Reedy River

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.