Ten miles down Reedy RiverA pool of water lies,
And all the year it
The changes in the skies.
Within that pool's broad
Is room for all the stars:
It's bed of sand has driftedO'er countless rocky bars.
Around the lower
There waves a bed of reeds,
Where water-rats are
And where the wild duck breeds;
And grassy slopes rise
To ridges long and low,
Where groves of wattle
And native bluebells grow.
Beneath the granite
The eye may just
Where Rocky Creek
From deep green banks of fern;
And standing tall between them,
The drooping she-oaks
The hard blue tinted
Before they reach the pool.
Ten miles down Reedy
One Sunday afternoonI rode with Mary
To that broad, bright lagoon,
We left our horses
Till shadows climbed the peak,
And strolled beneath the
On the banks of Rocky Creek.
Then home along the
That night we rode a race,
And the moonlight lent a
To Mary Campbell's face;
I pleaded for my
All through the moonlight ride,
Until our weary
Drew closer side by side.
Ten miles from Ryan's
And five below the peak,
I built a little
On the banks of Rocky Creek;
I cleared the land and fenced
And ploughed the rich red loam;
And my first crop was
When I brought Mary home.
Now still down Reedy
The grassy she-oaks sigh;
The water holes still
The pictures in the sky;
The golden sand is
Across the rocky bars;
And over all for
Go sun and moon and stars.
But of the hut I
There are no traces now,
And many rains have
The furrows of my
The glad bright days have vanished;
For sombre branches
Their wattle-blossom
Above my Mary's grave.
