ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

Here is an old one of mine for Australia Day:

THE VERY FIRST

Paddy O’Rourke, or so goes the talk,
was the very first man to be sent
a world away to Botany Bay
for stealing a shilling to pay his rent.

‘Twas Judge McVeigh, or so they say,
sent poor Paddy across the sea
and neither old McVeigh nor Paddy
had any idea where that might be......


“Twelve years! Twelve years you shall serve and not a single moment less,
that I most earnestly hope and pray will curb your wickedness!
Now, you shall be the very first whom I send by Royal Decree,
to that place which I believe shall be known as...please excuse me.”
“Clerk! Where is that accursed place? What is that blasted name you say?”
“Oh yes - the place I send you now shall be known as Botany Bay.”

South by west, then south again, was the captain’s sailing orders,
south by west, then south again, towards the world’s farthest borders.
Then south by south and south again through a faintly charted ocean,
till there were amongst us those who in panic voiced the notion;
our captain was insane or else the sun had touched his mind
for as we sailed on southward, so we left all hope behind.

When at last the anchors dropped and the sails were safely furled,
they brought us forth from our foetid holds to see our lonely world.
Oh, the sight that there did greet us, nought but bush and burning sand,
beneath a sky stretched forever above an endless land
and as we gazed from those silent decks at our isolation,
who amongst us could suspect we were the lifeblood of a nation.

For every man who stood there and every mother’s daughter,
saw nothing more than a prison whose walls were bush and water.
Where we were we did not know nor if we’d live to leave again,
we only knew we had survived, albeit bound in chain.
Then in every heart there grew - as we stared at that awful scene -
a determination we would live to see our homelands green.

But now from where it is I sleep beneath these vast eternal skies
still I hear my companions weep and I hear their tortured cries;
I feel the sting of the lash; hear the rattle of rusting chain;
I see the nation that has grown from our misery and our pain.
To those of you who would judge us still - we who were less than slaves-
we would ask you to remember, Australia is built upon our graves.

(©) Vic Jefferies

Thanks Vic, I really enjoyed it.

Good on you Jim. Thanks for taking the time to comment and I am glad you enjoyed the poem.

Vic

As you say Vic a lot of very ordinary people contributed to the development of Australia.
And out freedom was built in part on the unfree.
I think we musn't forget the free settlers who worked hard too, and also the wise architects of our constitution who framed one of the best foundations for any free nation.

Posted elsewhere in this system is my piece, roughly in the same vein, Vic.

One of the standouts for me and I can't recall the author - is 'Women of the West'.
A truly worthwhile piece indicating the 'roles' our ladies played in the transition from 'Wildland' to our bloody marvellous country -

Bloody Country.

I love this bloody country.
I've got 'er in me veins,
'er trials, 'er tribulations,
'er sorrows, aches, 'er pains.

(c).Rimeriter circa 1979.

Thank you Nevile and Jim for reading the poem. I wrote it to try and emphasise the fact that it is my opinion that "The Very First" people who came here had absolutely no idea where they were coming to or what to expect. Those on the First Fleet were obviously the beginning of our Australia today but yet we seem to pay little attention to what they must have suffered or achieved. I dare to say if we were in America we would probably have been taught every individual name!
What those people endured is beyond my comprehension let alone the success they made of what must have been (were) dire circumstances.
Can you imagine being on a prison hulk moored of the coast of England then sailing for endless months in the most appalling conditions to the farthest point of the world of which virtually no one knew anything to arrive at Botany Bay? Amazing!


Vic

For those who may never have bumped across it -

The Women Of The West.
by George Essex Evans.

They left the vine-wreathed cottage and the mansion on the hill,
the houses in the busy streets where life is never still,
the pleasures of the city and the friends they cherished best :
for love they faced the wilderness - the Women of the West.

The roar and rush and fever of the city died away
and the old time joys and faces - they were gone for many a day :
in their place the lurching coach wheel or the creak of bullock chains
o’er the everlasting sameness of the never ending plains.
In the slab-built, zinc-roofed homestead of some lately taken run,
in the tent beside the bankment of a railway just begun,
in the huts on new selections, in the camps of man’s unrest,
on the frontiers of the Nation, live the Women of the West.

The red sun robs their beauty and in weariness and pain,
the slow years steal the nameless grace that never come again ;
and there are hours men cannot soothe and words men cannot say -
the nearest woman’s face may be a hundred miles away.

The wide bush holds the secrets of their longing and desires,
when the white stars in reverence light their holy alter fires
and silence, like the touch of God sinks deep into the breast -
perchance He hears and understands the Women of the West.

For them no trumpet sounds the call, no poet plies his arts -
they only hear the beating of their gallant, loving hearts,
but they have sung with silent lives the song all songs above -
the holiness of sacrifice, the dignity of love.
Well have we held our fathers’ creed. No call has passed us by,
we faced and fought the wilderness, we sent our sons to die
and we have hearts to do and dare, and yet, o’er all the rest
the hearts that made the Nation were the Women of the West.

(an extracted copy)