The Dusky Wood-Swallow

Surely must you know me,
Friendly and content;
All my actions show me
Freely confident;
With my band of toilers,
When the blue days smile:
Little Jacky Martin
Come to stay a while.

Every town and village
Knows me, every farm.
Mine no wish to pillage,
Mine no will to harm;
Busy in the orchard,
My pest-destroying band:
Little Jacky Martin
Come to lend a hand.

Suddenly appearing
In far forest land
When you've cut a clearing,
Lo, I am at hand,
Wheeling, soaring floating
Where the new fields bask;
Little Jacky Martin
Come to aid the task.

In the chilly weather
See us in the trees,
Huddled up together
Like the swarming bees.
Awing again and toiling
When the chill days end;
Little Jacky Martin
Everybody's friend.

Care Free Bloke's Cigar

There's a little spark and a wisp of smoke
By the road where the tall gums are;
And a mile away a care-free bloke
Speeds onward in his car.
No thought of evil mars his day,
And he's well a hundred miles away
And safe at home, as skies grow grey,
With another fine cigar.

There's a spurt of flame in the breathless night
And a crackling in the scrub;
There's a withered mint-bush burning bright,
And a kindling dog-wood shrub.
For yards about the bush glows red
But the care-free bloke, his paper read,
Says, 'Bonzer day. And now for bed
After a bite of grub.'

There's a sickening roar as the fire sweeps down
From the mountainside aflame
On the helpless little forest town,
And one knew how it came.
Ten miles of blackened hills gape wide
And a stricken home on the mountain side ...
But the care-free bloke toils on in pride.
He saw no spark by the bush roadside,
So how is he to blame?

The Grey Goshawk

There is a flutter in the trees,
And now a sudden, dread unease
Stills all the bushland melodies
Amid the gums;
Stills now the song of wren and thrush,
Robin and honeyeater hush.
Now, with a swoop, a whistling rush,
Grey goshawk comes.

I am the threat: the dread king.
Grim Azrael, is on the wing,
And every little living thing
Dares scarce a breath.
And now a parrot, shrill with fear,
Flies dodging there and doubling here
Thro' inlaced limbs, in mad career
From lusting death.

Grey ghost, grey death, I work my will
O'er forest dense, o'er wood hill,
And on some tree-top rend my kill
With reddened beak.
There is no have in the tree,
There is no habor safe from me;
In many a singing sanctuary
My meat I seek.

Beware! The swift grey ghost is out!
Be still! Grey death lurks near about!
Crouch close! Shrink low! ... But have no doubt
I've marked my kill.
Grim nemesis. I never fail;
Gaint hunger is my spur, my flail.
I feast. And now away I sail
O'er the far hill.

Now is the healing, quiet hour that fills
This gay, green world with peace and grateful rest.
Where lately over opalescent hills
The blood of slain Day reddened all the west,
Now comes at Night's behest,
A glow that over all the forest spills,
As with the gold of promised daffodils.
Of all hours this is best.


It is time for thoughts of holy things,
Of half-forgotten friends and one's own folk.
O'er all, the garden-scented sweetness clings
To mingle with the wood fire's drifting smoke.
A bull-frog's startled croak
Sounds from the gully where the last bird sings
His laggard vesper hymn, with folded wings;
And night spreads forth her cloak.


Keeping their vigil where the great range yearns,
Like rigid sentries stand the wise old gums.
On blundering wings a night-moth wheels and turns
And lumbers on, mingling its drowsy hums
With that far roll of drums,
Where the swift creek goes tumbling amidst the ferns...
Now, as the first star in the zenith burns,
The dear, soft darkness comes.

'The Wonga Pigeon'

Men knew and loved my calling in old days
Days ere a bitter wisdom taught me fear.
Trusting and unafraid, I went my ways
By many a crude hut of the pioneer;
Calling by paths where lonely axemen strode,
By new-cleared farmland yet to know the plough;
Calling by deep sled-track and bullock road . . .
But where today man builds his last abode
Few hear my calling now.

Too trusting. When they found my flesh was sweet
Was sweet and white and succulent withal
What mattered beauty? I was good to eat!
Then trust was my undoing; and my call
A summons to men's hunger and the chase
A tame, ignoble chase with me the prey
Till far into some secret forest place
I fled, with that poor remant of my race
I hiding here today.

And only by lost paths o'ergrown with fern
By old, abandoned tracks in scrubs remote
You may, by chance, around a sudden turn,
Win some brief, fleeting glance of my grey coat.
Then, with a swift wing-clapping, I am hence;
Or, crouching down, ingenuously seek
To merge my colors with the brush-wood dense
And trick the spoiler, with the vain defence
Of earth's harried meek.

As I went down a forest place
At the closing of the year
To find me peace, and gather grace
In this green gladness here.
I saw a scene I knew of old,
In many a year gone by
A loveliness to have and hold
Here, with the gully waters cold,
And the bland, blue peeping sky.

And I saw the blue wrens trooping near,
And I heard the thrushes call,
And found surcease from worldly fear
For a peace was over all.
And my mind went back to long ago,
For here was a scene I knew
Where the gums and ancient tree ferns grow,
And the ever-lasting waters flow,
And life yields little new.

And I thought of the world - of the world of men,
Who ever seek them change,
And haste, and hectic, haste again
To a goal beyond their range.
And I heard the thrush and the blue wren there
Fluting their songs of glee
For them this world was passing fair,
And they found content and gladness there.
Why came not peace to me?

Then I saw life, as men see life
I who am but a man;
And I dreamed of a scene devoid of strife,
Built on the good God's plan.
And I came me back from that forest place,
With a dream to have and hold,
Of men with naught but life to face,
Of men grown young in simple grace,
And the birds and the bush grown old!

In A Forest Garden: A Promise Of Spring

Spring surely must be near. High over head
The kind blue heavens bend to timbers tall;
And here, this morning, is the picture spread
That I have learned to love the best of all.
I hear Flame Robin call
His early love-song. Winter's might is sped;
And young crows now begin to fleck with red
This great green, living wall.

Picture of promise, that I count the best
Of many a fair familiar Bushland scene;
Lifting o'er all, the far mount's sunlit crest
Looks down where silver wattles lightly screen
Blue smoke, that peeps between
Their tall tops, from some settler's hidden nest
Looks down on golden wattles closely pressed
To blackwood's luscious green.

Before the dovecote, mirrored in the pond,
A veil diaphanous of drifting mist
Makes many a nimbus for grey gums beyond
Whose gaunt, grey limbs a mountain sun has kissed
To palest amethyst.
Now, stepping very daintily, with fond,
Soft cooings, fantails on the lawn respond,
To Spring, the amorist.

From the deep forest, on the clean crisp air,
The bushman's axe-blows echo sharply clear;
A soft cloud's tattered fleece drifts idly where
Glows azure hope. Impatient to appear
Springs now full many a spear
Of marching daffodils. Shorn of cold care,
The joyous bush birds vie with flutings rare.
Spring surely must be near.

I wondered wot was doin'. First I seen
Ole Missus Flood wave signals to Doreen.
I'm in the paddick slashin' down some ferns;
She's comin' up the road; an' if she turns
An 'andspring I won't be su'prised a bit,
The way she's caperin', an' goin' it.

She yells out some remark when she gets near,
Which I don't catch, I'm too fur off to 'ear.
An' then Doreen comes prancin' to our door,
An' Missus Flood she sprints, an' yells some more;
My wife runs to the gate an' waves 'er arms...
But I lays low; I'm used to these alarms.

A married bloke, in time, 'e learns a bit;
An' 'e ain't over keen to throw a fit
Each time the women calls the fire-reel out.
It's jist a trifle 'e'll know all about
When things get normal. That's a point I learn;
So I saws wood, an' keeps on cutting fern.

At least, I cut a few. I got to give
Reel fac's, an' own I was inquisitive;
An' these 'ere fireworks gets me fair perplexed.
I watch the 'ouse to see wot 'appens next;
But nothin's doin'. They jist goes in,
An' leaves me wonderin' wot's caused the din.

I stands it for a full 'arf-hour or more;
Then gets dead sick uv starin' at the door.
I goes down to the 'ouse an' 'unts about
To find some 'baccer, which I 'ave no doubt
Is in me trousers pocket all the while.
When I goes in, the talk stops, an' they smile.

I sez I've lost me smoke, an' search a bit,
An' ask Doreen wot 'as become uv it,
An' turns the mantelshelf all upside-down,
An' looks inside the teapot, with a frown;
Then gives it up, an' owns I'd like a drink;
When Missus Flood sez, 'Bill, wot do you think?'

Now, ain't that like a woman? Spare me days,
I'll never get resigned to all their ways.
When they 'as news to tell they smile, an' wink,
An' bottle it, an' ask yeh wot yeh think.
It's jist a silly game uv theirs, an' so,
I gives the countersign: 'Wot? I dunno.'

'Then guess,' she sez. Well, I'm a patient bloke,
So I sits down an' starts to cut a smoke.
(To play this game yeh've got to persevere.)
'Couldn't,' I sez, 'if I guessed for a year';
Then lights me pipe, an' waits for 'er to speak.
At last she says, 'Jim's comin' back next week!'

'Go on,' sez I; an' puffs away awhile
Quite unconcerned. But for to see 'er smile
Was jist a treat: 'er eyes was shinin' bright,
An' she grow'd ten years younger in a night.
Jist 'ere, Doreen she sez to me, 'Good Lor,
Wot do yeh want two plugs uv 'baccer for?'

I takes me pipe out uv me mouth an' stares,
An' stammers, 'Must 'ave found a piece - somewheres.'
But, by the way she smiles - so extra sweet
I know she twigs me game, an' I am beat.
'Fancy,' she sez. 'Yeh're absent-minded, dear.
Sure there was nothin' else yeh wanted 'ere?'

'Nothin',' I sez, an' feels a first-prize fool;
An' goes outside, an' grabs the nearest tool.
It was the crosscut; so I works like mad
To keep me self-respeck from goin' bad.
'This game,' I tells meself, 'will do yeh good.
You ain't proficient, yet, at sawin' wood.'