THE OLD PLACE.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1776, 14 June 1913, Page 26

THE OLD PLACE.

5 Miss B. E. Baughan's well-known poem, reprinted f below, tells a story, the pathos of which will appeal to X everyone who knows anything of the heart-breaking 5 struggles of the small selector in tho bad; country. i So the last day's come at Inst, the close of my fifteen year— \ The end of the hope, an' the struggles, an ! messes I've put in f here. 3 All of the shearing's over, the final mustering done— \ Eleven hundred and fifty for the incoming man, near on. ? Over five thousand I drove 'em, mob by mob, down the coast; Eleven-fifty in fifteen year .... it ißn't much of a boast. i Oh, it's a bad old place! Blown o'ut o' your bed half the I nights, s . And in summer the grass burnt shiny an' bare as your hand, on i the heights; * The creek dried up by November, and in May a thundering roar 3 That carries down toll o' your stock to salt 'em whole on tho 4 shore. ? Clcar'd I have,- and I've clear'd an' clear'd, yet everywhere, \ slap in your face, f,' Briar, tauhinu, an' ruin ! God, it's a brute of a place. \ ... An' the house got burnt which I built, myself,'with all tha^t f worry and pride; i Where the Missus was always homesick, and where she took f fever, and died. \ Yes. well! I'm leaving the place. Apples look red on that ? bough. I I set the slips with my own hand. Well, they re the other C man's now. X The breezy bluff; an' the clover that smells so over the land, f Drowning the reek of the rubbish, that plucks the profit out o' \ your hand: ~,,,, \ That bit o' Bush paddock I fall'd myself, an' watched, each J> year, come clean \ (Don't it look fresh in the tawny? A scrap of Old-Country c screen) *. i . \ This air, all healthy with sun an' salt, an' bright with'purity: ' C An' the glossy karakas there, twinkling to the big blue twinky ling sea: ' ' f Av, the broad blue sea beyond, an' the gem-clear cove below, K Where the boat I'll never handle again, sits rocking to and fro: f There's the last look to it all! an* now for the last upon 3 This room, where Hetty was born, an' my Mary died, 'an \ John ... ? Well, I'm leaving the poor old place, and it cuts as keen as a 1 knife; r Tho place that's broken my heart—the place where Ive lived my 1 life. ■