10 Best Famous Curlews Poems

Here is a collection of the top 10 all-time best famous Curlews poems. This is a select list of the best famous Curlews poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Curlews poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of curlews poems.

• All Famous Curlews Poems

In such a night, when every louder wind
Is to its distant cavern safe confined;
And only gentle Zephyr fans his wings,
And lonely Philomel, still waking, sings;
Or from some tree, famed for the owl's delight,
She, hollowing clear, directs the wand'rer right:
In such a night, when passing clouds give place,
Or thinly veil the heav'ns' mysterious face;
When in some river, overhung with green,
The waving moon and trembling leaves are seen;
When freshened grass now bears itself upright,
And makes cool banks to pleasing rest invite,
Whence springs the woodbind, and the bramble-rose,
And where the sleepy cowslip sheltered grows;
Whilst now a paler hue the foxglove takes,
Yet checkers still with red the dusky brakes
When scattered glow-worms, but in twilight fine,
Shew trivial beauties watch their hour to shine;
Whilst Salisb'ry stands the test of every light,
In perfect charms, and perfect virtue bright:
When odors, which declined repelling day,
Through temp'rate air uninterrupted stray;
When darkened groves their softest shadows wear,
And falling waters we distinctly hear;
When through the gloom more venerable shows
Some ancient fabric, awful in repose,
While sunburnt hills their swarthy looks conceal,
And swelling haycocks thicken up the vale:
When the loosed horse now, as his pasture leads,
Comes slowly grazing through th' adjoining meads,
Whose stealing pace, and lengthened shade we fear,
Till torn-up forage in his teeth we hear:
When nibbling sheep at large pursue their food,
And unmolested kine rechew the cud;
When curlews cry beneath the village walls,
And to her straggling brood the partridge calls;
Their shortlived jubilee the creatures keep,
Which but endures, whilst tyrant man does sleep;
When a sedate content the spirit feels,
And no fierce light disturbs, whilst it reveals;
But silent musings urge the mind to seek
Something, too high for syllables to speak;
Till the free soul to a composedness charmed,
Finding the elements of rage disarmed,
O'er all below a solemn quiet grown,
Joys in th' inferior world, and thinks it like her own:
In such a night let me abroad remain,
Till morning breaks, and all's confused again;
Our cares, our toils, our clamors are renewed,
Or pleasures, seldom reached, again pursued.

 In the mustardseed sun,
By full tilt river and switchback sea
 Where the cormorants scud,
In his house on stilts high among beaks
 And palavers of birds
This sandgrain day in the bent bay's grave
 He celebrates and spurns
His driftwood thirty-fifth wind turned age;
 Herons spire and spear.

 Under and round him go
Flounders, gulls, on their cold, dying trails,
 Doing what they are told,
Curlews aloud in the congered waves
 Work at their ways to death,
And the rhymer in the long tongued room,
 Who tolls his birthday bell,
Toils towards the ambush of his wounds;
 Herons, steeple stemmed, bless.

 In the thistledown fall,
He sings towards anguish; finches fly
 In the claw tracks of hawks
On a seizing sky; small fishes glide
 Through wynds and shells of drowned
Ship towns to pastures of otters. He
 In his slant, racking house
And the hewn coils of his trade perceives
 Herons walk in their shroud,

 The livelong river's robe
Of minnows wreathing around their prayer;
 And far at sea he knows,
Who slaves to his crouched, eternal end
 Under a serpent cloud,
Dolphins dive in their turnturtle dust,
 The rippled seals streak down
To kill and their own tide daubing blood
 Slides good in the sleek mouth.

 In a cavernous, swung
Wave's silence, wept white angelus knells.
 Thirty-five bells sing struck
On skull and scar where his loves lie wrecked,
 Steered by the falling stars.
And to-morrow weeps in a blind cage
 Terror will rage apart
Before chains break to a hammer flame
 And love unbolts the dark

 And freely he goes lost
In the unknown, famous light of great
 And fabulous, dear God.
Dark is a way and light is a place,
 Heaven that never was
Nor will be ever is always true,
 And, in that brambled void,
Plenty as blackberries in the woods
 The dead grow for His joy.

 There he might wander bare
With the spirits of the horseshoe bay
 Or the stars' seashore dead,
Marrow of eagles, the roots of whales
 And wishbones of wild geese,
With blessed, unborn God and His Ghost,
 And every soul His priest,
Gulled and chanter in young Heaven's fold
 Be at cloud quaking peace,

 But dark is a long way.
He, on the earth of the night, alone
 With all the living, prays,
Who knows the rocketing wind will blow
 The bones out of the hills,
And the scythed boulders bleed, and the last
 Rage shattered waters kick
Masts and fishes to the still quick starts,
 Faithlessly unto Him

 Who is the light of old
And air shaped Heaven where souls grow wild
 As horses in the foam:
Oh, let me midlife mourn by the shrined
 And druid herons' vows
The voyage to ruin I must run,
 Dawn ships clouted aground,
Yet, though I cry with tumbledown tongue,
 Count my blessings aloud:

 Four elements and five
Senses, and man a spirit in love
 Tangling through this spun slime
To his nimbus bell cool kingdom come
 And the lost, moonshine domes,
And the sea that hides his secret selves
 Deep in its black, base bones,
Lulling of spheres in the seashell flesh,
 And this last blessing most,

 That the closer I move
To death, one man through his sundered hulks,
 The louder the sun blooms
And the tusked, ramshackling sea exults;
 And every wave of the way
And gale I tackle, the whole world then,
 With more triumphant faith
That ever was since the world was said,
 Spins its morning of praise,

 I hear the bouncing hills
Grow larked and greener at berry brown
 Fall and the dew larks sing
Taller this thunderclap spring, and how
 More spanned with angles ride
The mansouled fiery islands! Oh,
 Holier then their eyes,
And my shining men no more alone
 As I sail out to die.

 SHORTLY AFTER THE REVIVAL OF
LEARNING IN EUROPE.

Let us begin and carry up this corpse,
Singing together.
Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes
Each in its tether
Sleeping safe on the bosom of the plain,
Cared-for till cock-crow:
Look out if yonder be not day again
Rimming the rock-row!
That's the appropriate country; there, man's thought,
Rarer, intenser,
Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought,
Chafes in the censer.
Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and crop;
Seek we sepulture
On a tall mountain, citied to the top,
Crowded with culture!
All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels;
Clouds overcome it;
No! yonder sparkle is the citadel's
Circling its summit.
Thither our path lies; wind we up the heights:
Wait ye the warning?
Our low life was the level's and the night's;
He's for the morning.
Step to a tune, square chests, erect each head,
'Ware the beholders!
This is our master, famous calm and dead,
Borne on our shoulders.

Sleep, crop and herd! sleep, darkling thorpe and croft,
Safe from the weather!
He, whom we convoy to his grave aloft,
Singing together,
He was a man born with thy face and throat,
Lyric Apollo!
Long he lived nameless: how should spring take note
Winter would follow?
Till lo, the little touch, and youth was gone!
Cramped and diminished,
Moaned he, ``New measures, other feet anon!
``My dance is finished?''
No, that's the world's way: (keep the mountain-side,
Make for the city!)
He knew the signal, and stepped on with pride
Over men's pity;
Left play for work, and grappled with the world
Bent on escaping:
``What's in the scroll,'' quoth he, ``thou keepest furled?
``Show me their shaping,
``Theirs who most studied man, the bard and sage,---
``Give!''---So, he gowned him,
Straight got by heart that hook to its last page:
Learned, we found him.
Yea, but we found him bald too, eyes like lead,
Accents uncertain:
``Time to taste life,'' another would have said,
``Up with the curtain!''
This man said rather, ``Actual life comes next?
``Patience a moment!
``Grant I have mastered learning's crabbed text,
``Still there's the comment.
``Let me know all! Prate not of most or least,
``Painful or easy!
``Even to the crumbs I'd fain eat up the feast,
``Ay, nor feel queasy.''
Oh, such a life as he resolved to live,
When he had learned it,
When he had gathered all books had to give!
Sooner, he spurned it.
Image the whole, then execute the parts---
Fancy the fabric
Quite, ere you build, ere steel strike fire from quartz,
Ere mortar dab brick!

(Here's the town-gate reached: there's the market-place
Gaping before us.)
Yea, this in him was the peculiar grace
(Hearten our chorus!)
That before living he'd learn how to live---
No end to learning:
Earn the means first---God surely will contrive
Use for our earning.
Others mistrust and say, ``But time escapes:
``Live now or never!''
He said, ``What's time? Leave Now for dogs and apes!
``Man has Forever.''
Back to his book then: deeper drooped his head
_Calculus_ racked him:
Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead:
_Tussis_ attacked him.
``Now, master, take a little rest!''---not he!
(Caution redoubled,
Step two abreast, the way winds narrowly!)
Not a whit troubled
Back to his studies, fresher than at first,
Fierce as a dragon
He (soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst)
Sucked at the flagon.

Oh, if we draw a circle premature,
Heedless of far gain,
Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure
Bad is our bargain!
Was it not great? did not he throw on God,
(He loves the burthen)---
God's task to make the heavenly period
Perfect the earthen?
Did not he magnify the mind, show clear
Just what it all meant?
He would not discount life, as fools do here,
Paid by instalment.
He ventured neck or nothing---heaven's success
Found, or earth's failure:
``Wilt thou trust death or not?'' He answered ``Yes:
``Hence with life's pale lure!''
That low man seeks a little thing to do,
Sees it and does it:
This high man, with a great thing to pursue,
Dies ere he knows it.
That low man goes on adding nine to one,
His hundred's soon hit:
This high man, aiming at a million,
Misses an unit.
That, has the world here---should he need the next,
Let the world mind him!
This, throws himself on God, and unperplexed
Seeking shall find him.
So, with the throttling hands of death at strife,
Ground he at grammar;
Still, thro' the rattle, parts of speech were rife:
While he could stammer
He settled _Hoti's_ business---let it be!---
Properly based _Oun_---
Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic _De_,
Dead from the waist down.
Well, here's the platform, here's the proper place:
Hail to your purlieus,
All ye highfliers of the feathered race,
Swallows and curlews!
Here's the top-peak; the multitude below
Live, for they can, there:
This man decided not to Live but Know---
Bury this man there?
Here---here's his place, where meteors shoot, clouds form,
Lightnings are loosened,
Stars come and go! Let joy break with the storm,
Peace let the dew send!
Lofty designs must close in like effects
Loftily lying,
Leave him---still loftier than the world suspects,
Living and dying.

 The sea is flecked with bars of grey,
The dull dead wind is out of tune,
And like a withered leaf the moon
Is blown across the stormy bay.

Etched clear upon the pallid sand
Lies the black boat: a sailor boy
Clambers aboard in careless joy
With laughing face and gleaming hand.

And overhead the curlews cry,
Where through the dusky upland grass
The young brown-throated reapers pass,
Like silhouettes against the sky.

 I am back from up the country -- very sorry that I went -- 
Seeking for the Southern poets' land whereon to pitch my tent; 
I have lost a lot of idols, which were broken on the track -- 
Burnt a lot of fancy verses, and I'm glad that I am back. 
Further out may be the pleasant scenes of which our poets boast, 
But I think the country's rather more inviting round the coast -- 
Anyway, I'll stay at present at a boarding-house in town 
Drinking beer and lemon-squashes, taking baths and cooling down. 

Sunny plains! Great Scot! -- those burning wastes of barren soil and sand 
With their everlasting fences stretching out across the land! 
Desolation where the crow is! Desert! where the eagle flies, 
Paddocks where the luny bullock starts and stares with reddened eyes; 
Where, in clouds of dust enveloped, roasted bullock-drivers creep 
Slowly past the sun-dried shepherd dragged behind his crawling sheep. 
Stunted "peak" of granite gleaming, glaring! like a molten mass 
Turned, from some infernal furnace, on a plain devoid of grass. 

Miles and miles of thirsty gutters -- strings of muddy waterholes 
In the place of "shining rivers" (walled by cliffs and forest boles). 
"Range!" of ridgs, gullies, ridges, barren! where the madden'd flies -- 
Fiercer than the plagues of Egypt -- swarm about your blighted eyes! 
Bush! where there is no horizon! where the buried bushman sees 
Nothing. Nothing! but the maddening sameness of the stunted trees! 
Lonely hut where drought's eternal -- suffocating atmosphere -- 
Where the God forgottcn hatter dreams of city-life and beer. 

Treacherous tracks that trap the stranger, endless roads that gleam and glare, 
Dark and evil-looking gullies -- hiding secrets here and there! 
Dull, dumb flats and stony "rises," where the bullocks sweat and bake, 
And the sinister "gohanna," and the lizard, and the snake. 
Land of day and night -- no morning freshness, and no afternoon, 
For the great, white sun in rising brings with him the heat of noon. 
Dismal country for the exile, when the shades begin to fall 
From the sad, heart-breaking sunset, to the new-chum, worst of all. 

Dreary land in rainy weather, with the endless clouds that drift 
O'er the bushman like a blanket that the Lord will never lift -- 
Dismal land when it is raining -- growl of floods and oh! the "woosh" 
Of the rain and wind together on the dark bed of the bush -- 
Ghastly fires in lonely humpies where the granite rocks are pil'd 
On the rain-swept wildernesses that are wildest of the wild. 

Land where gaunt and haggard women live alone and work like men, 
Till their husbands, gone a-droving, will return to them again -- 
Homes of men! if homes had ever such a God-forgotten place, 
Where the wild selector's children fly before a stranger's face. 
Home of tragedy applauded by the dingoes' dismal yell, 
Heaven of the shanty-keeper -- fitting fiend for such a hell -- 
And the wallaroos and wombats, and, of course, the "curlew's call" -- 
And the lone sundowner tramping ever onward thro' it all! 

I am back from up the country -- up the country where I went 
Seeking for the Southern poets' land whereon to pitch my tent; 
I have left a lot of broken idols out along the track, 
Burnt a lot of fancy verses -- and I'm glad that I am back -- 
I believe the Southern poet's dream will not be realised 
Till the plains are irrigated and the land is humanised. 
I intend to stay at present -- as I said before -- in town 
Drinking beer and lemon-squashes -- taking baths and cooling down.

 O DEATH! thou tyrant fell and bloody!
The meikle devil wi’ a woodie
Haurl thee hame to his black smiddie,
 O’er hurcheon hides,
And like stock-fish come o’er his studdie
 Wi’ thy auld sides!


He’s gane, he’s gane! he’s frae us torn,
The ae best fellow e’er was born!
Thee, Matthew, Nature’s sel’ shall mourn,
 By wood and wild,
Where haply, Pity strays forlorn,
 Frae man exil’d.


Ye hills, near neighbours o’ the starns,
That proudly cock your cresting cairns!
Ye cliffs, the haunts of sailing earns,
 Where Echo slumbers!
Come join, ye Nature’s sturdiest bairns,
 My wailing numbers!


Mourn, ilka grove the cushat kens!
Ye haz’ly shaws and briery dens!
Ye burnies, wimplin’ down your glens,
 Wi’ toddlin din,
Or foaming, strang, wi’ hasty stens,
 Frae lin to lin.


Mourn, little harebells o’er the lea;
Ye stately foxgloves, fair to see;
Ye woodbines hanging bonilie,
 In scented bow’rs;
Ye roses on your thorny tree,
 The first o’ flow’rs.


At dawn, when ev’ry grassy blade
Droops with a diamond at his head,
At ev’n, when beans their fragrance shed,
 I’ th’ rustling gale,
Ye maukins, whiddin thro’ the glade,
 Come join my wail.


Mourn, ye wee songsters o’ the wood;
Ye grouse that crap the heather bud;
Ye curlews, calling thro’ a clud;
 Ye whistling plover;
And mourn, we whirring paitrick brood;
 He’s gane for ever!


Mourn, sooty coots, and speckled teals;
Ye fisher herons, watching eels;
Ye duck and drake, wi’ airy wheels
 Circling the lake;
Ye bitterns, till the quagmire reels,
 Rair for his sake.


Mourn, clam’ring craiks at close o’ day,
’Mang fields o’ flow’ring clover gay;
And when ye wing your annual way
 Frae our claud shore,
Tell thae far warlds wha lies in clay,
 Wham we deplore.


Ye houlets, frae your ivy bow’r
In some auld tree, or eldritch tow’r,
What time the moon, wi’ silent glow’r,
 Sets up her horn,
Wail thro’ the dreary midnight hour,
 Till waukrife morn!


O rivers, forests, hills, and plains!
Oft have ye heard my canty strains;
But now, what else for me remains
 But tales of woe;
And frae my een the drapping rains
 Maun ever flow.


Mourn, Spring, thou darling of the year!
Ilk cowslip cup shall kep a tear:
Thou, Simmer, while each corny spear
 Shoots up its head,
Thy gay, green, flow’ry tresses shear,
 For him that’s dead!


Thou, Autumn, wi’ thy yellow hair,
In grief thy sallow mantle tear!
Thou, Winter, hurling thro’ the air
 The roaring blast,
Wide o’er the naked world declare
 The worth we’ve lost!


Mourn him, thou Sun, great source of light!
Mourn, Empress of the silent night!
And you, ye twinkling starnies bright,
 My Matthew mourn!
For through your orbs he’s ta’en his flight,
 Ne’er to return.


O Henderson! the man! the brother!
And art thou gone, and gone for ever!
And hast thou crost that unknown river,
 Life’s dreary bound!
Like thee, where shall I find another,
 The world around!


Go to your sculptur’d tombs, ye Great,
In a’ the tinsel trash o’ state!
But by thy honest turf I’ll wait,
 Thou man of worth!
And weep the ae best fellow’s fate
 E’er lay in earth.

 It was built of bark and poles, and the floor was full of holes 
Where each leak in rainy weather made a pool; 
And the walls were mostly cracks lined with calico and sacks – 
There was little need for windows in the school. 

Then we rode to school and back by the rugged gully-track, 
On the old grey horse that carried three or four; 
And he looked so very wise that he lit the master's eyes 
Every time he put his head in at the door. 

He had run with Cobb and Co. – "that grey leader, let him go!" 
There were men "as knowed the brand upon his hide", 
And "as knowed it on the course". Funeral service: "Good old horse!" 
When we burnt him in the gully where he died. 

And the master thought the same. 'Twas from Ireland that he came, 
Where the tanks are full all summer, and the feed is simply grand; 
And the joker then in vogue said his lessons wid a brogue – 
'Twas unconscious imitation, let the reader understand. 

And we learnt the world in scraps from some ancient dingy maps 
Long discarded by the public-schools in town; 
And as nearly every book dated back to Captain Cook 
Our geography was somewhat upside-down. 

It was "in the book" and so – well, at that we'd let it go, 
For we never would believe that print could lie; 
And we all learnt pretty soon that when we came out at noon 
"The sun is in the south part of the sky." 

And Ireland! that was known from the coast-line to Athlone: 
We got little information re the land that gave us birth; 
Save that Captain Cook was killed (and was very likely grilled) 
And "the natives of New Holland are the lowest race on earth". 

And a woodcut, in its place, of the same degraded race 
Seemed a lot more like a camel than the blackfellows that we knew; 
Jimmy Bullock, with the rest, scratched his head and gave it best; 
But his faith was sadly shaken by a bobtailed kangaroo. 

But the old bark school is gone, and the spot it stood upon 
Is a cattle-camp in winter where the curlew's cry is heard; 
There's a brick school on the flat, but a schoolmate teaches that, 
For, about the time they built it, our old master was "transferred". 

But the bark school comes again with exchanges 'cross the plain – 
With the Out-Back Advertiser; and my fancy roams at large 
When I read of passing stock, of a western mob or flock, 
With "James Bullock", "Grey", or "Henry Dale" in charge. 

And I think how Jimmy went from the old bark school content, 
With his "eddication" finished, with his pack-horse after him; 
And perhaps if I were back I would take the self-same track, 
For I wish my learning ended when the Master "finished" Jim.

 Upon a lonely desart Beach
Where the white foam was scatter'd,
A little shed uprear'd its head
Though lofty Barks were shatter'd.
The Sea-weeds gath'ring near the door,
A sombre path display'd;
And, all around, the deaf'ning roar,
Re-echo'd on the chalky shore,
By the green billows made.

Above, a jutting cliff was seen
Where Sea Birds hover'd, craving;
And all around, the craggs were bound
With weeds--for ever waving.
And here and there, a cavern wide
Its shad'wy jaws display'd;
And near the sands, at ebb of tide,
A shiver'd mast was seen to ride
Where the green billows stray'd.

And often, while the moaning wind
Stole o'er the Summer Ocean;
The moonlight scene, was all serene,
The waters scarce in motion:
Then, while the smoothly slanting sand
The tall cliff wrapp'd in shade,
The Fisherman beheld a band
Of Spectres, gliding hand in hand--
Where the green billows play'd.

And pale their faces were, as snow,
And sullenly they wander'd:
And to the skies with hollow eyes
They look'd as though they ponder'd.
And sometimes, from their hammock shroud,
They dismal howlings made,
And while the blast blew strong and loud
The clear moon mark'd the ghastly croud,
Where the green billows play'd!

And then, above the haunted hut
The Curlews screaming hover'd;
And the low door with furious roar
The frothy breakers cover'd.
For, in the Fisherman's lone shed
A MURDER'D MAN was laid,
With ten wide gashes in his head
And deep was made his sandy bed
Where the green billows play'd.

A Shipwreck'd Mariner was he,
Doom'd from his home to sever;
Who swore to be thro' wind and sea
Firm and undaunted ever!
And when the wave resistless roll'd,
About his arm he made
A packet rich of Spanish gold,
And, like a British sailor, bold,
Plung'd, where the billows play'd!

The Spectre band, his messmates brave
Sunk in the yawning ocean,
While to the mast he lash'd him fast
And brav'd the storm's commotion.
The winter moon, upon the sand
A silv'ry carpet made,
And mark'd the Sailor reach the land,
And mark'd his murd'rer wash his hand
Where the green billows play'd.

And since that hour the Fisherman
Has toil'd and toil'd in vain!
For all the night, the moony light
Gleams on the specter'd main!
And when the skies are veil'd in gloom,
The Murd'rer's liquid way
Bounds o'er the deeply yawning tomb,
And flashing fires the sands illume,
Where the green billows play!

Full thirty years his task has been,
Day after day more weary;
For Heav'n design'd, his guilty mind
Should dwell on prospects dreary.
Bound by a strong and mystic chain,
He has not pow'r to stray;
But, destin'd mis'ry to sustain,
He wastes, in Solitude and Pain--
A loathsome life away.

 I am back from up the country -- very sorry that I went -- 
Seeking for the Southern poets' land whereon to pitch my tent; 
I have lost a lot of idols, which were broken on the track, 
Burnt a lot of fancy verses, and I'm glad that I am back. 
Further out may be the pleasant scenes of which our poets boast, 
But I think the country's rather more inviting round the coast. 
Anyway, I'll stay at present at a boarding-house in town, 
Drinking beer and lemon-squashes, taking baths and cooling down. 

`Sunny plains'! Great Scott! -- those burning 
wastes of barren soil and sand 
With their everlasting fences stretching out across the land! 
Desolation where the crow is! Desert where the eagle flies, 
Paddocks where the luny bullock starts and stares with reddened eyes; 
Where, in clouds of dust enveloped, roasted bullock-drivers creep 
Slowly past the sun-dried shepherd dragged behind his crawling sheep. 
Stunted peak of granite gleaming, glaring like a molten mass 
Turned from some infernal furnace on a plain devoid of grass. 

Miles and miles of thirsty gutters -- strings of muddy water-holes 
In the place of `shining rivers' -- `walled by cliffs and forest boles.' 
Barren ridges, gullies, ridges! where the ever-madd'ning flies -- 
Fiercer than the plagues of Egypt -- swarm about your blighted eyes! 
Bush! where there is no horizon! where the buried bushman sees 
Nothing -- Nothing! but the sameness of the ragged, stunted trees! 
Lonely hut where drought's eternal, suffocating atmosphere 
Where the God-forgotten hatter dreams of city life and beer. 

Treacherous tracks that trap the stranger, 
endless roads that gleam and glare, 
Dark and evil-looking gullies, hiding secrets here and there! 
Dull dumb flats and stony rises, where the toiling bullocks bake, 
And the sinister `gohanna', and the lizard, and the snake. 
Land of day and night -- no morning freshness, and no afternoon, 
When the great white sun in rising bringeth summer heat in June. 
Dismal country for the exile, when the shades begin to fall 
From the sad heart-breaking sunset, to the new-chum worst of all. 

Dreary land in rainy weather, with the endless clouds that drift 
O'er the bushman like a blanket that the Lord will never lift -- 
Dismal land when it is raining -- growl of floods, and, oh! the woosh 
Of the rain and wind together on the dark bed of the bush -- 
Ghastly fires in lonely humpies where the granite rocks are piled 
In the rain-swept wildernesses that are wildest of the wild. 

Land where gaunt and haggard women live alone and work like men, 
Till their husbands, gone a-droving, will return to them again: 
Homes of men! if home had ever such a God-forgotten place, 
Where the wild selector's children fly before a stranger's face. 
Home of tragedy applauded by the dingoes' dismal yell, 
Heaven of the shanty-keeper -- fitting fiend for such a hell -- 
And the wallaroos and wombats, and, of course, the curlew's call -- 
And the lone sundowner tramping ever onward through it all! 

I am back from up the country, up the country where I went 
Seeking for the Southern poets' land whereon to pitch my tent; 
I have shattered many idols out along the dusty track, 
Burnt a lot of fancy verses -- and I'm glad that I am back. 
I believe the Southern poets' dream will not be realised 
Till the plains are irrigated and the land is humanised. 
I intend to stay at present, as I said before, in town 
Drinking beer and lemon-squashes, taking baths and cooling down.

 So shall this book wax like unto a well,
Fairy with mirrored flowers about the brim,
Or like some tarn that wailing curlews skim,
Glassing the sallow uplands or brown fell;
And so, as men go down into a dell
(Weary with noon) to find relief and shade,
When on the uneasy sick-bed we are laid,
We shall go down into thy book, and tell
The leaves, once blank, to build again for us
Old summer dead and ruined, and the time
Of later autumn with the corn in stook.
So shalt thou stint the meagre winter thus
Of his projected triumph, and the rime
Shall melt before the sunshine in thy book.