The Darling at Bourke is 16ft. above summer level, and still rising.---News item from Outback.
The squatters down its winding course
Will watch the rising flood,
And Optimism's tingling force
Is surging through their blood.
For should the stream its volume lack
To bear the golden bales,
The wool that counts for all Outback
Will miss the London sales!
The woodmen and the watermen,
And all the old brigade,
Will seek the Trickle once again --
The Trickle that is Trade!
The lonely swagmen in the bends
The whalers' tracks will shirk,
And claim the skippers as their friends,
For Bourke is always --- Bourke!
The message of a thousand miles
Is in that yellow mud,
Symbolical of Nature's smiles
(The Fortune of the Flood!).
The crazy little river craft
Will waken from their sleep,
And, like Titanic imps of Graft,
Go threshing down the deep!
Once more the eagle, high above
Against the vault of blue,
Will see the sailor-men make love
To Jenny Jamberoo!
And Hebe of the River's Arms
(Who long since smiled for me)
Will show once more her olden charms ---
Red lips and lingerie!
For Jack he is a sailor, though
The heaving deep he sails
Is where the Northern Waters flow
Through Sunset New South Wales!
The same old voices call to him,
The name old passions leap
As where the flattened fishes swim
A hundred fathoms deep!
For I have waited for the Rise
And idled in the bars
Of Bourke --- and heard the bo'sun's lies
Beneath the Desert Stars!
And I have waited for the wire
From sleepy Walgett town:
"The Barwon and the McIntyre
In flood are coming down."
The coach goes rocking through the dust --
Its old romance is dead
(Its driver never paints "a bust"
A thousand miles ahead!);
For all the waters of the North
Shall take the cargoes South,
And, like lorn lovers, hasten forth
To kiss the Harbor's mouth!
I wish that I could tread the decks
And hear the captain swear
At eerie hypothetic wrecks,
That ancient mariner!
I feel inclined to leave my den
And sail in quest of work --
For all the sirens call me when
The River's Up at Bourke!
First published in The Bulletin, 4 November 1909
Author: Robert John Cassidy (1880-1948) was born in Coolac in New South Wales, and was, for a time, editor of the Broken Hill newspaper Sport. He wrote one novel and published the bulk of his poetry in The Bulletin. He died in 1948.
Author reference site: Austlit
The squatters down its winding course
Will watch the rising flood,
And Optimism's tingling force
Is surging through their blood.
For should the stream its volume lack
To bear the golden bales,
The wool that counts for all Outback
Will miss the London sales!
The woodmen and the watermen,
And all the old brigade,
Will seek the Trickle once again --
The Trickle that is Trade!
The lonely swagmen in the bends
The whalers' tracks will shirk,
And claim the skippers as their friends,
For Bourke is always --- Bourke!
The message of a thousand miles
Is in that yellow mud,
Symbolical of Nature's smiles
(The Fortune of the Flood!).
The crazy little river craft
Will waken from their sleep,
And, like Titanic imps of Graft,
Go threshing down the deep!
Once more the eagle, high above
Against the vault of blue,
Will see the sailor-men make love
To Jenny Jamberoo!
And Hebe of the River's Arms
(Who long since smiled for me)
Will show once more her olden charms ---
Red lips and lingerie!
For Jack he is a sailor, though
The heaving deep he sails
Is where the Northern Waters flow
Through Sunset New South Wales!
The same old voices call to him,
The name old passions leap
As where the flattened fishes swim
A hundred fathoms deep!
For I have waited for the Rise
And idled in the bars
Of Bourke --- and heard the bo'sun's lies
Beneath the Desert Stars!
And I have waited for the wire
From sleepy Walgett town:
"The Barwon and the McIntyre
In flood are coming down."
The coach goes rocking through the dust --
Its old romance is dead
(Its driver never paints "a bust"
A thousand miles ahead!);
For all the waters of the North
Shall take the cargoes South,
And, like lorn lovers, hasten forth
To kiss the Harbor's mouth!
I wish that I could tread the decks
And hear the captain swear
At eerie hypothetic wrecks,
That ancient mariner!
I feel inclined to leave my den
And sail in quest of work --
For all the sirens call me when
The River's Up at Bourke!
First published in The Bulletin, 4 November 1909
Author: Robert John Cassidy (1880-1948) was born in Coolac in New South Wales, and was, for a time, editor of the Broken Hill newspaper Sport. He wrote one novel and published the bulk of his poetry in The Bulletin. He died in 1948.
Author reference site: Austlit
