Quotes about growl, page 18
The Lights of Cobb & Co.
Fire lighted; on the table a meal for sleepy men;
A lantern in the stable; a jingle now and then;
The mail-coach looming darkly by light on moon and star;
The growl of sleepy voices; a candle in the bar;
A stumble in the passage of folk with wits abroad;
A swear-word from a bedroom---the shout of "All aboard!"
"Tekh tehk! Git-up!" "Hold fast, there!" and down the range we go;
Five hundred miles of scattered camps will watch for Cobb and Co.
Old coaching towns already decaying for their sins;
Uncounted "Half-way Houses," and scores of "Ten-Mile Inns;"
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poem by Henry Lawson
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From Kennel or Hearth?
In the bush south of Chapleau
Two stormy portages away,
Stood a Golden Dog 'Brandy'
Under ashen skies grey.
We were hunting for moose
When the dog so peculiar
Got a look in his eye
A look, not all familiar.
You had to know him
Obtained as a pup
And for his 12 years growing
He'd NEVER act up.
A Golden Retriever loving;
Gave his heart, as they do,
Through a divorcing depression
Empathy, always HIS view.
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poem by Richard Stopps
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The Legless Man
(The Dark Side)
My mind goes back to Fumin Wood, and how we stuck it out,
Eight days of hunger, thirst and cold, mowed down by steel and flame;
Waist-deep in mud and mad with woe, with dead men all about,
We fought like fiends and waited for relief that never came.
Eight days and nights they rolled on us in battle-frenzied mass!
"Debout les morts!" We hurled them back. By God! they did not pass.
They pinned two medals on my chest, a yellow and a brown,
And lovely ladies made me blush, such pretty words they said.
I felt a cheerful man, almost, until my eyes went down,
And there I saw the blankets -- how they sagged upon my bed.
And then again I drank the cup of sorrow to the dregs:
Oh, they can keep their medals if they give me back my legs.
I think of how I used to run and leap and kick the ball,
And ride and dance and climb the hills and frolic in the sea;
And all the thousand things that now I'll never do at all. . . .
Mon Dieu! there's nothing left in life, it often seems to me.
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poem by Robert William Service
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Up The Country
I am back from up the country -- very sorry that I went --
Seeking for the Southern poets' land whereon to pitch my tent;
I have lost a lot of idols, which were broken on the track,
Burnt a lot of fancy verses, and I'm glad that I am back.
Further out may be the pleasant scenes of which our poets boast,
But I think the country's rather more inviting round the coast.
Anyway, I'll stay at present at a boarding-house in town,
Drinking beer and lemon-squashes, taking baths and cooling down.
`Sunny plains'! Great Scott! -- those burning
wastes of barren soil and sand
With their everlasting fences stretching out across the land!
Desolation where the crow is! Desert where the eagle flies,
Paddocks where the luny bullock starts and stares with reddened eyes;
Where, in clouds of dust enveloped, roasted bullock-drivers creep
Slowly past the sun-dried shepherd dragged behind his crawling sheep.
Stunted peak of granite gleaming, glaring like a molten mass
Turned from some infernal furnace on a plain devoid of grass.
Miles and miles of thirsty gutters -- strings of muddy water-holes
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poem by Henry Lawson
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Borderland
I am back from up the country -- very sorry that I went --
Seeking for the Southern poets' land whereon to pitch my tent;
I have lost a lot of idols, which were broken on the track --
Burnt a lot of fancy verses, and I'm glad that I am back.
Further out may be the pleasant scenes of which our poets boast,
But I think the country's rather more inviting round the coast --
Anyway, I'll stay at present at a boarding-house in town
Drinking beer and lemon-squashes, taking baths and cooling down.
Sunny plains! Great Scot! -- those burning wastes of barren soil and sand
With their everlasting fences stretching out across the land!
Desolation where the crow is! Desert! where the eagle flies,
Paddocks where the luny bullock starts and stares with reddened eyes;
Where, in clouds of dust enveloped, roasted bullock-drivers creep
Slowly past the sun-dried shepherd dragged behind his crawling sheep.
Stunted "peak" of granite gleaming, glaring! like a molten mass
Turned, from some infernal furnace, on a plain devoid of grass.
Miles and miles of thirsty gutters -- strings of muddy waterholes
In the place of "shining rivers" (walled by cliffs and forest boles).
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poem by Henry Lawson
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The Native Born
1894
We've drunk to the Queen -- God bless her! --
We've drunk to our mothers' land;
We've drunk to our English brother,
(But he does not understand);
We've drunk to the wide creation,
And the Cross swings low for the mom,
Last toast, and of Obligation,
A health to the Native-born!
They change their skies above them,
But not their hearts that roam!
We learned from our wistful mothers
To call old England 'home';
We read of the English skylark,
Of the spring in the English lanes,
But we screamed with the painted lories
As we rode on the dusty plains!
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poem by Rudyard Kipling
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In the next birth
IF I ACQUIRED the menacing form of an
alligator in the next birth,
I would want you to cling tightly to my persona as my serrated green
skin.
If I was born in the ominous form of the jungle tiger in the
next birth,
I would you to be incorporated in my body as my domineeringly
authoritative growl.
If I was born as a densely foliated tree in the next birth,
I would want you to be the perennial leaves that emanated from
my silhouette.
If I was born as an opalescent fish in the next birth,
I would want you to be saline water in which I could sustain life
and swim.
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poem by Nikhil Parekh
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Thirty Bob a Week
I couldn't touch a stop and turn a screw,
And set the blooming world a-work for me,
Like such as cut their teeth -- I hope, like you --
On the handle of a skeleton gold key;
I cut mine on a leek, which I eat it every week:
I'm a clerk at thirty bob as you can see.
But I don't allow it's luck and all a toss;
There's no such thing as being starred and crossed;
It's just the power of some to be a boss,
And the bally power of others to be bossed:
I face the music, sir; you bet I ain't a cur;
Strike me lucky if I don't believe I'm lost!
For like a mole I journey in the dark,
A-travelling along the underground
From my Pillar'd Halls and broad Suburbean Park,
To come the daily dull official round;
And home again at night with my pipe all alight,
A-scheming how to count ten bob a pound.
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poem by John Davidson
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Urban Ugliness
Clothed in smoke and asphalt Peking ducks
anti-pollution regulations all
would see enforced, for ambulance on call
can't cater to health-hazards China chucks
out the proverbial window. Safety 'sucks'.
Mis- and man-handled boom pride rides to fall,
too many cities suffer urban sprawl,
- sink in many senseless senses - luck's
running out, as greed feeds 'come-unstucks'
falling life expectations sprinkle mall
and high-rise, cover all with sooty shawl
to leave behind waste land for cars and trucks.
What some would term an economic boom
confirms decay, wormed downp[l]ay, deadly doom.
Uniform urban ugliness, slab on slab,
stressed concrete pressed to duty stifles grass,
stalkers prowl then growl before last gasp
in shadowland where hands skeletal grasp
polluted air ~ there scarecrow trees once dared to ask
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poem by Jonathan Robin
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Here Died
There's many a schoolboy's bat and ball that are gathering dust at home,
For he hears a voice in the future call, and he trains for the war to come;
A serious light in his eyes is seen as he comes from the schoolhouse gate;
He keeps his kit and his rifle clean, and he sees that his back is straight.
But straight or crooked, or round, or lame – you may let these words take root;
As the time draws near for the sterner game, all boys should learn to shoot,
From the beardless youth to the grim grey-beard, let Australians ne'er forget,
A lame limb never interfered with a brave man's shooting yet.
Over and over and over again, to you and our friends and me,
The warning of danger has sounded plain – like the thud of a gun at sea.
The rich man turns to his wine once more, and the gay to their worldly joys,
The "statesman" laughs at a hint of war – but something has told the boys.
The schoolboy scouts of the White Man's Land are out on the hills to-day;
They trace the tracks from the sea-beach sand and sea-cliffs grim and grey;
They take the range for a likely shot by every cape and head,
And they spy the lay of each lonely spot where an enemy's foot might tread.
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poem by Henry Lawson
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