We are all so old now with our wireless set,
Our big brass band and latest Paris frocks,
Our moving pictures, bobbed hair, and jazz socks,
I sigh for scenes the early settlers met
When we were young and fishers cast their net,
And blackboys dived and sheep went by in flocks,
Where now aged Commerce keeps the busy docks.
Green birth from brown soil cities soon forget.
And sometimes I go down along the quay,
And fell wide crinolines and scarlet coats
This way and that enchant the narrow ways.
My heart is filled with old-time ecstasy;
A hunting chorus rings; a clipper floats --
Ah! Colour of those young colonial days!
First published in The Sydney Mail, 25 November 1925
