New Country by Mary Hannay Foott

Conde had come with us all the way --
   Eight hundred miles -- but the fortnight's rest
Made him fresh as a youngster, the sturdy bay!
   And Lurline was looking her very best.

Weary and footsore, the cattle strayed
   'Mid the silvery saltbush well content;
Where the creeks lay cool 'neath the gidya's shade
   The stock-horses clustered, travel-spent.

In the bright spring morning we left them all --
   Camp, and cattle, and white, and black --
And rode for the Range's westward fall,
   Where the dingo's trail was the only track.

Slow through the clay-pans, wet to the knee,
   With the cane-grass rustling overhead;
Swift o'er the plains with never a tree;
   Up the cliffs by a torrent's bed.

Bridle on arm for a mile or more
   We toiled, ere we reached Bindanna's verge
And saw -- as one sees a far-off shore --
   The blue hills bounding the forest surge.

An ocean of trees, by the west wind stirred,
   Rolled, ever rolled, to the great cliff's base;
And its sound like the noise of waves was heard
   'Mid the rocks and the caves of that lonely place.

     .    .    .    .    .

We recked not of wealth in stream or soil
   As we heard on the heights the breezes sing;
We felt no longer our travel-toil;
   We feared no more what the years might bring.

First published in The Bookfellow, 27 April 1899;
and later in
An Anthology of Australian Verse edited by Bertram Stevens, 1907;
The Golden Treasury of Australian Verse edited by Bertram Stevens, 1909;
A Treasury of Colonial Poetry, 1982;
An Australian Treasury of Popular Verse edited by Jim Haynes, 2002; and
Two Centuries of Australian Poetry edited by Kathrine Bell, 2007.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Old Qld Poetry

See also.