Poetry.

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 50, 10 March 1894, Page 3

Poetry.

THE STOCKMAN. Lift me up in the bunk, mate, there’s the '' sound of wind in my ears — Pull the sacking away from the window and let me look out on the trees; You| tell me it’s only a month —but it might • be a half-dozen years Since I was out there in the open, in the sun and the mist and the breeze. Ph ? What wouldn’t I give to be back at the old life again, With its busy unrest and excitement, and fatigue that was never a pain ; Once more to be out in the dawn when the mist by the river hangs white Before the sun searches the paddocks, and the scent of the wattles is light! Bo you remember the days, old mate, that we spent on the Lachlan together— You and 1 and Dick Murray, in the stringy - bark hut on the boundary ? Ah, those were glorious times when the press of the work had begun i’rom daylight to dark on the rounds in the saddle, regardless of weather. Long years ago was that time, do you say ? Never mind ; yet it’s true. Long enough now, too, it seems since last in the yards I was standing. In the thick of the dust and the rush, with Joe Harper and Jackson and you, Taking my share with the rest of the work at roping and branding. Yon remember the colt that I got in the swap for the grey with Ned Mastiou, The stockman from over the ranges ? That wasn’t a horse to fo v get. Never once in his life did he fail me—he might have been with me yet, JBut he dropt on the track in the Salt Plains, on the way to the boss’s new station, That year when the dingoes were thick, and poor Dick used to shoot them by night. What a light-hearted youngster he was, with his laughter and rollicking fun ! What a chap, too, he was in the stockyard, or heading a break from a mob—■ There wasn’t a neater hand with the whip among all the lads on the run. Poor little red-headed Dick! the first of our number to go, While there’s many an idle loafer left. Well, perhaps it was better so ; I’d rather be able to think of him as the bright, good-hearted lad

Than run the risk of his shaping queer or going to the bad. “ A short life and a merry, for me,” Tom Jackson used to say ; 13 ut it soems to me there are better things, tho’ we didn’t see them then ;

And to live like a horse or dog', alone in the present day, Without a thought or a wish beyond, is a poor sort of life for men. Often at night, when the moon is clear, and the ’possums play on the roof, I hear the sigh of the wind through the gumleaves overhead, And the dull, monotonous thud of your horse’s hobbled hoof, And sometimes the shriek of a bird from the distant water-shed. And many a time lying here, alone in the hut all day When you are off with the dogs, and no human soul is near, I watch through the chinks in the slabs the mobs on the Hat, far away, Till the air seems filled with sounds from the past, and voices I used to hear. And then in a kind of a day-dream I see it all over again— The steep, stony range to the north, in front the low, wide-stretching plain. The dull fringe of sombre green scimb that marks where the water-course lies, And away to the right in the distance the roofs of the old homestead rise ; And before us the empty water-holes, and the withered, sunburnt grass, And the grey old crags in the Gap resound once more to our horses’ tramp ; While the red dust rises thick on the bridletrack as we pass In the light of the early morning, away to the distant cattle camp. You remember that awkward pinch where we always watched for a break From the bead of the gully back to the hills, that the mobs were safe to make ? Many a time have we steadied them there, while our horses twist and wheel With the wild-eyed cattle in front and the wary dogs at heel; And the quick beat, beat of the galloping fact and the rumbling roar as the masses pour Down the narrow track to the level below, then the stockwhips crack and away we go ; You and Dick and Harper are leading, I m the rear with Teddy Lee— Ah ! in that time the hardest day was a short one and easy for you and me ! You’ve been a faithful friend, old mate, in sunshine and storm and rain, Good luck and bad ; but it won’t be long till you’re left in the hut alone. And who but yourself will care a rap when I’m lying beneath the sod ? Why, it’s twenty years this very month since I last had news from Home. Ah, well, they all think me dead; and so I am—dead to them. A little sooner or later, what does it matter at last ? It’s easy to see, looking back, what a muddle I made of my life— What a miserable wreck—but it’s over now ; the time for mending is past. I had my chance and I lost it, like many another fool, And for all the good I missed thro’ life, I’ve only myself to blame. it’s likely enough, if I had my wish and could live it all over again, In spite of the bitter lesson I’ve learnt, the end would be still the same. Have I been dreaming ? The night must ho here, for the place seems growing dark. I hear, coming over the creek at the ford, the wheels of the ration cart ; I think I shall sleep tills night somehow with no weary watching for morn ; Lay me back on the blankets, mate ; I shall waken with the dawn.