New Country

Condè had come with us all the way,
Eight hundred miles, but the fortnights rest
Made him fresh as a youngster, the sturdy bay!
And Lurline was looking her very best.

Weary and footsore, the cattle strayed
Mid the silvery saltbush well content;
Where the creeks lay cool neath the gidyas¹ shade
The stock-horses clustered, travel-spent.

In the bright spring morning we left them all
Camp, and cattle, and white, and black
And rode for the Ranges westward fall,
Where the dingos trail was the only track.

Slow through the clay-pans,² wet to the knee,
With the cane-grass rustling overhead;
Swift oer the plains with never a tree;
Up the cliffs by a torrents bed.

Bridle on arm for a mile or more
We toiled, ere we reached Bindannas verge
And saw, as one sees a far-off shore,
The blue hills bounding the forest surge.

An ocean of trees, by the west wind stirred,
Rolled, ever rolled, to the great cliffs base;
And its sound like the noise of waves was heard
Mid the rocks and the caves of that lonely place.

-    -    -    -    -    -

We recked not of wealth in stream or soil
As we heard on the heights the breezes sing;
We felt no longer our travel-toil;
We feared no more what the years might bring.

Mary Hannay Foott

Mary Hannay Foott was an Australian poet known for her works that capture the spirit and landscape of colonial Australia. Her most famous poem, 'Where the Pelican Builds', reflects the challenges and beauty of the pioneering experience. She was notable for being one of the first Australian poets to gain recognition, with her works regularly published in Australian newspapers and magazines of the time. Her poetry often explored themes of nature, human perseverance, and the Australian identity.

Mary Hannay Foott

Up North

Mary Hannay Foott, Simple Poetry

Napoleon III

Mary Hannay Foott, Simple Poetry

The Melbourne International Exhibition

Mary Hannay Foott, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Old Australian Ways

The London lights are far abeam
Behind a bank of cloud,
Along the shore the gaslights gleam,
The gale is piping loud;
And down the Channel, groping blind,
We drive her through the haze
Towards the land we left behind,
The good old land of `never mind',
And old Australian ways.

The narrow ways of English folk
Are not for such as we;
They bear the long-accustomed yoke
Of staid conservancy:
But all our roads are new and strange,
And through our blood there runs
The vagabonding love of change
That drove us westward of the range
And westward of the suns.

The city folk go to and fro
Behind a prison's bars,
They never feel the breezes blow
And never see the stars;
They never hear in blossomed trees
The music low and swee...

Andrew Barton Paterson

Old Australian Ways

The London lights are far abeam
Behind a bank of cloud,
Along the shore the gaslights gleam,
The gale is piping loud;
And down the Channel, groping blind,
We drive her through the haze
Towards the land we left behind,
The good old land of "never mind",
And old Australian ways.

The narrow ways of English folk
Are not for such as we;
They bear the long-accustomed yoke
Of staid conservancy:
But all our roads are new and strange,
And through our blood there runs
The vagabonding love of change
That drove us westward of the range
And westward of the suns.

The city folk go to and fro
Behind a prison's bars,
They never feel the breezes blow
And never see the stars;
They never hear in blossomed trees
The music low and swee...

Andrew Barton Paterson

Where the Pelican Builds

The unexplored parts of Australia are sometimes spoken of by the bushmen of Western Queensland as the home of the pelican, a bird whose resting place, so far as the writer knows, is seldom, if ever, found.

The horses were ready, the rails were down,
But the riders lingered still,
One had a parting word to say,
And one had his pipe to fill.
Then they mounted, one with a granted prayer,
And one with a grief unguessed.
We are going, they said as they rode away,
Where the pelican builds her nest!

They had told us of pastures wide and green,
To be sought past the sunsets glow;
Of rifts in the ranges by opal lit;
And gold neath the rivers flow.
And thirst and hunger were banished words
When they spoke of that unknown West;
No drought they dreade...

Mary Hannay Foott

The Australiad - (A poem for children.)

Twas brave De Quiros bent the knee before the King of Spain,
And sire, he said, I bring thy ships in safety home again
From seas unsailed of mariner in all the days of yore,
Where reefs and islets, insect-built, arise from oceans floor.
And, sire, the land we sought is found, its coasts lay full in view
When homeward bound, perforce, I sailed, at the bidding of my crew.
Terra Australis¹ called I it; and linked therewith the name
Of Him who guideth, as of old, in cloud and starry flame.
And grant me ships again, he said, and southward let me go,
A new Peru may wait thee there, another Mexico.

A threadbare suitor, year by year, There is a land, said he;
While King and Court grew weary of this old man of the sea;
For there were heretics to burn, and Hollan...

Mary Hannay Foott

In the Land of Dreams

A bridle-path in the tangled mallee,
With blossoms unnamed and unknown bespread,
And two who ride through its leafy alley,
But never the sound of a horses tread.

And one by one whilst the foremost rider
Puts back the boughs which have grown apace,
And side by side where the track is wider,
Together they come to the olden place.

To the leaf-dyed pool whence the mallards flattered,
Or ever the horses had paused to drink;
Where the word was said and the vow was uttered
That brighten for ever its weedy brink.

And Memory closes her sad recital,
In Fates cold eyes there are kindly gleams,
While for one brief moment of blest requital,
The parted have met, in the Land of Dreams.


13th June, 1882

Mary Hannay Foott

Over The Ranges And Into The West

Let others sing praise of their sea-girted isles,
But give me the bush with its limitless miles;
Then its over the ranges and into the West,
To the scenes of wild boyhood; we love them the best.

Well ride and well ride from the city afar,
To the plains where the cattle and sheep stations are;
Where stockmen ride hard, and the drover starts forth
On his long, lonely journey way up in the North.

When your money is low, and your luck has gone down,
Theres no place so lone as the streets of a town;
Theres nothing but worry, and dread and unrest,
So well over the ranges and into the West.

The drought in the West may spread ruin around,
But the dread drought of life in the city is found;
And Id far sooner tread on the long dusty way,
Where each ...

Henry Lawson