To The Yarra River

From the snow hills of Mt Baw Baw in your cloak of gray to brown Through the scrublands and the paddocks and through many country town All the way through Melbourne City where you back up and move slow And you travel at a snail's pace as near to the sea you flow. You've been travelling forever for how long god only know? Long before black man first saw you sixty thousand years ago And from tribe of 'Yarra Yarra' came your indigenous name And your name of Yarra river ever with you will remain. If you could talk Yarra river you'd go down the centuries Long before the white man's coming when this Land was full of trees And you'd tell about the white man how he cut the tall gums down And he sacrificed the forest for to build a concrete town And you could go back much further way back down the centuries long On your banks the black tribes gathered for to party and sing song You have known so many changes as the centuries come and go But through droughts and long hot summers you have never ceased to flow. Before coming of dinosaur before birth of first gum tree All the way down from Mt Baw Baw on your journey to the sea Through the scrublands and the paddocks and through many country town And through Melbourne to Port Phillip in your cloak of gray to brown.