Old Town Types No.1 – The Old Town

Fierce on the wheat-sown Mallee plain The ruthless summer suns burned down, And dust-storms, heralding the rain, Swept thro' the street and on again While tradesfolk cursed in the old white town. Of sand and line-stone stoutly built, She'd lived to prosper and to wilt, Because, as all wiseacres knew, "They went and brought the railway thro'." Deep-voiced, bewhiskered townsfolk these, Remnant of pioneering days, Full of high tales and memories Of wild, rough work and wilder sprees, When coach and teamster went their ways; When men pushed out to newer land And cash came easy to the hand - And went: The golden days men knew "Before that put that railway thro'." Yet even in those days of stress - Or seeming stress - the old town knew Nothing of wnat or wretchedness; For wealth was there and work to bless All men who sought them work to do. To me, a child in those far years, Now as a time-dimmed dream appears The olden life that once I knew After the railway wandered thro'. Like myths in some long-fabled tale - Figures and scenes to conjure with They seem. Yet 'spite the deepening veil, Their memories grow never stales; Big George, the lumper; Toll, the smith; Long John, the snob - long have they slept While suns burned down and dustorm swept Across the Mallee plains they knew Before men brought the railway thro'.