Mount Bukaroo

[Heather]

Mount Bukaroo
Henry Lawson

Only one old post is standing --
Solid yet, but only one --
Where the milking, and the branding,
And the slaughtering were done.
Later years have brought dejection,
Care, and sorrow; but we knew
Happy days on that selection
Underneath old Bukaroo.

Then the light of day commencing
Found us at the gully's head,
Splitting timber for the fencing,
Stripping bark to roof the shed.
Hands and hearts the labour strengthened;
Weariness we never knew,
Even when the shadows lengthened
Round the base of Bukaroo.

There for days below the paddock
How the wilderness would yield
To the spade, and pick, and mattock,
While we toiled to win the field.
Bronzed hands we used to sully
Till they were of darkest hue,
'Burning off' down in the gully
At the back of Bukaroo.

When we came the baby brother
Left in haste his broken toys,
Shouted to the busy mother:
'Here is dadda and the boys!'
Strange it seems that she was able
For the work that she would do;
How she'd bustle round the table
In the hut 'neath Bukaroo!

When the cows were safely yarded,
And the calves were in the pen,
All the cares of day discarded,
Closed we round the hut-fire then.
Rang the roof with boyish laughter
While the flames o'er-topped the flue;
Happy days remembered after --
Far away from Bukaroo.

But the years were full of changes,
And a sorrow found us there;
For our home amid the ranges
Was not safe from searching Care.
On he came, a silent creeper;
And another mountain threw
O'er our lives a shadow deeper
Than the shade of Bukaroo.

All the farm is disappearing;
For the home has vanished now,
Mountain scrub has choked the clearing,
Hid the furrows of the plough.
Nearer still the scrub is creeping
Where the little garden grew;
And the old folks now are sleeping
At the foot of Bukaroo.

[croc]

...
"Bronzed hands we used to sully"

He blew it right there.

...croc

[Maureen K Clifford]

It is a gorgeous poem Heather can't believe I have never read it or even heard of it before now. A keeper for me.

Thanks for putting it up

Maybe he said bronz-ed hands croc - 2 syllables

Cheers

Maureen

[Neville Briggs]

Thanks for that Heather. I think it is a great idea to read classic works and even try to write in their manner to gain experience in poetry writing. I don't think it would just make us imitators if we read a broad selection of classics.

I'm sure you are right Maureen. We know from Henry Lawson's poem My Literary Friend that his work was " improved " by editors, so he may have done that line differently at first. I don't think it matters if one line seems a bit wonky, the whole is more than the sum of the parts. It's a great poem.


Heather, if that was the Hunter Valley to-day, the 6th stanza would have to read " For our home amid the ranges was not safe from greedy miners " and the property would not be reverting to the scrub, it would disappear into a gigantic abyss.

[Heather]

Compare the "sound" of the above poem to this one which has the same number of syllables in each line. In this one though Lawson has started with a non stressed word. It gives the poem a totally different "sound".

Rain in the Mountains
Henry Lawson

The Valley's full of misty cloud,
Its tinted beauty drowning,
The Eucalypti roar aloud,
The mountain fronts are frowning.
The mist is hanging like a pall
From many granite ledges,
And many a little waterfall
Starts o’er the valley’s edges.

The sky is of a leaden grey,
Save where the north is surly,
The driven daylight speeds away,
And night comes o’er us early.

But, love, the rain will pass full soon,
Far sooner than my sorrow,
And in a golden afternoon
The sun may set to-morrow.

[Maureen K Clifford]

Magic isn't it

[Heather]

Did anyone notice the paddock/mattock rhyme?

Lawson was not always perfect with his rhyme and he often throws in an extra word here and there which messes with his metre. Lawson had a limited education, he was deaf and had to write on the run to earn a living. I'm sure he didn't sit and study metre and count syllables in great detail!

To quote Colin Roderick, Henry Lawson's biographer, "Lawson himself had little interest in the subtleties of technique. He sought no greater mastery of porosdy than he needed to express his emotion forcefully and memorably. ......He made no erudite study of poetic technique: what he knew he had learned in childhood experience from Irish folk tunes and the old border ballads........"

Intro to Henry Lawson Poems. Angus and Robertson 1979

[Rimeriter]

Some good points well made Heather.

"Thank you" for all of them.
Jim.

[Neville Briggs]

Very good Heather. Thinking about the approach to form and the relationship of structure to sound is very important I think, you've brought up excellent discussion points.

It's been a while since I read Lawson's biographical details but I think that his mother was a significant influence for literary things. She was a skilful poet.

No I didn't notice the paddock/mattock rhyme, which for me means it doesn't matter.

[Heather]

Hi Neville,

yes, Louisa Lawson is supposed to have had a great influence on Henry and he did work on her newspaper Dawn when it first started. The first newspaper solely for women if I recall correctly. Louisa was quite a woman for her time and would have been a more powerful force had she had the opportunities and education that women get today.

One of the poets on this forum has told me on several occasions that he hears a "tune" in his head when writing poetry. You can hear a tune when reading Lawson's poetry and the tune changes with the way he starts and ends his lines and the number of beats in those lines.

The mattock/paddock was just one illustration of how Lawson wasn't perfect with his rhymes. I think we sometimes "over think" the way we look at poetry. Sometimes we should step back from analysing and just enjoy it.

Heather