Rio Grande's Last Race & Other Verses Part 5

For years the fertile Western plains Were hid behind your sullen walls, Your cliffs and crags and waterfalls All weatherworn with tropic rains.

Between the mountains and the sea, Like Israelites with staff in hand, The people waited restlessly: They looked towards the mountains old And saw the sunsets come and go With gorgeous golden afterglow, That made the West a fairyland, And marvelled what that West might be Of which such wondrous tales were told.

For tales were told of inland seas Like sullen oceans, salt and dead, And sandy deserts, white and wan, Where never trod the foot of man, Nor bird went winging overhead, Nor ever stirred a gracious breeze To wake the silence with its breath -- A land of loneliness and death.

At length the hardy pioneers By rock and crag found out the way, And woke with voices of to-day, A silence kept for years and years.

Upon the Western slope they stood And saw -- a wide expanse of plain As far as eye could stretch or see Go rolling westward endlessly.

The native gra.s.ses, tall as grain, Were waved and rippled in the breeze; From boughs of blossom-laden trees The parrots answered back again.

They saw the land that it was good, A land of fatness all untrod, And gave their silent thanks to G.o.d.

The way is won! The way is won!

And straightway from the barren coast There came a westward-marching host, That aye and ever onward prest With eager faces to the West, Along the pathway of the sun.

The mountains saw them marching by: They faced the all-consuming drought, They would not rest in settled land: But, taking each his life in hand, Their faces ever westward bent Beyond the farthest settlement, Responding to the challenge cry Of 'better country further out.'

And lo a miracle! the land But yesterday was all unknown, The wild man's boomerang was thrown Where now great busy cities stand.

It was not much, you say, that these Should win their way where none withstood; In sooth there was not much of blood No war was fought between the seas.

It was not much! but we who know The strange capricious land they trod -- At times a stricken, parching sod, At times with raging floods beset -- Through which they found their lonely way, Are quite content that you should say It was not much, while we can feel That nothing in the ages old, In song or story written yet On Grecian urn or Roman arch, Though it should ring with clash of steel, Could braver histories unfold Than this bush story, yet untold -- The story of their westward march.

But times are changed, and changes rung From old to new -- the olden days, The old bush life and all its ways Are pa.s.sing from us all unsung.

The freedom, and the hopeful sense Of toil that brought due recompense, Of room for all, has pa.s.sed away, And lies forgotten with the dead.

Within our streets men cry for bread In cities built but yesterday.

About us stretches wealth of land, A boundless wealth of virgin soil As yet unfruitful and untilled!

Our willing workmen, strong and skilled Within our cities idle stand, And cry aloud for leave to toil.

The stunted children come and go In squalid lanes and alleys black; We follow but the beaten track Of other nations, and we grow In wealth for some -- for many, woe.

And it may be that we who live In this new land apart, beyond The hard old world grown fierce and fond And bound by precedent and bond, May read the riddle right and give New hope to those who dimly see That all things may be yet for good, And teach the world at length to be One vast united brotherhood.

So may it be, and he who sings In accents hopeful, clear, and strong, The glories which that future brings Shall sing, indeed, a wond'rous song.

Anthony Considine

Out in the wastes of the West countrie, Out where the white stars s.h.i.+ne, Grim and silent as such men be, Rideth a man with a history -- Anthony Considine.

For the ways of men they are manifold As their differing views in life; For some are sold for the l.u.s.t of gold And some for the l.u.s.t of strife: But this man counted the world well lost For the love of his neighbour's wife.

They fled together, as those must flee Whom all men hold in blame; Each to the other must all things be Who cross the gulf of iniquity And live in the land of shame.

But a light-o'-love, if she sins with one, She sinneth with ninety-nine: The rule holds good since the world begun -- Since ever the streams began to run And the stars began to s.h.i.+ne.

The rule holds true, and he found it true -- Anthony Considine.

A n.o.bler spirit had turned in scorn From a love that was stained with mire; A weaker being might mourn and mourn For the loss of his Heart's Desire: But the anger of Anthony Considine Blazed up like a flaming fire.

And she, with her new love, presently Came past with her eyes as.h.i.+ne; And G.o.d so willed it, and G.o.d knows why, She turned and laughed as they pa.s.sed him by -- Anthony Considine.

Her laughter stung as a whip might sting; And mad with his wounded pride He turned and sprang with a panther's spring And struck at his rival's side: And only the woman, shuddering, Could tell how the dead man died!

She dared not speak -- and the mystery Is buried in auld lang syne, But out on the wastes of the West countrie, Grim and silent as such men be, Rideth a man with a history -- Anthony Considine.

Song of the Artesian Water

Now the stock have started dying, for the Lord has sent a drought; But we're sick of prayers and Providence -- we're going to do without; With the derricks up above us and the solid earth below, We are waiting at the lever for the word to let her go.

Sinking down, deeper down, Oh, we'll sink it deeper down: As the drill is plugging downward at a thousand feet of level, If the Lord won't send us water, oh, we'll get it from the devil; Yes, we'll get it from the devil deeper down.

Now, our engine's built in Glasgow by a very canny Scot, And he marked it twenty horse-power, but he don't know what is what: When Canadian Bill is firing with the sun-dried gidgee logs, She can equal thirty horses and a score or so of dogs.

Sinking down, deeper down, Oh, we're going deeper down: If we fail to get the water then it's ruin to the squatter, For the drought is on the station and the weather's growing hotter, But we're bound to get the water deeper down.

But the shaft has started caving and the sinking's very slow, And the yellow rods are bending in the water down below, And the tubes are always jamming and they can't be made to s.h.i.+ft Till we nearly burst the engine with a forty horse-power lift.

Sinking down, deeper down, Oh, we're going deeper down Though the shaft is always caving, and the tubes are always jamming, Yet we'll fight our way to water while the stubborn drill is ramming -- While the stubborn drill is ramming deeper down.

But there's no artesian water, though we've pa.s.sed three thousand feet, And the contract price is growing and the boss is nearly beat.

But it must be down beneath us, and it's down we've got to go, Though she's b.u.mping on the solid rock four thousand feet below.

Sinking down, deeper down, Oh, we're going deeper down: And it's time they heard us knocking on the roof of Satan's dwellin'; But we'll get artesian water if we cave the roof of h.e.l.l in -- Oh! we'll get artesian water deeper down.

But it's hark! the whistle's blowing with a wild, exultant blast, And the boys are madly cheering, for they've struck the flow at last, And it's rus.h.i.+ng up the tubing from four thousand feet below Till it spouts above the casing in a million-gallon flow.

And it's down, deeper down -- Oh, it comes from deeper down; It is flowing, ever flowing, in a free, unstinted measure From the silent hidden places where the old earth hides her treasure -- Where the old earth hides her treasure deeper down.

And it's clear away the timber, and it's let the water run: How it glimmers in the shadow, how it flashes in the sun!

By the silent belts of timber, by the miles of blazing plain It is bringing hope and comfort to the thirsty land again.

Flowing down, further down; It is flowing further down To the tortured thirsty cattle, bringing gladness in its going; Through the droughty days of summer it is flowing, ever flowing -- It is flowing, ever flowing, further down.

A Disqualified Jockey's Story

You see, the thing was this way -- there was me, That rode Panoppoly, the Splendor mare, And Ikey Chambers on the Iron Dook, And Smith, the half-caste rider, on Regret, And that long bloke from Wagga -- him what rode Veronikew, the Snowy River horse.

Well, none of them had chances -- not a chance Among the lot, unless the rest fell dead Or wasn't trying -- for a blind man's dog Could see Enchantress was a certain cop, And all the books was layin' six to four.