High noon and not a cloud in the sky
To break this blinding sun
Well, I’ve half the day before me still
and most of my journey done
There’s a little enough shade to be got
But I’ll take what I can get
For I’m not so hearty as once I was,
Although I’m a young man yet.
Young! Well, yes, I suppose
As far as the seasons go,
Though there’s many a man far older than I
Down there in the town below
Older but men to whom
In the pride of their manhood strong
The hardest work is never too hard
Or the longest day too long.
But I’ve cut my cake so I can’t complain
And I’ve only myself to blame
Ah! that was always their tune at home
And here it is just the same
Of the seed I’ve sown in pleasure
The harvest I’m reaping in pain
Could I put my life a few years back
Would I live that life again?
Would I? Of course I would!
What glorious days they were
It sometimes seems the dream of a dream
That life could have been so fair
A sweet but if a short time back
While now, if one can call
This life, I almost doubt at times
If it’s worth the living at all.
Where are they now, I wonder with
Whom those years were past?
The pace was a little too good, I fear
For many of them to last
And there’s always plenty to take their place
When the leaders begin to decline
Still I wish them well where’er they are
For the sake of Auld Lang Syne.
Do they ever think of me at all
And the fun we used to share
It gives me a pleasant hour or two
And I’ve none too many to spare
This dull blood runs as it used to run
And the spent flame flickers up
As I think of the cheers that rang in my ears
When I won the Garrison Cup.
To the one I’m singing
It’s pretty well known to all
We knew too much, but not quite enough
And so we went to the wall
While those who cared not if the work was done
How dirty their hands might be
Went up on our shoulders and kicked us down
When they got to the top of the tree.
But out there on the station among the lads
I get on pretty well;
It’s only when I get down into town
That I feel this life such a hell
Booted and bearded and burned to a brick
I loaf along the street
I watch the ladies tripping by
And bless their dainty feet.
I watched them here and there
With a bitter feeling of pain
Ah! what I wouldn’t give to feel
A lady’s hand again!
They used to be glad to see me once
They might have been today
But we never know the worth of a thing
Until we have thrown it away.
I watched them but from afar
And I pulled my old cap over my eyes
Partly to hide the tears that, rude and
Rough as I am – will rise
And partly because I cannot bear
That such as they should see
The man that I am, when I know –
Though they don’t – the man I ought to be.
Puff! with the last whiff of my pipe
I blow these fancies away
For I must be jogging along if I want
To get down to town today
As I know I shall reach my journey’s end
Though I travel not overly fast
So the end of my longer journey will come
In its own good time at last.
Adam Lindsay Gordon (19 October 1833 – 24 June 1870) was a British-Australian poet, horseman, police officer and politician. He was the first Australian poet to gain considerable recognition overseas. Gordon committed suicide early on the morning of June 24, 1870. He committed suicide by shooting himself in the head with a rifle among the scrub behind the sandhills of Brighton Beach in Melbourne. At the time, he was burdened by debt, grief and disappointment.
Moya Sharp
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I think my grandfather David Bell (who I never met) could agree with Adam Lindsay Gordons sentiments in lots of ways. Daiv was the great wandereer of his family. While his parents and 11 siblings all stayed in the South-east Corner of Queensland, David Crossed Australia diagonally Perth to Norh Queensland 3 times. Twice with a family in tow.
He said when he finally retired in Cooktown in his 89’s, that hed been on every Goldfield in Australia. Between Goldfields, when he needed funds, he worked on Railway construction. So He worked on railys lines on the Darling Downs Qld, Railway in WA and at least 3 different railway lines in North Queensland.