Song Of The Old Bullock-driver Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AA BCBCDEDEDFDFGHGH DFDFCICI JKJKLMLM JMJMNGOG CGCGNJOJ PJPJGFGFA | |
A | |
- | |
- | |
- | |
- | |
- | |
- | |
Far back in the days when the blacks used to ramble | B |
In long single file neath the evergreen tree | C |
The wool teams in season came down from Coonamble | B |
And journeyed for weeks on their way to the sea | C |
Twas then that our hearts and our sinews were stronger | D |
For those were the days when the bushman was bred | E |
We journeyed on roads that were rougher and longer | D |
Than roads where the feet of our grandchildren tread | E |
With mates who have gone to the great Never Never | D |
And mates whom I ve not seen for many a day | F |
I camped on the banks of the Cudgegong River | D |
And yarned at the fire by the old bullock dray | F |
I would summon them back from the far Riverina | G |
From days that shall be from all others distinct | H |
And sing to the sound of an old concertina | G |
Their rugged old songs where strange fancies were linked | H |
- | |
We never were lonely for camping together | D |
We yarned and we smoked the long evenings away | F |
And little I cared for the signs of the weather | D |
When snug in my hammock slung under the dray | F |
We rose with the dawn were it ever so chilly | C |
When yokes and tarpaulins were covered with frost | I |
And toasted the bacon and boiled the black billy | C |
Where high on the camp fire the branches were tossed | I |
- | |
On flats where the air was suggestive of possums | J |
And homesteads and fences were hinting of change | K |
We saw the faint glimmer of appletree blossoms | J |
And far in the distance the blue of the range | K |
And here in the rain there was small use in flogging | L |
The poor tortured bullocks that tugged at the load | M |
When down to the axles the waggons were bogging | L |
And traffic was making a marsh of the road | M |
- | |
Twas hard on the beasts on the terrible pinches | J |
Where two teams of bullocks were yoked to a load | M |
And tugging and slipping and moving by inches | J |
Half way to the summit they clung to the road | M |
And then when the last of the pinches was bested | N |
You ll surely not say that a glass was a sin | G |
The bullocks lay down neath the gum trees and rested | O |
The bullockies steered for the bar of the inn | G |
- | |
Then slowly we crawled by the trees that kept tally | C |
Of miles that were passed on the long journey down | G |
We saw the wild beauty of Capertee Valley | C |
As slowly we rounded the base of the Crown | G |
But ah the poor bullocks were cruelly goaded | N |
While climbing the hills from the flats and the vales | J |
Twas here that the teams were so often unloaded | O |
That all knew the meaning of counting your bales | J |
- | |
And oh but the best paying load that I carried | P |
Was one to the run where my sweetheart was nurse | J |
We courted awhile and agreed to get married | P |
And couple our futures for better or worse | J |
And as my old feet grew too weary to drag on | G |
The miles of rough metal they met by the way | F |
My eldest grew up and I gave him the waggon | G |
He s plodding along by the bullocks to day | F |
Henry Lawson
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about Song Of The Old Bullock-driver poem by Henry Lawson
Best Poems of Henry Lawson