Across the flooded lowlands
And slopes of sodden loam,
The pack-horse struggles onward,
To take dumb tidings home.
And mud-stained, wet, and weary,
Through ranges dark goes he;
The hobble-chains and tinware
Are sounding eerily.
* * * *
The floods are in the ocean,
The stream is clear again,
And now a verdant carpet
Is stretched across the plain.
But someone's eyes are saddened,
And someone's heart still bleeds,
In sorrow for the drover
Who sleeps among the reeds.
THE RESCUE.
By Edward Dyson.
(From "Rhymes from the Mines," by kind permission of Messrs. Angus and Robertson, Publishers, Sydney and Melbourne.)
There's a sudden, fierce clang of the knocker, then the sound of a voice in the shaft,
Shrieking words that drum hard on the centres, and the braceman goes suddenly daft;
"Set the whistle a-blowing like blazes! Billy, run, give old Mackie a call—
Run, you fool! Number Two's gone to pieces, and Fred Baker is caught in the fall!
Say, hello! there below—any hope, boys, any chances of saving his life?"
"Heave away!" says the knocker. "They've started. God be praised, he's no youngsters or wife!"
Screams the whistle in fearful entreaty, and the wild echo raves on the spur,
And the night, that was still as a sleeper in soft, charmed sleep, is astir
With the fluttering of wings in the wattles, and the vague, frightened murmur of birds;
With far cooeys that carry the warning, running feet, inarticulate words.
From the black belt of bush come the miners, and they gather by Mack on the brace,
Out of breath, barely clad, and half-wakened, with a question in every face.
"Who's below?" "Where's the fall?" "Didn't I tell you?—Didn't I say them sets wasn't sound?"
"Is it Fred? He was reckless was Baker; now he's seen his last shift underground."
"And his mate? Where is Sandy M'Fadyn?" "Sandy's snoring at home on his bunk."
"Not at work! Name of God! a foreboding?" "A foreboding be hanged! He is drunk!"
"Take it steady there, lads!" the boss orders. He is white to the roots of his hair.
"We may get him alive before daybreak if he's close to the face and has air."