Wild raspberries and wattle gum, fit plunder for a child.
I see the slow creek running through the swamp oaks, twos and threes,
The threaded tangle of the vines spread wandering and wild,
And the ladies of the leaf world, the silver wattle trees.
It's a long way from the "Twelve-mile," a long, long way from home.
I wonder if the wattle still the scattered homestead girds?
I wonder are there children there, when Christmas seasons come,
To hunt the timber paddocks for the treasury of the birds?
Raspberries and wattle gum. The old days are over;
But when the long Decembers come, like someone in a dream,
I see the wattles thick with seed, the cocksfoot and the clover,
And the vines in fruit and flower by the still brown stream.
In the long, long evenings, while the old year passes,
Do they hear the old bush murmur like a river on its bars?
Do they hear the crickets chirping in the thin dry glasses,
And the black swans honking homewards up among the stars?
Do the lilies bloom at Christmas still, to deck the little church?
I do not know, I only know that if the chance should come,
I would leave the dusty city and its Christmas in the lurch
To go hunting for wild raspberries and golden wattle gum.
First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 6 December 1930
Author reference site: Austlit
See also.
I see the slow creek running through the swamp oaks, twos and threes,
The threaded tangle of the vines spread wandering and wild,
And the ladies of the leaf world, the silver wattle trees.
It's a long way from the "Twelve-mile," a long, long way from home.
I wonder if the wattle still the scattered homestead girds?
I wonder are there children there, when Christmas seasons come,
To hunt the timber paddocks for the treasury of the birds?
Raspberries and wattle gum. The old days are over;
But when the long Decembers come, like someone in a dream,
I see the wattles thick with seed, the cocksfoot and the clover,
And the vines in fruit and flower by the still brown stream.
In the long, long evenings, while the old year passes,
Do they hear the old bush murmur like a river on its bars?
Do they hear the crickets chirping in the thin dry glasses,
And the black swans honking homewards up among the stars?
Do the lilies bloom at Christmas still, to deck the little church?
I do not know, I only know that if the chance should come,
I would leave the dusty city and its Christmas in the lurch
To go hunting for wild raspberries and golden wattle gum.
First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 6 December 1930
Author reference site: Austlit
See also.
