Cape Range National Park
A billabong in the Jones River
The view from my 'bedroom'
Ant hill
Sturt's Desert Pea
THE WOMEN OF THE WEST
by G. ESSEX EVANS
1863 - 1909
They left the vine-wreathed cottage and the mansion on the hill,
The houses in the busy streets where life is never still,
The pleasures of the city, and the friends they cherished best;
For love they faced the wilderness - the Women of the West.
The roar, and rush, and fever of the city died away,
And the old-time joys and faces-they were gone for many a day,
In their place the lurching coach-wheel, or the creaking bullock-chains,
O'er the everlasting sameness of the never-ending plains.
In the slab-built, zinc-roofed homestead of some lately taken run,
In the tent beside the bankment of a railway just begun,
In the huts on new selections, in the camps of man's unrest,
On the frontiers of the Nation, live the Women of the West.
The red sun robs their beauty and, in weariness and pain,
The slow years steal the nameless grace that never comes again;
And there are hours men cannot soothe, and words men cannot say -
The nearest woman's face may be a hundred miles away.
The wide bush holds the secrets of their longing and desire,
When the white stars in reverence light their holy altar fires,
And silence, like the touch of God, sinks deep into the breast-
Perchance He hears and understands the Women of the West.
Well have we held our father's creed. No call has passed us by.
We faced and fought the wilderness, we sent our sons to die.
And we have hearts to do and dare, and yet, o'er all the rest,
The hearts that made the Nation were the Women of the West.
THE WOMEN OF THE WEST
by G. ESSEX EVANS
1863 - 1909
They left the vine-wreathed cottage and the mansion on the hill,
The houses in the busy streets where life is never still,
The pleasures of the city, and the friends they cherished best;
For love they faced the wilderness - the Women of the West.
The roar, and rush, and fever of the city died away,
And the old-time joys and faces-they were gone for many a day,
In their place the lurching coach-wheel, or the creaking bullock-chains,
O'er the everlasting sameness of the never-ending plains.
In the slab-built, zinc-roofed homestead of some lately taken run,
In the tent beside the bankment of a railway just begun,
In the huts on new selections, in the camps of man's unrest,
On the frontiers of the Nation, live the Women of the West.
The red sun robs their beauty and, in weariness and pain,
The slow years steal the nameless grace that never comes again;
And there are hours men cannot soothe, and words men cannot say -
The nearest woman's face may be a hundred miles away.
The wide bush holds the secrets of their longing and desire,
When the white stars in reverence light their holy altar fires,
And silence, like the touch of God, sinks deep into the breast-
Perchance He hears and understands the Women of the West.
Well have we held our father's creed. No call has passed us by.
We faced and fought the wilderness, we sent our sons to die.
And we have hearts to do and dare, and yet, o'er all the rest,
The hearts that made the Nation were the Women of the West.
2 comments:
Frontier women settled Canada too. We have that in common with you!
Gorgeous terrain! Pioneering women left their families behind and unlike today, in very many cases, never saw them again. I am thankful everyday for having been born in this modern age of telephone, airplanes, email and Skype.
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