ah, nostalgia

There was movement at the station, for the word had passed around
That the colt from old Regret had got away,
And had joined the wild bush horses - he was worth a thousand pound,
So all the cracks had gathered to the fray.
All the tried and noted riders from the stations near and far
Had mustered at the homestead overnight,
For the bushmen love hard riding where the wild bush horses are,
And the stockhorse snuffs the battle with delight.



There was Harrison, who made his pile when Pardon won the cup,
The old man with his hair as white as snow;
But few could ride beside him when his blood was fairly up -
He would go wherever horse and man could go.
And Clancy of the Overflow came down to lend a hand,
No better horseman ever held the reins;
For never horse could throw him while the saddle girths would stand,
He learnt to ride while droving on the plains.



And one was there, a stripling on a small and weedy beast,
He was something like a racehorse undersized,
With a touch of Timor pony - three parts thoroughbred at least -
And such as are by mountain horsemen prized.
He was hard and tough and wiry - just the sort that won't say die -
There was courage in his quick impatient tread;
And he bore the badge of gameness in his bright and fiery eye,
And the proud and lofty carriage of his head.



But still so slight and weedy, one would doubt his power to stay,
And the old man said, "That horse will never do
For a long a tiring gallop - lad, you'd better stop away,
Those hills are far too rough for such as you."
So he waited sad and wistful - only Clancy stood his friend -
"I think we ought to let him come," he said;
"I warrant he'll be with us when he's wanted at the end,
For both his horse and he are mountain bred.



"He hails from Snowy River, up by Kosciusko's side,
Where the hills are twice as steep and twice as rough,
Where a horse's hoofs strike firelight from the flint stones every stride,
The man that holds his own is good enough.
And the Snowy River riders on the mountains make their home,
Where the river runs those giant hills between;
I have seen full many horsemen since I first commenced to roam,
But nowhere yet such horsemen have I seen."



So he went - they found the horses by the big mimosa clump -
They raced away towards the mountain's brow,
And the old man gave his orders, "Boys, go at them from the jump,
No use to try for fancy riding now.
And, Clancy, you must wheel them, try and wheel them to the right.
Ride boldly, lad, and never fear the spills,
For never yet was rider that could keep the mob in sight,
If once they gain the shelter of those hills."



So Clancy rode to wheel them - he was racing on the wing
Where the best and boldest riders take their place,
And he raced his stockhorse past them, and he made the ranges ring
With the stockwhip, as he met them face to face.
Then they halted for a moment, while he swung the dreaded lash,
But they saw their well-loved mountain full in view,
And they charged beneath the stockwhip with a sharp and sudden dash,
And off into the mountain scrub they flew.

Then fast the horsemen followed, where the gorges deep and black
Resounded to the thunder of their tread,
And the stockwhips woke the echoes, and they fiercely answered back
From cliffs and crags that beetled overhead.
And upward, ever upward, the wild horses held their way,
Where mountain ash and kurrajong grew wide;
And the old man muttered fiercely, "We may bid the mob good day,
No man can hold them down the other side."



When they reached the mountain's summit, even Clancy took a pull,
It well might make the boldest hold their breath,
The wild hop scrub grew thickly, and the hidden ground was full
Of wombat holes, and any slip was death.
But the man from Snowy River let the pony have his head,
And he swung his stockwhip round and gave a cheer,
And he raced him down the mountain like a torrent down its bed,
While the others stood and watched in very fear.



He sent the flint stones flying, but the pony kept his feet,
He cleared the fallen timber in his stride,
And the man from Snowy River never shifted in his seat -
It was grand to see that mountain horseman ride.
Through the stringybarks and saplings, on the rough and broken ground,
Down the hillside at a racing pace he went;
And he never drew the bridle till he landed safe and sound,
At the bottom of that terrible descent.



He was right among the horses as they climbed the further hill,
And the watchers on the mountain standing mute,
Saw him ply the stockwhip fiercely, he was right among them still,
As he raced across the clearing in pursuit.
Then they lost him for a moment, where two mountain gullies met
In the ranges, but a final glimpse reveals
On a dim and distant hillside the wild horses racing yet,
With the man from Snowy River at their heels.



And he ran them single-handed till their sides were white with foam.
He followed like a bloodhound on their track,
Till they halted cowed and beaten, then he turned their heads for home,
And alone and unassisted brought them back.
But his hardy mountain pony he could scarcely raise a trot,
He was blood from hip to shoulder from the spur;
But his pluck was still undaunted, and his courage fiery hot,
For never yet was mountain horse a cur.




And down by Kosciusko, where the pine-clad ridges raise
Their torn and rugged battlements on high,
Where the air is clear as crystal, and the white stars fairly blaze
At midnight in the cold and frosty sky,
And where around The Overflow the reed beds sweep and sway
To the breezes, and the rolling plains are wide,
The man from Snowy River is a household word today,
And the stockmen tell the story of his ride.

The Bulletin, 26 April 1890.

By any other name ..

Um, was intending to try to write a poem about "weeds" ..seeds and needs .. but looks like this bloke beat me to it ..

Perhaps the greatest defense of weeds is contained in the last stanza of Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem Inversnaid:

"What would the world be, once bereft,

of wet and wildness? Let them be left.

O let them be left; wildness and wet;

Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet."

which comes from an interesting article on Wikipedia. A 'weed' is only vegetation in an 'inappropriate place' buuuut .. who decides?

so, will just post some pics, and make it a game called  "Spot the weeds" ...

..but really have to do something about these  ..

yep, had to put a fence around this lot to keep 'em in .. heh

At what point does the seed of a weed become a need?

(the acacia decurrens by the post is going well)

A puzzle

I will publish this this morning, since have been sitting by the warm and cosy wood heater playing with the "speech recognition" software on the laptop. It is a "collaborative" effort between me and the computer - but will leave it up to the reader to figure out the relative contribution between 'silicon chip' programming; and the "fuzzy logic" of human thought.

The North East wind a blows

And shows, that whether the weather

Will change, or range

Across the continents

Of  world sentiments;

In and whether the end of four or more

Will grow in the mind of new meander full

neanderthal.

Flat earth mind We'll find All of a kind.

The changing times remind

Other bygone ages rages of saviours save you

sages; ancient philosophers have got no

Warm-now, for more than four Martin, forgotten.

Noah saw the writing on the wall and took used by road

To ararat Arafat Palestine holyrood his brood.

Animals to buy two, or one, or a dozen

Frozen in one, boiled elsewhere.  Four square.

When planner dark is flooded with CEO two

Where will we take the Arc.

essential Kipling

Um, yer, I know - "random snippets".

Was reading Guambat Stew and there's a post about Afghanistan. Was tempted to make the comment that 'USA is not the first "Imperial" power to get lost up the Khyber in that part of the planet' .. but that may have been a bit obscure. That then tempted me to search further and find the origins of the rhyming slang.

Didn't get all that far but found this.

I must be a "control freak"

Don't ask .. I love my little generator. Am sitting here, minding my own business, trying to organise several "web" presences when "brrrr..rown!", the lights go out. Um, think i.

Stumble around in pitch darkness, find the 4 D cell "headlight" that (hopefully) had remembered to return to the hook that it belonged to.

Go out and refill generator. It runs for about 5 hours on a tankful of 2 stroke petrol. Sometimes I get carried away with intentions, imaginations: and forget the practical time-frames.

I love it. Ain't nobody else around here gives me hassles .. heh.

Reflections from my mind's sky

Of course -

it's easy to see them:

sitting solitary naked

in the night sand dunes

wind whispering

with the silence of millennia past

and future -

unspoiled by iPods, or Edisons's inventions. Three specks of light in Orion's belt, one not a star at all but a gas cloud far away then Betelgeuse and Bellatrix standing guard above; Rigel at the base and Sirius off to lower left

with Aldebaran overlooking all; rubbing shoulders with Hyades and the magical mystical group Pleiades.

What were they called in times long past, I wonder, when men and minds had more time to ponder.

Tammuz to the Chaldeans; for the Syrians, Al Jabbar. Ancient Egyptians knew him as Sahu, soul of Osiris – but it is from the Greeks that we know him as Orion, the great hunter, accidentally killed by his lover Artemis; goddess of the

Night sky. Inconsolable in her grief she placed his body with his faithful hounds Canis Major and Canis Minor - in the eternal sky for all to see and remember that a wilful, accidental arrow can destroy even the strongest of loves or lovers.

Who knows what the ancient Australians called him. Today they are a prosaic house-hold utensil, a pot, the big dipper; perhaps reflecting the hardships of pioneer housewives to find food, sustenance, water -

make do with whatever at hand

survive

in a vast, dry, and unforgiving land.

footsteps in a landscape

Naked

Oh yes, the GFC has affected me. Here's my response. Long story.

Saw it coming several years ago. Liquidated everything I owned into what I have now. A bank is persuing me for 12K .. much of which belongs to “fees and charges” ... Tiny bikkies, really, given the multi Billions lost. If they can extract 12K of potential out of me .. then that might be an interesting challenge.

A Jackson Pollock scribble in paint was was worth $au12 million to some Art Gallery funded by local Gummimt .... heh.

Is anybody there ..

Walter De la Mare. 1873–

86. The Listeners

'IS there anybody there?' said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
Of the forest's ferny floor.
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveller's head:
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
'Is there anybody there?' he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,


That goes down to the empty hall,


Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken


By the lonely Traveller's call.
20

And he felt in his heart their strangeness,


Their stillness answering his cry,


While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,


'Neath the starred and leafy sky;


For he suddenly smote on the door, even
25

Louder, and lifted his head:—


'Tell them I came, and no one answered,


That I kept my word,' he said.


Never the least stir made the listeners,


Though every word he spake
30

Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house


From the one man left awake:


Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,


And the sound of iron on stone,


And how the silence surged softly backward,
35

When the plunging hoofs were gone.