Poems Extracted from
Back O’ Cairns
Adventures in the Far North
By Ion Idriess
1994
ISBN 0 207 18561 1.
Presented by Paul Clacher
THE REVIEW
Ion Idriess
I sat by the campfire musing,
On the dead, departed Past,
While spectral thoughts on memory's -wings
Came crowding round me fast.
And golden scenes were rising,
Through the magic-tinted air,.
When Earth seemed mostly Dreamland,
And life surpassing fair.
And I was thinking, musing,
If life was made in vain.
I've had my share of pleasure,
I've had my share of pain.
On fleeting -wings of happiness
Those brilliant years did fly;
In robes of sweetness glowing,
Each golden month sped by.
Then, life was a sparkling Eden,
Where every dream proved true,
While Youth remained my bounty,
And Hope my pleadings knew.
My musing now is changing
To a misty, fog-bound land.
And I was gently veering
To Tassy's rugged strand.
I thought old friends were round me,
And old, familiar scenes.
And I forgot the bitterness
That follows after dreams.
My musing now was drifting
To that distant Mulga Land,
Where the lonely traveller’s walking
Through a treeless waste of sand.
Where lies the gold alluring,
So many have led astray.
Where Hope is so assuring
That Pate might her obey.
The fire hums low—the moon has gone,
The sky is sullen black.
With never a thought like a silver star
To shine through the future track.
The Past has gone, the future's near—
A vista of dragging fears.
No wonder that many a man goes mad
At the phantom of coming years.
Ion Idreiss Back O ‘ Cairns pp 98 – 99.
When Girlie Goes Looking for Nuts
Ion Idriess
"The doctors tell us that our bones
To them a tale unfold,
Of how we're degenerating
From the usual human mould.
"For we are slipping back, they say,
To what we were before,
And by our tails wilt swing from trees
In a thousand years or more.
"But this to me seems passing strange,
'TIS laughable if true,
I pray my ghost will live to see
The troubles it will brew.
"How will a politician look
If monkey he must be?
Will he harangue the crowd for votes
While sitting on a tree?
"And will he promise them the nuts
Of others that he'll scatter,
And waste the precious fleeing hours
On things that do not matter?
"What tickles me, though, most of all
Is how will Girlie take it—
Will she quite spring up from her tail
Should a male monk strive to shake it?
"And will she comb her pretty fur
Then gaze upon a pool?
And will she fold her furry tail
When sitting on a stool?
"Or will she pass her time of day
in looking out for nuts,
Or coyly -wander through the bush
A shyly meeting knuts?
"Or maybe she mil climb a tree
And crack upon her knees,
The really choice collection
Of her daily catch of fleas.
"Oh joy 'twill be if I am there
To watch, the pretty dears,
To watch their little antics
in another thousand years'."
Ion Idreiss Back O ‘ Cairns pp 98 – 99.
The Belle of Nigger Creek
Some say it's dark-eyed Polly,
More say it's Rose or Nell,
But I think it's only folly
To try and -pick the belle.
There's lovely minds in Nigger Creek
Both white and. black and brawn,
And I think it's height of insolence
To look for girls in town.
For here you'll find the prettiest maids
That any could wish to see,
And some their colour never fades
Through dye of ancestry.
We'll toast them all in sparkling wine,
The dark ones and the fair,
And when we find that precious tin
We'll have a grand time there.
Ion Idreiss Back O ‘ Cairns p 129.
Idriess Ion, “Back O’ Cairns - Adventures in the Far North”, Sydney, Australia, Harper Collins, (Angus & Robertson Publication), 1994, ISBN 0 207 18561 1..