The Man from Snowy River Part 8

But the mother pined and faded, and cried, and took no rest, And rode each day to the ranges on her hopeless, weary quest.

Seeking her loved one ever, she faded and pined away, But with strength of her great affection she still sought every day.

'I know that sooner or later I shall find my boy,' she said.

But she came not home one evening, and they found her lying dead, And stamped on the poor pale features, as the spirit homeward pa.s.s'd, Was an angel smile of gladness -- she had found the boy at last.

Over the Range

Little bush maiden, wondering-eyed, Playing alone in the creek-bed dry, In the small green flat on every side Walled in by the Moonbi ranges high; Tell us the tale of your lonely life, 'Mid the great grey forests that know no change.

'I never have left my home,' she said, 'I have never been over the Moonbi Range.

'Father and mother are both long dead, And I live with granny in yon wee place.'

'Where are your father and mother?' we said.

She puzzled awhile with thoughtful face, Then a light came into the shy brown eye, And she smiled, for she thought the question strange On a thing so certain -- 'When people die They go to the country over the range.'

'And what is this country like, my la.s.s?'

'There are blossoming trees and pretty flowers, And s.h.i.+ning creeks where the golden gra.s.s Is fresh and sweet from the summer showers.

They never need work, nor want, nor weep; No troubles can come their hearts to estrange.

Some summer night I shall fall asleep, And wake in the country over the range.'

Child, you are wise in your simple trust, For the wisest man knows no more than you Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust: Our views by a range are bounded too; But we know that G.o.d hath this gift in store, That when we come to the final change, We shall meet with our loved ones gone before To the beautiful country over the range.

Only a Jockey

'Richard Bennison, a jockey, aged 14, while riding William Tell in his training, was thrown and killed. The horse is luckily uninjured.'

-- Melbourne Wire.

Out in the grey cheerless chill of the morning light, Out on the track where the night shades still lurk; Ere the first gleam of the sunG.o.d's returning light, Round come the race-horses early at work.

Reefing and pulling and racing so readily, Close sit the jockey-boys holding them hard, 'Steady the stallion there -- canter him steadily, Don't let him gallop so much as a yard.'

Fiercely he fights while the others run wide of him, Reefs at the bit that would hold him in thrall, Plunges and bucks till the boy that's astride of him Goes to the ground with a terrible fall.

'Stop him there! Block him there! Drive him in carefully, Lead him about till he's quiet and cool.

Sound as a bell! though he's blown himself fearfully, Now let us pick up this poor little fool.

'Stunned? Oh, by Jove, I'm afraid it's a case with him; Ride for the doctor! keep bathing his head!

Send for a cart to go down to our place with him' -- No use! One long sigh and the little chap's dead.

Only a jockey-boy, foul-mouthed and bad you see, Ignorant, heathenish, gone to his rest.

Parson or Presbyter, Pharisee, Sadducee, What did you do for him? -- bad was the best.

Negroes and foreigners, all have a claim on you; Yearly you send your well-advertised h.o.a.rd, But the poor jockey-boy -- shame on you, shame on you, 'Feed ye, my little ones' -- what said the Lord?

Him ye held less than the outer barbarian, Left him to die in his ignorant sin; Have you no principles, humanitarian?

Have you no precept -- 'go gather them in?'

Knew he G.o.d's name? In his brutal profanity, That name was an oath -- out of many but one -- What did he get from our famed Christianity?

Where has his soul -- if he had any -- gone?

Fourteen years old, and what was he taught of it?

What did he know of G.o.d's infinite grace?

Draw the dark curtain of shame o'er the thought of it, Draw the shroud over the jockey-boy's face.

How M'Ginnis Went Missing

Let us cease our idle chatter, Let the tears bedew our cheek, For a man from Tallangatta Has been missing for a week.

Where the roaring flooded Murray Covered all the lower land, There he started in a hurry, With a bottle in his hand.

And his fate is hid for ever, But the public seem to think That he slumbered by the river, 'Neath the influence of drink.

And they scarcely seem to wonder That the river, wide and deep, Never woke him with its thunder, Never stirred him in his sleep.

As the cras.h.i.+ng logs came sweeping, And their tumult filled the air, Then M'Ginnis murmured, sleeping, "Tis a wake in ould Kildare.'

So the river rose and found him Sleeping softly by the stream, And the cruel waters drowned him Ere he wakened from his dream.

And the blossom-tufted wattle, Blooming brightly on the lea, Saw M'Ginnis and the bottle Going drifting out to sea.

A Voice from the Town

A sequel to [Mowbray Morris's] 'A Voice from the Bush'

I thought, in the days of the droving, Of steps I might hope to retrace, To be done with the bush and the roving And settle once more in my place.

With a heart that was well nigh to breaking, In the long, lonely rides on the plain, I thought of the pleasure of taking The hand of a lady again.

I am back into civilisation, Once more in the stir and the strife, But the old joys have lost their sensation -- The light has gone out of my life; The men of my time they have married, Made fortunes or gone to the wall; Too long from the scene I have tarried, And, somehow, I'm out of it all.