of the " spill-way " climbs once more.
And, over the ranges, rough and ridgy,
Old Mounts " Black Andrew " and " Barren Jack "
Are guiding the course of the Murrumbidgee,
As they have guided for ages back.

(The straight road's often the shortest and surest,
The hardest job the easiest task.)
" Lord! give us this day our daily tourist
And strength to feed him! " is half we ask:
" A memory keen for names and faces,
Of passing strangers who pass us by;
Lest we be telling, in lonely places,
The same old tourist a different lie!

" In high or low, or in great or small ways —
In deep or shallow, or narrow or wide —
The same old lie is the safest always,
(Or the same old truth — it is hard to decide!)
It ever has been, to Childhood's glory,
Right down through the ages from Adam's Curse,
The children have stuck to the same old story —
Or fairy tale — is it better or worse?

" It ever shall be, till this Earthly Siege ends —
(We still have faith in the things we do) —
I've told so often the local legends,
That I in my heart believe them true;
And now, to-day, by the North Atlantic,
And North Pacific — and every sea —
Hundreds believe the wild, romantic
Tales I told. — Are they worse for me?

" O I am a guide, and I keep the " Quarters" —
And keep my counsel as good guides do —
I'm the father of favoured sons and daughters
Of all the Wide World — and uncle too.
But I've guided the Generous, on his uppers,
And took no fee (and 'twas not for pride) —
And cut out breakfasts and dinners and suppers. —
Remember that for a Grasping Guide!

" I've guided him down through many a hole in
The flats and gullies and mountain sides,
To caverns greater than famed Jenolan,
And only known to the Guild of Guides;
Not guide and tourist, but Mate and Brother,
Because of the Humour! through hardship won —
And blindly striving to guide each other,
For both had stumbled when guides we'd none. "

On the Launch on the Lake

" We, together, can take our chances —
What matters if we're not home to tea?
Look out for your face! with those swinging branches!
That hill's " Wade Island" that is to be.
See yonder peculiar limestone formation,
Shaped like a point in your " Harbour Fair"! —
A gate to the Caves of Old Creation
Is somewhere under the water there.

" Ah me, if the Army of Guides could rally
From all their " quarters" and all their graves.
We'd go underground to the Goulburn Valley
And under the hills to Jenolan Caves!
We'd scrap the Political Party snail way,
We'd give you " copy", we'd give you thrills;
Why! we'd survey a stra- tegic railway
Right under the Range to the Mudgee Hills!

" Scenery? Look at those hills! Behold!
How each to the rising sun responds;
They were turned from a giant jelly mould,
And dusted with nutmeg and brushed with bronze.
(I was a housepainter once — so it comes.)
The water here seems a thing accursed;
How quickly it rots the mountain gums!
'Tis strange how the she-oak should perish first.

" By that stockyard gallows standing grimly,
A mate of mine milked many a cow;
You can see the top of the old brick chimney;
The homestead's under the water now.
And round by the point in another direction
The tops of the willows scarcely show,
That marked the dam of an old selection —
I knew old Dad in the long ago.

" And, somewhere under us, deep and muddy,
An old hag stuck to her hut till the last,
With hands like talons, and shrieks like — " ruddy" —
Ghost of the Past from out of the Past!
She was there as a year-old wife with a baby
(So says Black Jimmy of Barren Jack)
She was there as the mother of hanged men maybe —
" Keeping the place till the boys come back".

" Hag arms tight folded on breasts long withered,
She shrieked defiance when boats were beached,
And held her humpy while " Statesmen" blithered,
" Returns" were stacked, and the Red Tape bleached.
Eyes of a witch, and grey locks scanty,
She, no doubt, in the Rough Years dead
Often watched from the sly-grog shanty,
When sly grog only would bring her bread.

" She cared nothing for compensation;
( Who my Bushwomen can compensate?)
One of many who bore the nation —
Daughter of Love, and Mother of Hate!
Till a quaint official who left the Bonnie
Hills of Scotland, the world to roam,
Persuaded her he was her long lost " Johnny"
And took her somewhere — no doubt to a " Home".

" (There's a hole in the hill — now under water —
Above Wade Island, across the flat;
And another wife, and another daughter,
And another mother got something for that.
'Twas a " Company" once that looked for copper,
And seemed to fail in their first design;
But they'd saved their " script" — and they fixed things proper,
And they got gold — but not from the " mine".)

" O yes, the branches are tangled, rather,
But she is a motor launch, all right;
I could easily take her five miles farther,
But then, we'd never get home to-night.
But you'll be with us next September;
We'll be twelve feet higher — at lowest ten;
The Goodradigbee you'll see, remember,
And Yass, by water be nearer then. "

" The Passing Stranger's a Statesman weighty,
The passing stranger's a clerkling green,
The passing stranger is eight, or eighty,
Or anything, anyone in between;
The passing stranger is pert and dapper,
Or P.L.L. (and that's quite enough),
The passing stranger's a conscious " flapper"
Who says " It's filthy" and " Let us fluff".

" The passing stranger a mother of care is,
The passing stranger's a Yankee " Star";
The passing stranger's a worried heiress,
Sickened to death of her motor car,
Or a journalist girl with eyes aweary
Of seeing and writing for Party alone,
And reading the " proofs" for the columns dreary
Of the press of the land they call our own.

" The younger son of an Earldom banished
From English homes for the family's sake,
Or the Elder Son, in the days long vanished,
Of one of the old drowned farms in the lake.
But, spy or patrol, in safety or danger —
Right on till the wars of the world shall end —
The passing stranger's a passing stranger,
Though, now and again, he's a passing friend.

" We come of the pick of all countries:
The Chief is English, the Boss a Scot;
The Cook is the best of the Japanese,
" The German" a Socialist — he's red hot.
The butcher's a Frenchman, the baker from Spain,
(The Finn is a Norse — as the War goes now.)
Kofod? — O he is a winking Dane —
And each, to Australia is " Dutch" and a " Cow".

" The " flying foxes" glide in on the cable,
Behind rock buttresses out of sight;
The crane swings back like a horse to the stable,
Too tired to eat or to rest tonight;
The launches fade till they seem like carracks —
The boats like coracles, in between —
And Italy cooks in her foreign barracks
In a scene so like an Italian scene.

" The dam, in the moonlight a ruined palace
Of marble that seems to fade and glow,
Set in the midst of Italian valleys,
Or a palace unfinished ages ago.
Stars in the Lake — and they make us ponder,
Not for ourselves but our Country's sake —
See the great corn cobs on the mantle yonder?
They grew on the bottom of Burrinjuck Lake! "

Morning. The Departure

" And so Good-bye! And write, if you've any
Thoughts to spare for an old guide lone,
Who guided the feet of so very many
And never through life could guide his own.
And when you're back where the great and small are
All in the Universal ruck,
Remember, always, in writing, we all are
Passing Strangers at Burrinjuck. "