Vonda Stanley's collection of early Australian bush poems

 

 

Nine Miles from Gundagai

I’ve done my share of shearing sheep,

Of droving and all that,

And bogged a bullock-team as well,

On a Murrumbidgee flat.

I’ve seen the bullock stretch and stain

And blink his bleary eye,

And the dog sat on the tucker box,

Nine miles from Gundagai.

I’ve been jilted, jarred, and crossed in love,

And sand-bagged in the dark,

Till if a mountain fell on me

I’d treat it as a lark.

It’s when you’ve had your bullocks bogged

That’s the time you flog and cry,

And the dog sat on the tucker box,

Nine miles from Gundagai.

We’ve all got our little troubles,

In life’s hard, thorny way.

Some strike them in a motor car

And others in a dray.

But when your dog and bullocks strike

It ain’t no apple pie.

And the dog sat on the tucker box,

Nine miles from Gundagai.

But thats all past and dead and gone,

And I’ve sold the team for meat.

And perhaps some day where I was bogged,

There’ll be an asphalt street.

The dog, ah! Well he got bait,

And thought he’d like to die,

So I buried him in the tucker box,

Nine miles from Gundagai.

Jack Moses 1860 – 1945