To The Men Of The Mines

WE

ED as boys o’er worked-out ground    By littered fiat and muddy stream,

We watched the whim horse trudging round,    And rode upon the circling beam,

Within the old uproarious mill    Fed mad, insatiable stamps,

Mined peaceful gorge and gusty

With pan, and pick, and gad, and drill,    And knew the stir of sudden camps.

By yellow dams in summer days    We puddled at the tom; for

Went seeking up the tortuous ways    Of gullies deep and hidden creeks.

We worked the shallow leads in style,    And hunted fortune down the drives,

And missed her, mostly by a mile—Once by a yard or so.

The while    We lived untrammelled, easy lives.

Through blazing days upon the brace    We laboured, and when night had

Beheld the glory and the grace    Of wondrous dawns in bushlands vast.

We heard the burdened timbers groan    In deep mines murmurous as the

On long, lone shores by drear winds blown.

We’ve seen heroic deeds, and known    The digger’s joys and tragedies.

I write in rhyme of all these things,    With little skill, perhaps, but you,

To whom each tale a memory brings    Of bygone days, will know them true.

Should mates who’ve worked in stope and face,    Who’ve trenched the hill and swirled the dish,

Or toiled upon the plat and brace,

Find pleasure in the lines I trace,    No better welcome could I wish.