From The Far West by Barcroft Boake

From the Far West
by Barcroft Boake

’Tis a song of the Never Never land —
Set to the tune of a scorching gale
On the sandhills red,
When the grasses dead
Loudly rustle, and bow the head
To the breath of its dusty hail:

Where the cattle trample a dusty pad
Across the never-ending plain,
And come and go
With muttering low
In the time when the rivers cease to flow,
And the Drought King holds his reign;

When the fiercest piker who ever turned
With lowered head in defiance proud,
Grown gaunt and weak,
Release doth seek
In vain from the depths of the slimy creek —
His sepulchre and his shroud;

His requiem sung by an insect host,
Born of the pestilential air,
That seethe and swarm
In hideous form
Where the stagnant waters lie thick and warm,
And Fever lurks in his lair:

Where a placid, thirst-provoking lake
Clear in the flashing sunlight lies —
But the stockman knows
No water flows
Where the shifting mirage comes and goes
Like a spectral paradise;

And, crouched in the saltbush’s sickly shade,
Murmurs to Heaven a piteous prayer:
‘O God! must I
Prepare to die?’
And, gazing up at the brazen sky,
Reads his death warrant there.

Gaunt, slinking dingoes snap and snarl,
Watching his slowly ebbing breath
Crows are flying,
Hoarsely crying
Burial service o’er the dying —
Foul harbingers of Death.

Full many a man has perished there,
Whose bones gleam white from the waste of sand —
Who left no name
On the scroll of Fame,
Yet died in his tracks, as well became
A son of that desert land.

Barcroft Henry Thomas Boake (26 March 1866 – 2 May 1892) was an Australian Stockman and poet who wrote primarily within the ‘bush poetry’ tradition. He was active for only a few years before his suicide at the young age of 26. He believed that ‘bush life’ was the only life worth living.

Boake was born in Sydney to Irish-born professional photographer Barcroft Capel Boake; his mother died when he was thirteen. Educated at private schools, Boake left home at the age of 17 and was apprenticed as a surveyor’s draughtsman. He disliked clerical work and, in 1886, moved to the Monaro district to work as an assistant surveyor. He later worked as a boundary rider and drover in the Outback. He returned to Long Bay, North Sydney, in early 1892 and hanged himself with a stockwhip a few months later after being missing for 8 days.

Barcroft Boake – Image Wikipedia

Boake was first published in late 1890 and regularly appeared in ‘The Bulletin’ before his death, with the posthumous publication of Where the Dead Men Lie, and Other Poems in 1897 bringing his work to a wider audience. His poems feature Outback settings, and many of his best-received works incorporate the subject of death. ‘Where the dead men lie’ is one of Australia’s most anthologised poems.

He popularised the term “Never Never” as a nickname for the Outback.

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Moya Sharp

Owner at Outback Family History

My name is Moya Sharp, I live in Kalgoorlie Western Australia and have worked most of my adult life in the history/museum industry. I have been passionate about history for as long as I can remember and in particular the history of my adopted home the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia. Through my website I am committed to providing as many records and photographs free to any one who is interested in the family and local history of the region.

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