From a score of lonely forest places parties of bushmen are out today searching for the missing air liner, Southern Cloud.

Rugged men and tough men these,
   Men of the lonely ways,
Hard and sturdy as their trees
   Where the timbered ranges raise
Their ragged crests to rake the sky;
   For the call has come again,
As oft it came in the years gone by,
   And the Bush sends forth her men.


Silent men, with eyes alert,
   Tramping the hillside steep,
Where the giant trees at the mountain's skirt
   Their lonely vigil keep;
Fighting their way where the tangled fern
   Covers an ancient track,
Plying the lore that the bushmen learn
   Thro' the lonely years outback.


The men of the forest are out once more,
   Searching early and late.
As they searched thro' many a day before,
   For many a missing mate.
Or a wandering stranger gone astray
   In the land of the towering tree,
That has become for all today
   The land of tragedy.


And, while the task is a task for men,
   Ne'er will they call a stop.
They will tramp the wild bushland again,
   And tramp until they drop,
With never a thought for the hours ill-spared
   From the labor of the day
To the men of the forest whom fate has dared,
   There's nought but to obey.

"Den"
Herald, 25 March 1931, p6