Classic Poem

He stumbled up the ridges
With his old cattle-dog;
He took his maul and wedges
From underneath a log —
His wedges, maul and crosscut,
So light to drive and draw;
And he rubbed well with suet
The dew-rust on the saw.

He marked a tree and felled it,
As lone-hand splitters do;
He measured it and cut it —
The cuts were straight and true.
And all day in December,
When dust and heat prevails,
From out the groaning timber
He belted posts and rails.

He'd come across the water;
His thoughts were far away —
His little fair-haired daughter
Was buried yesterday;
And till the sun was setting,
And milk-cows sought the yard,
He worked like one forgetting,
And never worked so hard.

His hope was now a far light
And dim across the seas;
He would have worked by starlight
His aching heart to ease;
But up the dark'ning siding,
Beneath the fading dome,
His eldest son came riding
To take his father home.

The posts and rails are rotten,
And vanished is the plough;
The homestead is forgotten —
The place a — stud farm — now.
And sullen touts are shirking,
Where men, in days gone by,
Died hopeless, but died working ,
When their turn came to die.

I'd rather — O I'd rather,
When weary and way-worn,
My little foreign father
Had died where he was born.
I know not what the curse is;
But I, when daylight fails,
From long years of reverses
Sit splitting posts and rails.