Thread: Australian poetry.

No, but you got me intrigued, as I couldn't find it with a search. Is it blue?
Don.

Originally Posted by Don 130

No, but you got me intrigued, as I couldn't find it with a search. Is it blue?
Don.

No, it used to be part of the curriculum in Queensland Primary Schools.
I'm hoping Brian or Bob can help me out.

Forty miles from Meekathara,
Past the peaceful billabong,
Hear them tear the air asunder,
Hear the road trains roar along,

That's all I can remember.

Meekatharra has two rs, even spelling it the correct way doesn't assist in a search.

Why do you do these things, Ian? Yes, the poem is familiar so now my afternoon of contemplation will be shattered whilst I rummage through my brain cells and the internet. Thank God for Coopers Brewing.

Our Little Mates
by Sapper Oscar Walters, "somewhere on the front"

(From Meekatharra Miner, June 10th 1916)

It was for a short time only that all of our schemes seemed wrecked,
That we had forsaken our dearest to earn a foe's respect
And dully we watched the sun set in a world of blood and hate,
When in our blunted senses stole the dream of a Little Mate.

And they who were faint and weary in the long, grim fight with pain
Smiled at your fanciful dreaming, and smiling, took heart again
"Dear Little Mate, do you blame us if we, when the fight was hot,
Slaughtered and gazed at the slaughter, and slaughtering, forgot ?”

No longer with feet uncertain we travel a path unknown;
Fearless we face a morrow we dared not face alone.
Out on the lone, grim places ever on guard we stand,
That your dreaming be unmolested—that your dreams be large and grand.

For you fight with us in the trenches, you walk with us in the snows,
You go with us on the long fatigues that only a soldier knows.
When we fight for you in the darkness, in the darkness you fight with us
In the hell that we have created; the gods have ordained it thus.

We have little of goodness and wisdom, we pawns in the hands of Fate.
We have sinned as man can only, yet each has a Little Mate
Who gives him the greater courage in the game of the desperate chance,
'Tis the Little Mates who will lead us on in the days of the great advance.

Couldn't find your Ian but a load more located

From WA Bush poets

The first time I had heard of Meekatharra was during the REDEX Trials in days of yore.


Not earth shattering I realise.

Originally Posted by V8Ian

No, it used to be part of the curriculum in Queensland Primary Schools.
I'm hoping Brian or Bob can help me out.

Forty miles from Meekathara,
Past the peaceful billabong,
Hear them tear the air asunder,
Hear the road trains roar along,

That's all I can remember.

When I was at primary school the only mention of trains in The School Readers were steam trains and camel trains.

Originally Posted by Saitch

Why do you do these things, Ian? Yes, the poem is familiar so now my afternoon of contemplation will be shattered whilst I rummage through my brain cells and the internet. Thank God for Coopers Brewing.

Could you refer the question to the brains trust, by whom you are surrounded?