With Apologies to Rudyard Kipling
There's never a flower for fifty miles;
But only the gidyea tree,
And the saltbush gray, and the coolibah,
But an ocean of Grass I see;
And out of the desert "Back of Beyond"
The wind blows eerily!
The coach-wheels whirl on the team-worn road,
Due South from the railway track,
The road that was made in the Days of Old
By the grand Pioneers, the Brave and the Bold
Who opened the way to the "Back of Beyond" ---
Who went there --- but never came back.
From a curtain of Rose and of Apricot
Of a sudden outflames the Sun!
And 'tis "Gee-up, Laddie!" and "Ho! Conrad!"
And the five-in-hand plunge like one! ---
But the Kangaroo steers for the "Back of Beyond,"
For he knows that his day is done.
But ours? Well, ours has just begun!
First published in The Queenslander, 28 May 1898
Author reference site: Austlit
See also.
There's never a flower for fifty miles;
But only the gidyea tree,
And the saltbush gray, and the coolibah,
But an ocean of Grass I see;
And out of the desert "Back of Beyond"
The wind blows eerily!
The coach-wheels whirl on the team-worn road,
Due South from the railway track,
The road that was made in the Days of Old
By the grand Pioneers, the Brave and the Bold
Who opened the way to the "Back of Beyond" ---
Who went there --- but never came back.
From a curtain of Rose and of Apricot
Of a sudden outflames the Sun!
And 'tis "Gee-up, Laddie!" and "Ho! Conrad!"
And the five-in-hand plunge like one! ---
But the Kangaroo steers for the "Back of Beyond,"
For he knows that his day is done.
But ours? Well, ours has just begun!
First published in The Queenslander, 28 May 1898
Author reference site: Austlit
See also.
