Famous Overland Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Overland poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous overland poems. These examples illustrate what a famous overland poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Sandburg, Carl
...the pearl-gray haystacks
in the gloaming
are cool prayers
to the harvest hands.
In the city among the walls the overland passenger train is choked and the pistons hiss and the wheels curse.
On the prairie the overland flits on phantom wheels and the sky and the soil between them muffle the pistons and cheer the wheels.. . .
I am here when the cities are gone.
I am here before the cities come.
I nourished the lonely men on horses.
I will...Read more of this...
by
Paterson, Andrew Barton
...Now is the law of the Overland that all in the West obey --
A man must cover with travelling sheep a six-mile stage a day;
But this is the law which the drovers make, right easily understood,
They travel their stage where the grass is bad, but they camp where the grass is good;
They camp, and they ravage the squatter's grass till never a blade remains.
Then they drift aw...Read more of this...
by
Paterson, Andrew Barton
...for home.
So off he set with sheep and goats, a mighty moving band,
To battle down the homeward track along the Overland—
It’s droving mixed-up mobs like that that makes men cut their throats.
I’ve travelled rams, which Lord forget, but never travelled goats.
But Jacob knew the ways of stock, for (so the story goes)
When battling through the Philistines—selectors, I suppose—
He thought he’d have to fight his way, an awkward sort of job;
So what did Old ...Read more of this...
by
Paterson, Andrew Barton
...swags, and we packed our bags, and taking our lives in hand,
We started away with a thousand goats, on the billy-goat overland.
There wasn't a fence that'd hold the mob, or keep 'em from their desires;
They skipped along the top of the posts and cake-walked on the wires.
And where the lanes had been stripped of grass and the paddocks were nice and green,
The goats they travelled outside the lanes and we rode in between.
The squatters started to drive them ...Read more of this...
by
Kipling, Rudyard
...waiting for letters from Home.
Let the robber retreat -- let the tiger turn tail --
In the Name of the Empress, the Overland Mail!
With a jingle of bells as the dusk gathers in,
He turns to the foot-path that heads up the hill --
The bags on his back and a cloth round his chin,
And, tucked in his waist-belt, the Post Office bill:
"Despatched on this date, as received by the rail,
Per runnger, two bags of the Overland Mail."
Is the torrent in spate? He must ford it...Read more of this...
by
Abercrombie, Lascelles
...op
His message in my mouth. Therefore I said,
If India is the place where I must preach,
I am to go by ship, not overland.
And here my ship is berthed. But worse, far worse
Than Baghdad, is this roadstead, the brown sails,
All the enginery of going on sea,
The tackle and the rigging, tholes and sweeps,
The prows built to put by the waves, the masts
Stayed for a hurricane; and lo, that line
Of gilded water there! the sun has drawn
In a long narrow band o...Read more of this...
by
Paterson, Andrew Barton
...d decease
And in place of "Died from effects of spree"
We wrote "May he rest in peace".
For Bob was known on the Overland,
A regular old bush wag,
Tramping along in the dust and sand,
Humping his well-worn swag.
He would camp for days in the river-bed,
And loiter and "fish for whales".
"I'm into the swagman's yard," he said.
"And I never shall find the rails."
But he found the rails on that summer night
For a better place -- or worse,
As we w...Read more of this...
by
Paterson, Andrew Barton
...derstand
The magic of the breeze's breath that set their hearts aglow,
Nor how the roving wind could bring across the Overland
A sound of voices silent now and songs of long ago.
But some that heard the whisper clear were filled with vague unrest;
The breeze had brought its message home, they could not fixed abide;
Their fancies wandered all the day towards the blue hills' breast,
Towards the sunny slopes that lie along the riverside,
The mighty rolling western...Read more of this...
by
Paterson, Andrew Barton
...e take the stock away.
As they fall we leave them lying,
With the crows to watch them dying,
Grim sextons of the Overland that fasten on their prey;
By the fiery dust-storm drifting,
And the mocking mirage shifting,
In heat and drought and hopeless pain we take the stock away.
In dull despair the days go by
With never hope of change,
But every stage we feel more nigh
The distant mountain range;
And some may live to climb the pass,
And reach the great pla...Read more of this...
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