Classic Poem

Lift me up and hold me, Nolan, while I look across the plain
At the grand old blacksoil country, that I'll never see again,
Let me see the drooping myall swaying in the evening breeze
‘Mid the ever length'ning shadows of the giant bloodwood trees.
And I want to see the ranges that have always seemed so near,
Though I know that if a furlong, they are fifty miles from here.
Nolan, boy, I know I'm dying, but I've grafted long enough,
Sixty summers I have battled through the smooth and through the rough.’
And its only just that people old as I should have to go,
That the younger generation left behind might have a show.
And I can't help thinking, Nolan, that I have no cause to grieve,
At the state of the selection, that my time has come to leave.
We have had our troubles with it as through drought we fought our way,
Oftimes to the crash of timber and the swish of mulga hay.
Fortune frowned upon us often, ugly knocks were ours to meet,
But we met them bravely, Nolan, standing squarely on our feet.
Ups and downs with wins and losses, in their order come and go,
But that God Almighty sends them is enough for man to know.
That we try to do our duty is the reason we're alive,
And the Master, wisely, Nolan, willed that we should ever strive.
Now the salt bush grows in masses, where the lazy cattle feed,
And there's not upon the Cooper such a noble looking breed.
See the water in the bare drain, shining in the evening light,
And the clouds away to Northward promise rain again tonight.
Only bushmen know the meaning of the mighty bushland's moods,
They alone can grasp the spirit that forever o'er it broods.
Fight on, Nolan, battle ever, struggle till your course is run,
For a man who dies while fighting, is not beaten—he has won.