THE SONG OF THE DARLING RIVER

The skies are brass and the plains are bare,

Death and ruin are everywhere —

And all that is left of the last year’ s flood

Is a sickly stream on the grey-black mud;

The salt-springs bubble and quagmires quiver,

And — this is the dirge of the Darling River:

‘ I rise in the drought from the Queensland rain,

I fill my branches again and again;

I hold my billabongs back in vain,

For my life and my peoples the South Seas drain;

And the land grows old and the people never

Will see the worth of the Darling River.

‘ I drown dry gullies and lave bare hills,

I turn drought-ruts into rippling rills —

I form fair island and glades all green

Till every bend is a sylvan scene.

I have watered the barren land ten leagues wide!

But in vain I have tried, ah! in vain I have tried

To show the sign of the Great All Giver,

The Word to a people: O! lock your river.

‘ I want no blistering barge aground,

But racing steamers the seasons round;

I want fair homes on my lonely ways,

A people’ s love and a people’ s praise —

And rosy children to dive and swim —

And fair girls’ feet in my rippling brim;

And cool, green forests and gardens ever’—

Oh, this is the hymn of the Darling River.

The sky is brass and the scrub-lands glare,

Death and ruin are everywhere;

Thrown high to bleach, or deep in the mud

The bones lie buried by last year’ s flood.

And the Demons dance from the Never Never

To laugh at the rise of the Darling River.