The Old Australian Ways
The London lights are far abeamBehind a bank of cloud,Along the shore the gaslights gleam,The gale is piping loud;And down the Channel, groping blind,We drive her through the hazeTowards the land we left behind—The good old land of ‘never mind’,And old Australian ways.
The narrow ways of English folkAre not for such as we;They bear the long-accustomed yokeOf staid conservancy:But all our roads are new and strange,And through our blood there runsThe vagabonding love of changeThat drove us westward of the rangeAnd westward of the suns.
The city folk go to and froBehind a prison’s bars,They never feel the breezes blowAnd never see the stars;They never hear in blossomed treesThe music low and sweetOf wild birds making melodies,Nor catch the little laughing breezeThat whispers in the wheat.
Our fathers came of roving stockThat could not fixed abide:And we have followed field and flockSince e’er we learnt to ride;By miner’s camp and shearing shed,In land of heat and drought,We followed where our fortunes led,With fortune always on aheadAnd always further out.
The wind is in the barley-grass,The wattles are in bloom;The breezes greet us as they passWith honey-sweet perfume;The parakeets go screaming byWith flash of golden wing,And from the swamp the wild-ducks cryTheir long-drawn note of revelry,Rejoicing at the Spring.
So throw the weary pen asideAnd let the papers rest,For we must saddle up and rideTowards the blue hill’s breast;And we must travel far and fastAcross their rugged maze,To find the Spring of Youth at last,And call back from the buried pastThe old Australian ways.
When Clancy took the drover’s trackIn years of long ago,He drifted to the outer backBeyond the Overflow;By rolling plain and rocky shelf,With stockwhip in his hand,He reached at last, oh lucky elf,The Town of Come-and-help-yourselfIn Rough-and-ready Land.
And if it be that you would knowThe tracks he used to ride,Then you must saddle up and goBeyond the Queensland side—Beyond the reach of rule or law,To ride the long day through,In Nature’s homestead—filled with aweYou then might see what Clancy sawAnd know what Clancy knew.