Bush Poems by Graeme Philipson

Dad died on 4 July 1997. He was far too young, a month short of his 70th birthday. After he had gone I lost interest in writing any more stuff. But some of it is still performed, most notably by my mate Peter "Stinger" Nettleton in Perth. Some day I may write more. The first poem, 'The Spirit of Australia', won a highly commended in the Blackened Billy competition in Winton in 1998, and was published in the competition book. I believe it is occasionally performed around the traps.

The Spirit of Australia

I am the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended

I’m the sunburnt country and the flooded plains

I’m the Barcoo and the Darling, I’m the Yarra and the Swan

I’m the muddy Murrumbidgee after rain.

I’m the sugar cane, the sack of wheat, I’ve made this country rich

From the Golden Fleece that rides upon my back

I’m on the stockroute back of Bourke, on the station way out west

I’m the six lane highway, I’m the desert track.

I’m the Indian Pacific, the Sunlander, the Ghan

I bind with steel the land beneath my rails

I’m the flying kangaroo, my long reach across the land

I’m all that drives and flies and steams and sails.

I’ve carried Banjo’s stockman, and Lawson’s rouseabout

I’m every horse that Gordon ever rode

I’m the colt from old Regret, I’m the packhorse and the dray

I’m the brumby bush horse from the Overflow.

I’m Lalor at the Stockade, I’m the Breaker on the veldt

I’m Simpson with his donkey at Lone Pine

I’m Tobruk, I’m Crete, I’m Long Tan, I’m the Sydney’s blazing guns

I’m the slave upon the railway on the Kwai.

I’m Dad and Dave, and - strike me lucky - I’m the Sentimental Bloke

I’m the man from where the Snowy River flows

I’m the slicker from the city, I’m the bastard from the bush

I’m Matilda waltzing down a country road.

I’m Brabham and I’m Bradman, I’m a girl called Goolagong

I’m the big red horse they killed in foreign lands

I’m Darcy in the ring and I’m Dally on the wing

And I’m Dougie lofting at the Members Stand.

I am Albert Namitjira, I am his canvas painted bright

I see this land through ageless open eyes

I’m the dreamtime, I’m the dawning, I’m older than the night

I am Uluru beneath the southern skies.

You can find me where the mountains tumble down against the sea

Where the wide brown land turns rich from flooding rain

Where the rivers of the inland flow proud beneath the sky

Where the west wind ripples through the golden grain.

From the mighty Southern Ocean to the jungles of the Gulf

From Byron to where Hartog nailed his plate

From Kosciuscko to the Cooper, from Sydney to the bush

I am everything that made this country great.

I’m the Spirit of Australia, I’m the soul of this great land

I’m what rides within and makes us what we are

I am you and me and all of us, I am tomorrow and today

I am the Spirit of the land. I am Australia.

Graeme Philipson, Gosford, 11 January 1995

Snowy

Banjo wrote a poem about the Snowy River man

He made the mountains known across the land

But that wild and rugged country grew more famous after that

When they tamed the Snowy Mountains with their dams.

They caught the mighty waters and they sent them roaring back

Through tunnels bored in solid savage rock

To the rivers of the inland, where the cold unceasing flow

Brought life to dusty plains and ravaged crops.

The black man knew the place, but he shunned the higher peaks

His dreams still tell of ghosts who walk the night

But he never made a home up there, he stayed below the line

Where the winter winds would dust the world with white.

When Strzelecki found the mountain he named it for the man

Who led his people’s struggle to be free

Kosciusko it remains today, a symbol of the time

When man broke clear from chains and tyranny.

When the war was won they came away from Europe’s wasted wreck

From their bloodied and their battered broken lands

Call them Balts or bloody reffos, wogs or whinging Poms

They built the mighty Snowy with their hands.

“We’ll reverse the rivers’ run, we’ll turn the bastards back

We’ll stop the waters wasting to the sea

We’ll irrigate the inland, we’ll make the deserts bloom

This wide brown land’s a bit too brown for me.

“We’ll make the waters turn the turbines that power half the land

They’ll run the foundries and the factories and mills

With the water where it’s wanted, and with energy to spare

A New Australia will be born up in those hills.”

They blasted out the mountains as they broke through solid rock

“Where the river runs those giant hills between”

They built the dams and tunnels and they turned the waters back

And made the inland glow with gold and green.

Now the skiers come in fancy cars and fancy overcoats

They know little of the history of the place

They fall about and fornicate and fill themselves with food

Never caring for the mountains’ silent grace.

And in the riverland the waters run, the Murray’s always fed

From the mighty Murrumbidgee’s steady flow.

The vineyards and the ricefields and the orchards hung with fruit

Are all fed from frosty pools of melted snow.

But nothing comes uncosted, now the Snowy’s just a creek

A string of muddy puddles in the bed

And the Snowy River’s roar is just a whisper in the night

That’s Banjo’s ghost still riding on ahead.

Graeme Philipson, 1997-2000

The Never Never

Have you ever ever been

To the Never Never Land

Where the grass grows high as houses

And the silent shadows stand

It brings a silence to the senses

That stillness ‘cross the land

When the birds they gather in the sky

In the Never Never Land

If you’ve never never been

To the Never Never Land

Then you’ll never know the reason why

And you’ll never understand

The land is never yours

Though it’s gathered in your hand

It belongs to all eternity

Does the Never Never Land

Graeme Philipson, September 1999

It’s Hard
Drought in New South Wales, 1994

It’s hard when the wind blows hot from the west

And your will to survive is put to the test

When it’s just not enough to be doing your best

God it’s hard.

It’s hard when the dams dry up in the mud

And your hopes and your dreams hit the ground with a thud

When you’re losing the land that’s a part of your blood.

God it’s hard.

It’s hard when the drought lasts three seasons or four

And you’re knocked down and just can’t get up from the floor

When you can’t tell what tommorrow has waiting in store

God it’s hard.

It’s hard when the paddocks turn brown from the heat

And the dead cattle’s bones are as white as a sheet

When the sheep all drop dead with a pitiful bleat

God it’s hard.

It’s hard when the wind blows the soil from the ground

And the dusts swirls in clouds around and around

When you’re looking for hope and it cannot be found

God it’s hard.

It’s hard when the bank wants its money and more

And the government just takes more from the poor

 What do they know about keeping the wolf from the door?

 God it’s hard.

 There are times when all you can do is refuse

 To lay down and die or say “what’s the use?”

 But sometimes there’s not much more you can do

 God it’s hard.

Graeme Philipson, Sydney, 25 January 1995

The Last Bushranger

Just below Uralla stands New England's southern gate

A mighty granite boulder that tells of one man's fate.

Of the bushranger called Thunderbolt, the last of that rare breed

Of desperate men without the law joined in a common creed.

Thunderbolt was Frederick Ward. The story of his life

Begins they say in Windsor town, in eighteen thirty-five.

His early life was tough and cruel, the times back then were hard

His school was on the horse's back, and in the breaker's yard.

He didn't learn to read or write, but he sure knew how to ride

Jimmy Garbutt showed him how to steal, he took it in his stride.

They took sixty head from Tocal Run, but the Troopers caught them cold

Frederick Ward was twenty-one, with ten years to rot in gaol.

They put him on to Cockatoo, an island made in hell

He set to work to work to get away, he nearly did as well.

But they caught him and they put him in a hole without the sun

Alone he waited for the day when he could make his run.

He swam one night, he got away, he went back to the bush

Across the range, to back of Bourke, he joined the westward push.

He took to the road, he learned the life of a bushranger at large

He robbed the coaches, stole the mail, while riding at the charge.

But life was hard in the sunburnt scrub, he moved back to the range

To relieve the squatter of his horse, the traveller of his change.

Thunderbolt lived outside the law, but he was honest in his way

There's a famous tale of a famous deed at Tenterfield one day.

He went boldly to the races, and looked folk up and down

He saw who won and he saw who lost, and he waited out of town.

He robbed three German bandsmen, but to show his kind concern

He left them some to get to town, and he promised he'd return.

They’d get it back if he could find the man that won the most

And by his word the very next day he lived true to his boast.

Nick Hart was the man, he was travelling north, a hundred pounds he'd won

Ward bailed him up on the border line and relieved him of the sum.

The Germans got their money back, they'd not believed their ears

Ward’s word became a legend, passed down through the years.

When a hawker came by the Rock one day the outlaw bailed him up

But he got to Uralla and raised the alarm, the constables saddled up.

Trooper Walker caught him there that day, outside of Blanche's Inn

And shot at him in the valley where Kentucky Creek begins.

Our man was on a borrowed horse, he could not outrun the law

So he left the saddle and climbed the bank, with Walker firing more.

He was cornered fair and square, but he was brave until the last

Walker cried: “surrender, man!” The outlaw saw his chance

He charged the mounted trooper, he was firing as he came

But his pistol jammed, and the trooper's final bullet found its aim.

He fell into the creek but rose again to fight his foe

He died when Walker struck him with a god-almighty blow.

That afternoon outside of town, more died than just a man

He was the last to live that outlaw’s life upon this lonely land.

All had gone before him: Morgan, Gilbert and Ben Hall

Frederick Ward, called Thunderbolt, was the last one of them all.

When he died they all died with him, it was the ending of an age

A curtain dark was drawn across that now far distant stage.

When Thunderbolt still rode the range, from Mudgee to the Downs

When Thunderbolt his name still rang, in country and in town

When Thunderbolt outrode the law, from Bourke clear to the sea

This land was very different then, from what it came to be.

Now life, they say, is civilised, there's none can do again

What Thunderbolt did years ago, when he strode across the land.

They say that life is better now the bushrangers are dead

But they like to recollect the days the squatters lived in dread.

He's buried in Uralla, where his name is famous yet

The Rock still stands, the creek still runs, where he met his death

You can have a beer and toast him in the pub that bears his name

You can stop awhile and ponder on the reasons for his fame.

And though he’s dead these hundred years, his memory still remains

Of how he rode the mountains, and how he strode the plains.

His name will live for ever more beneath those cold dark skies

The last bushranger may have gone, but the legend never dies.

Graeme Philipson, Gosford, 5 June 1993

The Last Bushranger was written for John Philipson by his son Graeme to mark the old man's 66th birthday (1 August 1993). Every effort has been made to ensure that all events referred to in the poem are historically correct, though of course some poetic license has been employed. Most events refered to in in the poem are taken from R.B Walker’s “Captain Thunderbolt, Bushranger” in the Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, vol 43, (1957).

Most historians agree that Frederick Ward, alias Captain Thunderbolt, was indeed the last bushranger in Australia. Ned Kelly came later but he was a not a bushranger in the normally accepted sense of the term: he was not an escaped convict and he did not live off the land.

Thunderbolt's death, on 25 May 1870, thus marked the end of an important and colourful era in the history of colonial Australia.

He outlasted all the others that made their name during the gold rushes of the 1860s: men like Ben Hall, Johnny Gilbert, Mad Dog Morgan and Frank Gardiner. His bushranging career of five years was also longer than theirs, mainly because he rarely confronted the police, and because of the support he received from the local populace. He was protected by the common people because he never used violence, because he was renowned for his horsemanship, and because he was by all accounts a witty, charming and generous man.

Frederick “Captain Thunderbolt” Ward is a worthy bearer of the title “the last bushranger”.