Mount Bukaroo

Only one old post is standing, solid yet, but only one,
Where the milking and the branding and the slaughtering were done.
Later years have brought dejection, care, and sorrow; but we knew
Happy days on that selection underneath old Bukaroo.

Then the light of day commencing, found us at the gully's head,
Splitting timber for the fencing, stripping bark to roof the shed.
Hands and hearts the labour strengthened; weariness we never knew,
Even when the shadows lengthened 'round the base of Bukaroo.

There for days below the paddock how the wilderness would yield,
To the spade, the pick and mattock, while we toiled to win the field.
Half our hands are hard to sully, ours the deeper blended screw,
Burning off down in the gully at the back of Bukaroo.

When the cows were safely yarded, and the calves were in the pen,
All the cares of day discarded, 'round the fire we mustered then.
Rang the roof with boyish laughter while the flames e'er-topped the flue;
Happy nights remembered after, far away from Bukaroo.

But the years were full of changes, and a sorrow found us there;
For our home amid the ranges was not safe from searching Care.
On he came, a silent creeper; and another mountain threw
O'er our lives a shadow deeper than the shade of Bukaroo.

All the farm is disappearing; for the home has vanished now,
Mountain scrub has choked the clearing, hid the furrows of the plough.
Nearer still the scrub is creeping where the little garden grew;
And the old folks now are sleeping, at the face of Bukaroo.

But the years were full of changes, and a sorrow found us there;
For our home amid the ranges was not safe from searching Care.
On he came, a silent creeper; and another mountain threw
O'er our lives a shadow deeper than the shade of Bukaroo.