Where the gum-trees' long shadows are spearing
The highway's red zone,
There passes athwart the thin clearing
A rider alone.
Head bowed over breast, forehead smitten
By fortune his foe--
So we see, who have read what is written,
The Gordon we know.
No! racing apace, not at canter
We see him to-day.
We hear not the quip or the banter
Of comrades at play.
But slow in his saddle goes leaning
The stockrider sick,
And the thinker who sought for life's meaning
Is tired of the trick.
Around him new lands, but within him
Old fancies, old themes.
No thunder of horse-hoofs could win him
From making of dreams.
Let others sweep past us with chorus,
Exultant of eye.
A hush of grey sunsets comes o'er us
As Gordon goes by.
First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 11 January 1930
The highway's red zone,
There passes athwart the thin clearing
A rider alone.
Head bowed over breast, forehead smitten
By fortune his foe--
So we see, who have read what is written,
The Gordon we know.
No! racing apace, not at canter
We see him to-day.
We hear not the quip or the banter
Of comrades at play.
But slow in his saddle goes leaning
The stockrider sick,
And the thinker who sought for life's meaning
Is tired of the trick.
Around him new lands, but within him
Old fancies, old themes.
No thunder of horse-hoofs could win him
From making of dreams.
Let others sweep past us with chorus,
Exultant of eye.
A hush of grey sunsets comes o'er us
As Gordon goes by.
First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 11 January 1930
