Vonda Stanley's collection of early Australian bush poems
The
City Bushman
It
was pleasant up the country, City Bushman, where you went,
For
you sought the greener patches and you travelled like a gent;
And
you cursed the trams and buses and the turmoil and the push,
Though
you know the squalid city needn’t keep you from the bush;
But
we lately heard you singing of the ‘plains where shade is not,’
And
you mentioned it was dusty – ‘All was dry and all was hot.’
True,
the bush ‘hath moods and changes’ – and the bushman hath ‘em, too,
For
he’s not a poet’s dummy – he’s a man, same as you;
But
his back is growing rounder – slaving
for the absentee –
And
his toiling wife is thinner than a country wife should be.
For
we noticed that the faces of the folks we chanced to meet
Should
have made a greater contrast to the faces in the street;
And,
in short, we think the bushman’s being driven to the wall,
And
it’s doubtful if his spirit will be ‘loyal thro’ at all’.
Though
the bush has been romantic and it’s nice to sing about,
There’s
a lot of patriotism that the land could do without –
Sort
of BRITISH WORKMAN
nonsense that shall perish I the scorn
Of
the drover who is driven and the shearer who is shorn –
Of
the struggling western farmers who have little time for rest,
And
are ruined on selections in the sheep-infested West;
Droving
songs are very pretty, but they merit little thanks
From
the people of the country in possession of the Banks.
And
the ‘rise and fall of seasons’ suits the rise and fall of rhyme,
But
we know that western seasons do not run on schedule time;
For
the drought will go on drying while there’s anything to dry,
And
it rains until you’d fancy it would bleach the sunny sky –
Then
it pelters out of reason, for the downpour day and night
Nearly
sweeps the population to the Great Australian Bite.
It
is up in Northern Queensland that the seasons do their best,
But
it’s doubtful if you ever saw a season in the west;
There
are years without an autumn or a winter or a spring,
There
are broiling Junes and summers when it rains like anything.
In
the bush my ears were opened to the singing of the bird,
But
the ‘carol of the magpie’ was a thing I never heard.
Once
the beggar roused my slumbers in a shanty, it is true,
But
I only heard him asking, ‘ who the blanky blank are you?’
And
the bellbird In the ranges – but his ‘silver chime’ is harsh
When
its heard beside the solo of the curlew in the marsh.
Yes,
I heard the shearers singing ‘William Riley’ out of tune,
Saw
‘em fighting round a shanty on a Sunday afternoon;
But
the bushman isn’t always ‘trapping brumbies in the night’,
Nor
is he ever riding when ‘the morn is fresh and bright’,
And
he isn’t always singing in the humpies on the run –
And
the camp-fire’s ‘cheery blazes’ are a trifle overdone ;
We
have grumbled with the bushmen round the fire on rainy days,
When
the smoke would blind a bullock and there wasn’t any blaze,
Save
the blazes of our language, for we cursed the fire in turn
Till
the atmosphere was heated and the wood began to burn.
Then
we had to ring our blueys which were rotting In the swags,
And
we saw the sugar leaking through the bottoms of the bags,
And
we couldn’t raise a chorus, for the toothache and the cramp,
While
we spent the hours of darkness draining puddles round the camp.
Would
you like to change with Clancy – go a-droving? tell us true,
For
we rather think that Clancy would be glad to change with you,
And
be something In the city; but ‘twould give your muse a shock
To
be losing time and money through the foot-rot In the flock,
And
you wouldn’t mind the beauties underneath the starry dome
If
you had a wife and children and a lot of bills at home.
Did
you ever guard the cattle when the night was inky-black,
And
it rained, and icy water trickled gently down your back
Till
your saddle-weary backbone fell a-aching to the roots
And
you almost felt the croaking of the bull-frog in your boots –
Sit
and shiver in the saddle, curse the restless stock and cough
Till
a squatters nameless dummy cantered up to warn you off?
Did
you fight the drought and pleuro when the ‘seasons’ were asleep,
Felling
sheoaks all the morning for a flock of starving sheep,
Drinking
mud instead of water -
climbing trees and lopping boughs
For
the broken-hearted bullocks and the dry and dusty cows?
Do
you think the bush was better in ‘the good old droving days’,
When
the squatter ruled supremely as the king of western ways,
When
you got a slip of paper for the little you could earn,
But
were forced to take provisions from the station in return –
When
you couldn’t keep a chicken at your humpy on the run,
For
the squatter wouldn’t let you – And your work was never done;
And
you had to leave the missus in a lonely hut forlorn
While
you ‘Rose up Willy Riley’ – in the days ere you were born?
Ah!
We read about the drovers and the shearers and the like
Till
we wonder why such happy and romantic fellows strike.
Don’t
you fancy that the poets ought to give the bush a rest
Ere
they raise a just rebellion In the over-written West?
Where
the simple-minded bushman gets a meal and bed and rum
Just
by riding round reporting phantom flocks that never come;
`Where
the scalper – never troubled by the ‘war-whoop of the push’ –
Has
a quiet little billet – breeding rabbits in the bush;
Where
the idle shanty-keeper never fails to make a draw,
And
the dummy gets his ticker through provisions in the law;
Where
the labour-agitator – when the shearers rise in might –
Makes
his money sacrificing all his substance for The Right;
Where
the squatter makes his fortune, and ‘the seasons rise and fall’,
And
the poor and honest bushman has to suffer for it all;
Where
the drovers and the shearers and the bushmen and the rest
Never
reach the Eldorado of the poets of the West.
And
you think the bush is purer and that life is better there,
But
is doesn’t seem to pay you like the ‘squalid street and square’.
Pray
inform us, City Bushman, where you read, in prose or verse,
Of
the awful ‘city urchin who would greet you with a curse’.
There
are golden hearts in gutters, though their owners lack the fat,
And
will back a teamster’s offspring to outswear a city brat.
Do
you think we’re never jolly where the trams and busses rage?
Did
you hear the gods chorus when ‘Ri-tooral’ held the stage?
Did
you catch a ring of sorrow in the city urchin’s voice
When
he yelled for Billy Elton, when he thumped the floor for Royce?
Do
the bushmen, down on pleasure, miss the everlasting stars
When
they drink and flirt and so on in the glow of private bars?
You’ve
a down on ‘trams and buses’ or the ‘roar’ of ‘em, you said,
And
the ‘filthy, dirty attic’, where you never toiled for bread.
(And
about that self-same attic – Lord! Where have you been?
For
the struggling needlewoman mostly keeps her attic clean.)
But
you’ll find it very jolly with the cuff-and-collar push,
And
the city seems to suit you, while you rave about the bush.
You’ll
admit that Up-the-Country, more especially in drought,
Isn’t
quite the Eldorado that the poet’s rave about,
Yet
at times we long to gallop where the reckless bushman rides
In
the wake of startled brumbies that are flying for their hides;
Long
to feel the saddle tremble once again between our knees
And
to hear the stockwhips rattle just like rifles in the trees!
Long
to feel the bridle-leather tugging strongly in the hand,
Long
to feel once more a little like a native of the land.
And
the ring of bitter feeling in the jingling of our rhymes
Isn’t
suited to the country nor the spirit of the times.
Let
us go together droving, and returning, if we live,
Try to understand each other while we reckon up the div.