Read Online 60 Classic Australian Poems for Children by Cheng & Rogers - Free Book Online Page A

built in Glasgow by a very canny Scot,
    And he marked it twenty horse-power, but he don’t know what is what.
    When Canadian Bill is firing with the sun-dried gidgee logs,
    She can equal thirty horses and a score or so of dogs.
    Sinking down, deeper down,
    Oh, we’re going deeper down.
    If we fail to get the water then it’s ruin to the squatter,
    For the drought is on the station and the weather’s growing hotter;
    But we’re bound to get the water deeper down.
    But the shaft has started caving and the sinking’s very slow,
    And the yellow rods are bending in the water down below,
    And the tubes are always jamming and they can’t be made to shift
    Till we nearly burst the engine with a forty horse-power lift.
    Sinking down, deeper down,
    Oh, we’re going deeper down.
    Though the shaft is always caving, and the tubes are always jamming,
    Yet we’ll fight our way to water while the stubborn drill is ramming—
    While the stubborn drill is ramming deeper down.
    But there’s no artesian water, though we’ve passed three thousand feet,
    And the contract price is growing and the boss is nearly beat.
    But it must be down beneath us, and it’s down we’ve got to go,
    Though she’s bumping on the solid rock four thousand feet below.
    Sinking down, deeper down;
    Oh, we’re going deeper down,
    And it’s time they heard us knocking on the roof of
    Satan’s dwellin’;
    But we’ll get artesian water if we cave the roof of hell in—
    Oh! we’ll get artesian water deeper down.
    But it’s hark! the whistle’s blowing with a wild, exultant blast,
    And the boys are madly cheering, for they’ve struck the flow at last,
    And it’s rushing up the tubing from four thousand feet below,
    Till it spouts above the casing in a million-gallon flow.
    And it’s down, deeper down—
    Oh, it comes from deeper down;
    It is flowing, ever flowing, in a free, unstinted measure
    From the silent hidden places where the old earth hides her treasure—
    Where the old earth hides her treasure deeper down.
    And it’s clear away the timber, and it’s let the water run:
    How it glimmers in the shadow, how it flashes in the sun!
    By the silent belts of timber, by the miles of blazing plain
    It is bringing hope and comfort to the thirsty land again.
    Flowing down, further down;
    It is flowing further down
    To the tortured thirsty cattle, bringing gladness in its going;
    Through the droughty days of summer it is flowing, ever flowing—
    It is flowing, ever flowing, further down.
    The Bulletin (Christmas edition), 1899

45
The Swagman
CJ Dennis
    Oh, he was old and he was spare;
    His bushy whiskers and his hair
    Were all fussed up and very grey.
    He said he’d come a long, long way
    And had a long, long way to go.
    Each boot was broken at the toe,
    And he’d a swag upon his back.
    His billy-can, as black as black,
    Was just the thing for making tea
    At picnics, so it seemed to me.
    ----
    A Book for Kids was first published in 1921 and then republished as Roundabout in 1935. This poem was possibly CJ Dennis’s favourite.
----
    â€™Twas hard to earn a bite of bread,
    He told me. Then he shook his head,
    And all the little corks that hung
    Around his hat-brim danced and swung
    And bobbed about his face; and when
    I laughed he made them dance again.
    He said they were for keeping flies—
    â€˜The pesky varmints’—from his eyes.
    He called me ‘Codger’ … ‘Now you see
    The best days of your life,’ said he.
    â€˜But days will come to bend your back,
    And, when they come, keep off the track.
    Keep off, young codger, if you can.’
    He seemed a funny sort of man.
    He told me that he wanted work,
    But jobs were scarce this side of Bourke,
    And he supposed he’d have to go
    Another fifty mile or so.
    â€˜Nigh all my life the track I’ve walked,’
    He said. I liked the way he talked.
    And oh,