The Sick Stockrider

Adam Lindsay Gordon

Hold hard, Ned! Lift me down once more, and lay me in the shade.

Old man, you’ve had your work cut out to guide

Both horses, and to hold me in the saddle when I swayed,

All through the hot, slow, sleepy, silent ride.

The dawn at “Moorabinda” was a mist rack dull and dense,

The sun-rise was a sullen, sluggish lamp;

I was dozing in the gateway at Arbuthnot’s bound’ry fence,

I was dreaming on the Limestone cattle camp.

We crossed the creek at Carricksford, and sharply through the haze,

And suddenly the sun shot flaming forth;

To southward lay “Katawa”, with the sand peaks all ablaze,

And the flushed fields of Glen Lomond lay to north.

Now westward winds the bridle-path that leads to Lindisfarm,

And yonder looms the double-headed Bluff;

From the far side of the first hill, when the skies are clear and calm,

You can see Sylvester’s woolshed fair enough.

Five miles we used to call it from our homestead to the place

Where the big tree spans the roadway like an arch;

‘Twas here we ran the dingo down that gave us such a chase

Eight years ago — or was it nine? — last March.

‘Twas merry in the glowing morn among the gleaming grass,

To wander as we’ve wandered many a mile,

And blow the cool tobacco cloud, and watch the white wreaths pass,

Sitting loosely in the saddle all the while.

‘Twas merry ‘mid the blackwoods, when we spied the station roofs,

To wheel the wild scrub cattle at the yard,

With a running fire of stock whips and a fiery run of hoofs;

Oh! the hardest day was never then too hard!

Aye! we had a glorious gallop after “Starlight” and his gang,

When they bolted from Sylvester’s on the flat;

How the sun-dried reed-beds crackled, how the flint-strewn ranges rang,

To the strokes of “Mountaineer” and “Acrobat”.

Hard behind them in the timber, harder still across the heath,

Close beside them through the tea-tree scrub we dashed;

And the golden-tinted fern leaves, how they rustled underneath;

And the honeysuckle osiers, how they crashed!

We led the hunt throughout, Ned, on the chestnut and the grey,

And the troopers were three hundred yards behind,

While we emptied our six-shooters on the bushrangers at bay,

In the creek with stunted box-trees for a blind!

There you grappled with the leader, man to man, and horse to horse,

And you rolled together when the chestnut reared;

He blazed away and missed you in that shallow water-course —

A narrow shave — his powder singed your beard!

In these hours when life is ebbing, how those days when life was young

Come back to us; how clearly I recall

Even the yarns Jack Hall invented, and the songs Jem Roper sung;

And where are now Jem Roper and Jack Hall?

Ay! nearly all our comrades of the old colonial school,

Our ancient boon companions, Ned, are gone;

Hard livers for the most part, somewhat reckless as a rule,

It seems that you and I are left alone.

There was Hughes, who got in trouble through that business with the cards,

It matters little what became of him;

But a steer ripped up Macpherson in the Cooraminta yards,

And Sullivan was drowned at Sink-or-swim;

And Mostyn — poor Frank Mostyn — died at last, a fearful wreck,

In the “horrors” at the Upper Wandinong,

And Carisbrooke, the rider, at the Horsefall broke his neck;

Faith! the wonder was he saved his neck so long!

Ah! those days and nights we squandered at the Logans’ in the glen —

The Logans, man and wife, have long been dead.

Elsie’s tallest girl seems taller than your little Elsie then;

And Ethel is a woman grown and wed.

I’ve had my share of pastime, and I’ve done my share of toil,

And life is short — the longest life a span;

I care not now to tarry for the corn or for the oil,

Or for wine that maketh glad the heart of man.

For good undone, and gifts misspent, and resolutions vain,

‘Tis somewhat late to trouble. This I know —

I should live the same life over, if I had to live again;

And the chances are I go where most men go.

The deep blue skies wax dusky, and the tall green trees grow dim,

The sward beneath me seems to heave and fall;

And sickly, smoky shadows through the sleepy sunlight swim,

And on the very sun’s face weave their pall.

Let me slumber in the hollow where the wattle blossoms wave,

With never stone or rail to fence my bed;

Should the sturdy station children pull the bush-flowers on my grave,

I may chance to hear them romping overhead.

I don’t suppose I shall though, for I feel like sleeping sound,

That sleep, they say, is doubtful. True; but yet

At least it makes no difference to the dead man underground

What the living men remember or forget.

Enigmas that perplex us in the world’s unequal strife,

The future may ignore or may reveal;

Yet some, as weak as water, Ned, to make the best of life,

Have been to face the worst as true as steel.