The Prospectors Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCC DDEEFF GHIIJJ KKLLMM NNOOPQ RRSSTT FFUHVV JJGGWW XXVVKK| WHEN the white sun scorches the fair green land in the rage of his fierce desires | A |
| Or looms blood red on the Western hills through the smoke of their waning fires | A |
| When the winds at war strew the mountain side with limbs of the mangled trees | B |
| Or the flood tides wheel in the valleys low or sweep to the distant seas | B |
| We are leading back and the faintest track that we leave in the desert wild | C |
| Or we blaze for fear through the forest drear will be tramped by the settler s child | C |
| - | |
| We have turned our backs on the City s joys on the glare of its myriad lights | D |
| On the measured peace of its bloodless days and the strife of its shining nights | D |
| We have fled the pubs in the dull bush towns and the furthermost shanty bars | E |
| And have camped away at the edge of space or aloft by the brooding stars | E |
| We have stirred the world as our dishes swirled and we drummed on the matted gold | F |
| And from East and West we beguile their best with a wonderful tale oft told | F |
| - | |
| We go pushing on when the mirage glints o er the rim of the voiceless plain | G |
| And we leave our bones to be finger posts for the seekers who come again | H |
| At the jealous heart of the secret bush we have battered with clamour loud | I |
| And have made a way for the squatter bold or a path for the busy crowd | I |
| We have gone before through the shadowy door of the Never the Great Unknown | J |
| And have journeyed back with a golden pack or as dust in the wild winds blown | J |
| - | |
| In the chilling breath of the ice bound range we have laboured and lost and won | K |
| On the blazing hills we have striven long in the face of the angry sun | K |
| We have fallen spitted with niggers spears in the graves ourselves have dug | L |
| And have bitten grass with a cloven skull and the turf in our arms to hug | L |
| From our rifled dead have the natives fled blood drunk to their camping place | M |
| Whilst the crows enthroned on a limb intoned to the devil a measured grace | M |
| - | |
| We have butchered too when the camp ran wild with a mad malignant hate | N |
| For the lust of gold or the hope we had or the love of a murdered mate | N |
| We have shocked the night with our ribald songs in the sullen savage lands | O |
| And have died the death that the lone man dies in the grip of the reeling sands | O |
| Or have lived to die in a city sty with the help of a charity prayer | P |
| Or to do the swell at a grand hotel on our thousands of pounds a year | Q |
| - | |
| We are moving still and not love nor fear nor a wife s nor mother s grief | R |
| Can distract the longing that drives us forth on the track of the hidden reef | R |
| Some will face the heathen in lands afar by rivers and looming peaks | S |
| Some will stay to ravage their own home bills or to dig by the sluggish creeks | S |
| Some go pushing West on the old old quest and wherever their tents abide | T |
| Will the world flow in and its swift tide spin till it scatter them far and wide | T |
| - | |
| Is it greed alone that impels our ranks Is it only the lust of gold | F |
| Drives them past where the sentinel ranges stand where the plains to the sky unfold | F |
| Is there nothing more in this dull unrest that remains in the hearts of man | U |
| Till the swag is rolled or the pack horse strapped or the ship sails out again | H |
| Is it this alone or in blood and bone does the venturous spirit glow | V |
| That was noble pride when the world was wide and the tracks were all Westward Ho | V |
| - | |
| We are common men with the faults of most and a few that ourselves have grown | J |
| With the good traits too of the common herd and some more that are all our own | J |
| We have drunk like beasts and have fought like brutes and have stolen and lied and slain | G |
| And have paid the score in the way of men in remorse and fear and pain | G |
| We have done great deeds in our direst needs in the horrors of burning drought | W |
| And at mateship s call have been true through all to the death with the Furthest Out | W |
| - | |
| As the soft breeze stirs all the tender green of the bush that is newly born | X |
| And the wattles blaze on the flats and gladden the hills with the glow of morn | X |
| We are trenching high in the stony slopes or turning the creeks below | V |
| Or the gorge re echoes the thud of picks and the songs that the miners know | V |
| When the lode strips clean with a yellow sheen our fortunes are fairly won | K |
| When the dish pans bare up with tents and ware and hurrah for the outward run | K |
Edward George Dyson
(1)
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