BUT WHAT’ S THE USE

But what’ s the use of writing‘ bush’—

Though editors demand it —

For city folk, and farming folk,

Can never understand it.

They’ re blind to what the bushman sees

The best with eyes shut tightest,

Out where the sun is hottest and

The stars are most and brightest.

The crows at sunrise flopping round

Where some poor life has run down;

The pair of emus trotting from

The lonely tank at sundown,

Their snaky heads well up, and eyes

Well out for man’ s manœuvres,

And feathers bobbing round behind

Like fringes round improvers.

The swagman tramping’ cross the plain;

Good Lord, there’ s nothing sadder,

Except the dog that slopes behind

His master like a shadder;

The turkey-tail to scare the flies,

The water-bag and billy;

The nose-bag getting cruel light,

The traveller getting silly.

The plain that seems to Jackaroos

Like gently sloping rises,

The shrubs and tufts that’ s miles away

But magnified in sizes;

The track that seems arisen up

Or else seems gently slopin’,

And just a hint of kangaroos

Way out across the open.

The joy and hope the swagman feels

Returning, after shearing,

Or after six months’ tramp Out Back,

He strikes the final clearing.

His weary spirit breathes again,

His aching legs seem limber

When to the East across the plain

He spots the Darling Timber!

But what’ s the use of writing‘ bush’—

Though editors demand it —

For city folk and cockatoos,

They do not understand it.

They’ re blind to what the whaler sees

The best with eyes shut tightest,

Out where Australia’ s widest, and

The stars are most and brightest.