| |
| IN dark wild woods, where the lone owl broods | |
| And the dingoes nightly yell— | |
| Where the curlew’s cry goes floating by, | |
| We splitters of shingles dwell. | |
| And all day through, from the time of the dew | 5 |
| To the hour when the mopoke calls, | |
| Our mallets ring where the woodbirds sing | |
| Sweet hymns by the waterfalls. | |
| And all night long we are lulled by the song | |
| Of gales in the grand old trees; | 10 |
| And in the breaks we can hear the lakes | |
| And the moan of the distant seas. | |
| For afar from heat and dust of street, | |
| And hall and turret, and dome, | |
| In forest deep, where the torrents leap, | 15 |
| Is the shingle-splitter’s home. | |
| |
| The dweller in town may lie upon down, | |
| And own his palace and park: | |
| We envy him not his prosperous lot, | |
| Though we slumber on sheets of bark. | 20 |
| Our food is rough, but we have enough; | |
| Our drink is better than wine: | |
| For cool creeks flow wherever we go, | |
| Shut in from the hot sunshine. | |
| Though rude our roof, it is weather-proof, | 25 |
| And at the end of the days | |
| We sit and smoke over yarn and joke, | |
| By the bush-fire’s sturdy blaze. | |
| For away from din, and sorrow and sin, | |
| Where troubles but rarely come, | 30 |
| We jog along, like a merry song, | |
| In the shingle-splitter’s home. | |
| |
| What though our work he heavy, we shirk | |
| From nothing beneath the sun; | |
| And toil is sweet to those who can eat | 35 |
| And rest when the day is done. | |
| In the Sabbath-time we hear no chime, | |
| No sound of the Sunday bells; | |
| But yet Heaven smiles on the forest aisles, | |
| And God in the woodland dwells. | 40 |
| We listen to notes from the million throats | |
| Of chorister birds on high, | |
| Our psalm is the breeze in the lordly trees, | |
| And our dome is the broad blue sky, | |
| Oh! a brave frank life, unsmitten by strife, | 45 |
| We live wherever we roam, | |
| And our hearts are free as the great strong sea, | |
| In the shingle-splitter’s home. | |
| |
