A recent visitor has expressed the view that there is no romance in Australia outside the racecourse.
There is no romance in the brigalows,
Nor out on the myall plains.
There is nothing worth while in the mulga scrub
When racing with slackened reins
To head-off a crashing clean-skin mob.
It's only a nurse-with-a-cradle job;
There's no romance for your pains.
There is no romance in the mountain range,
Where the blue peaks take the dawn.
It's a poor little thrill where the waterfall
Leaps down through the dewy morn
For two thousand miles where the stockmen ride
Till it meets the strong incoming tide,
Where romance has never been born.
There is no romance in the sounding surf,
Where clean-limbed athletes sport
With the glorious grace of the Grecian gods;
And glamour that youth has caught.
There is no romance in the harbour lights,
Or the jewel stars of the summer nights,
For our romance is naught.
There is no romance in the men who come
Through the choking desert sand
To win a mate from the grasp of death
With the grip of a manly hand.
Where the risks are great and the cheers are few,
There is no romance in the deeds we do,
In the name of a Brave Young Land?
First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 18 February 1928
Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography
See also.
There is no romance in the brigalows,
Nor out on the myall plains.
There is nothing worth while in the mulga scrub
When racing with slackened reins
To head-off a crashing clean-skin mob.
It's only a nurse-with-a-cradle job;
There's no romance for your pains.
There is no romance in the mountain range,
Where the blue peaks take the dawn.
It's a poor little thrill where the waterfall
Leaps down through the dewy morn
For two thousand miles where the stockmen ride
Till it meets the strong incoming tide,
Where romance has never been born.
There is no romance in the sounding surf,
Where clean-limbed athletes sport
With the glorious grace of the Grecian gods;
And glamour that youth has caught.
There is no romance in the harbour lights,
Or the jewel stars of the summer nights,
For our romance is naught.
There is no romance in the men who come
Through the choking desert sand
To win a mate from the grasp of death
With the grip of a manly hand.
Where the risks are great and the cheers are few,
There is no romance in the deeds we do,
In the name of a Brave Young Land?
First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 18 February 1928
Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography
See also.
