New Zealand Verse/While the Billy Boils
XLII.
While the Billy Boils.
The speargrass crackles under the billy and overhead is
the winter sun;
There’s snow on the hills, there’s frost in the gully, that
minds me of things that I’ve seen and done,
Of blokes that I knew, and mates that I’ve worked with,
and the sprees we had in the days gone by;
And a mist comes up from my heart to my eyelids, I feel
fair sick and I wonder why.
the winter sun;
There’s snow on the hills, there’s frost in the gully, that
minds me of things that I’ve seen and done,
Of blokes that I knew, and mates that I’ve worked with,
and the sprees we had in the days gone by;
And a mist comes up from my heart to my eyelids, I feel
fair sick and I wonder why.
There is coves and coves! Some I liked partic’lar, and
some I would sooner I never knowed;
But a bloke can’t choose the chaps that he’s thrown with
in the harvest paddock or here on the road.
There was chaps from the other side that I shore with
that I’d like to have taken along for mates,
But we said, “So long!” and we laughed and parted for
good and all at the station gates.
some I would sooner I never knowed;
But a bloke can’t choose the chaps that he’s thrown with
in the harvest paddock or here on the road.
There was chaps from the other side that I shore with
that I’d like to have taken along for mates,
But we said, “So long!” and we laughed and parted for
good and all at the station gates.
I mind the time when the snow was drifting and Billy
and me was out for the night—
We lay in the lee of a rock, and waited, hungry and cold,
for the morning light.
Then he went one way and I the other—we’d been like
brothers for half a year;
He said: “I’ll see you again in town, mate, and we’ll
blow the froth off a pint of beer.”
and me was out for the night—
We lay in the lee of a rock, and waited, hungry and cold,
for the morning light.
Then he went one way and I the other—we’d been like
brothers for half a year;
He said: “I’ll see you again in town, mate, and we’ll
blow the froth off a pint of beer.”
He went to a job on the plain he knowed of and I went
poisoning out at the back,
And I missed him somehow—for all my looking I never
could knock across his track.
The same with Harry, the bloke I worked with the time
I was over upon the coast,
He went for a fly-round over to Sydney, to stay for a
fortnight—a month at most!
poisoning out at the back,
And I missed him somehow—for all my looking I never
could knock across his track.
The same with Harry, the bloke I worked with the time
I was over upon the coast,
He went for a fly-round over to Sydney, to stay for a
fortnight—a month at most!
He never came back, and he never wrote me—I wonder
how blokes like him forget;
We had been where no one had been before us, we had
starved for days in the cold and wet;
We had sunk a hundred holes that was duffers, till at last
we came on a fairish patch,
And we worked in rags in the dead of winter while the
ice bars hung from the frozen thatch.
how blokes like him forget;
We had been where no one had been before us, we had
starved for days in the cold and wet;
We had sunk a hundred holes that was duffers, till at last
we came on a fairish patch,
And we worked in rags in the dead of winter while the
ice bars hung from the frozen thatch.
Yes, them was two, and I can’t help mind them—good
mates as ever a joker had;
But there’s plenty more as I’d like to be with, for half of
the blokes on the road is bad.
It sets me a-thinking the world seems wider, for all we
fancy it’s middling small,
When a chap like me makes friends in plenty and they
slip away and he loses them all.
mates as ever a joker had;
But there’s plenty more as I’d like to be with, for half of
the blokes on the road is bad.
It sets me a-thinking the world seems wider, for all we
fancy it’s middling small,
When a chap like me makes friends in plenty and they
slip away and he loses them all.
The speargrass crackles under the billy and overhead is
the winter sun;
There’s snow on the hills, there’s frost in the gully, and,
oh, the things that I’ve seen and done,
The blokes that I knowed and the mates I’ve worked
with, and the sprees we had in the days gone by;
But I somehow fancy we’ll all be pen-mates on the day
when they call the Roll of the Sky.
the winter sun;
There’s snow on the hills, there’s frost in the gully, and,
oh, the things that I’ve seen and done,
The blokes that I knowed and the mates I’ve worked
with, and the sprees we had in the days gone by;
But I somehow fancy we’ll all be pen-mates on the day
when they call the Roll of the Sky.