Works in the Herald 1934
DARGO
Dargo is a dark-haired lass
   Prone to independent ways;
Few men know her, fewer pass,
   Where her pleasant river plays
But the smile in her blue eye
   Promises a wealth of cheer
For the tired passer-by
   Who would seek him respite here.

Long forgot, the days of gold
   When the miners, crowding down,
Stirred a turbulence of old
   Round about her pleasant town.
Now the quiet cattle-men.
   Riding in from her high plains
Seek her portals now and then
   With a tale of worthier gains.

Riding up Insolvent Track,
   In the days before its change --
Many a digger came not back
   From that grim, forbidding range:
Came not ever back to tell
   Olden tales of loss or gain
Where Maroka's waters swell
    Many a stream that seeks the plain.

Still the dark-haired Dargo thrives
   'Mid her lands of range and rock,
While blood horses bear men's lives
   In and out amongst the stock.
And beside her pleasant streams.
   Willow hung, that wind about,
Here the blue-eyed maiden dreams
   As she marks the leaping trout.

"Den"
Herald, 20 March 1934, p6

Copyright © Perry Middlemiss 2002-06