Previous Litters
MY COUNTRY litter
Words in bold within poem are the registered names of each puppy.
- THE love of field and coppice,
- Of green and shaded lanes,
- Of ordered woods and gardens
- Is running in your veins;
- Strong love of grey-blue distance,
- Brown streams and soft, dim skies ---
- I know but cannot share it,
- My love lies otherwise.
-
- I love a sunburnt country,
- A land of sweeping plains,
- Of ragged mountain ranges,
- Of droughts and flooding rains.
- I love her far horizons,
- I love her jewel-sea,
- Her beauty and her terror ----
- The wide brown land for me!
-
- The stark white ring-barked forests,
- All tragic to the moon,
- The sapphire-misted mountains,
- The hot gold hush of noon.
- Green tangle of the brushes,
- Where lithe lianas coil,
- And orchids deck the tree-tops
- And ferns the warm dark soil.
-
- Core of my heart, my country!
- Her pitiless blue sky,
- When sick at heart, around us,
- We see the cattle die ----
- But then the grey clouds gather,
- And we can bless again
- The drumming of an army,
- The steady, soaking rain.
-
- Core of my heart, my country!
- Land of the Rainbow Gold,
- For flood and fire and famine,
- She pays us back threefold;
- Over thirsty paddocks,
- Watch, after many days,
- The filmy veil of greenness
- That thickens as we gaze.
-
- An opal-hearted country,
- A wilful, lavish land ----
- All who have not loved her,
- You will not understand ----
- Though earth holds many splendors,
- Wherever I may die,
- I know to what brown country
- My homing thoughts will fly.
-
- Dorothea Mackellar
SNOWY RIVER litter
Words in bold within poem are the registered names of each puppy.
- THERE was movement at the station, for the word had passed around
- That the colt from old Regret had got away
- And had joined the wild bush horses - he was worth a thousand pound,
- So all the cracks had gathered to the fray.
- All the tried and noted riders from the stations near and far
- Had mustered at the homestead overnight,
- For the bushmen love hard riding where the wild bush horses are,
- And the stock-horse snuffs the battle with delight.
-
- There was Harrison, who made his pile when Pardon won the cup,
- The old man with his hair as white as snow;
- But few could ride beside him when his blood was fairly up -
- He would go wherever horse and man could go.
- And Clancy of the Overflow came down to lend a hand,
- No better horseman ever held the reins,
- For never horse could throw him while the saddle-girths would stand -
- He learned to ride while droving on the plains.
-
- And one was there, a stripling on a small and weedy beast;
- He was something like a racehorse undersized,
- With a touch of Timor pony - three parts thoroughbred at least,
- And such as are by mountain horsemen prized.
- He was hard and tough and wiry - just the sort that won't say die -
- There was courage in his quick impatient tread;
- And he bore the badge of gameness in his bright and fiery eye,
- And the proud and lofty carriage of his head.
-
- But still so slight and weedy, one would doubt his power to stay,
- And the old man said, "That horse will never do
- For a long and tiring gallop - lad, you'd better stop away,
- Those hills are far too rough for such as you."
- So he waited, sad and wistful - only Clancy stood his friend -
- "I think we ought to let him come," he said;
- "I warrant he'll be with us when he's wanted at the end,
- For both his horse and he are mountain bred."
-
- "He hails from Snowy River, up by Kosciusko's side,
- Where the hills are twice as steep and twice as rough;
- Where a horse's hoofs strike firelight from the flint stones every stride,
- The man that holds his own is good enough.
- And the Snowy River riders on the mountains make their home,
- Where the river runs those giant hills between;
- I have seen full many horsemen since I first commenced to roam,
- But nowhere yet such horsemen have I seen."
-
- So he went; they found the horses by the big mimosa clump,
- They raced away toward the mountain's brow,
- And the old man gave his orders - "Boys, go at them from the jump,
- No use to try for fancy riding now.
- And, Clancy, you must wheel them, try and wheel them to the right;
- Ride boldly, lad, and never fear the spills,
- For never yet was rider that could keep the mob in sight,
- If once they gain the shelter of those hills."
-
- So Clancy rode to wheel them - he was racing on the wing,
- Where the best and boldest riders take their place,
- And he raced his stock-horse past them and he made the ranges ring
- With the stockwhip, as he met them face to face.
- Then they halted for a moment, while he swung the dreaded lash,
- But they saw their well-loved mountain full in view,
- And they charged beneath the stockwhip with a sharp and sudden dash,
- And off into the mountain scrub they flew.
-
- Then fast the horsemen followed, and the gorges deep and black
- Resounded to the thunder of their tread,
- And the stockwhips woke the echoes and they fiercely answered back
- From cliffs and crags that beetled overhead.
- And upward, ever upward, the wild horses held their way,
- Where mountain ash and kurrajong grew wide;
- And the old man muttered fiercely, "We may bid the mob good day,
- No man can hold them down the other side."
-
- When they reached the mountain's summit, even Clancy took a pull -
- It might well make the boldest hold their breath;
- For the wild hop scrub grew thickly, and the hidden ground was full
- Of wombat holes, and any slip was death.
- But the man from Snowy River let the pony have his head,
- And he swung his stockwhip round and gave a cheer,
- And he raced him down the mountain like a torrent down its bed,
- While the others stood and watched in very fear.
-
- He sent the flint-stones flying, but the pony kept his feet,
- He cleared the fallen timber in his stride,
- And the man from Snowy River never shifted in his seat -
- It was grand to see that mountain horseman ride.
- Past the stringybarks and saplings, on the rough and broken ground,
- Down the hillside at a racing pace he went,
- And he never drew the bridle till he landed safe and sound
- At the bottom of that terrible descent.
-
- He was right among the horses as they climbed the farther hill,
- And the watchers on the mountain, standing mute,
- Saw him ply the stockwhip fiercely; he was right among them still,
- As he raced across the clearing in pursuit.
- Then they lost him for a moment, where two mountain gullies met
- In the ranges - but a final glimpse reveals
- On a dim and distant hillside the wild horses racing yet
- With the man from Snowy River at their heels.
-
- And he ran them single-handed till their sides were white with foam;
- He followed like a bloodhound on their track,
- Till they halted, cowed and beaten; then he turned their heads for home,
- And alone and unassisted brought them back.
- But his hardy mountain pony he could scarcely raise a trot,
- He was blood from hip to shoulder from the spur;
- But his pluck was still undaunted, and his courage fiery hot,
- For never yet was mountain horse a cur.
-
- And down by Kosciusko, where the pine-clad ridges raise
- Their torn and rugged battlements on high,
- Where the air is clear as crystal, and the white stars fairly blaze
- At midnight in the cold and frosty sky,
- And where around the Overflow the reed-beds sweep and sway
- To the breezes, and the rolling plains are wide,
- The Man from Snowy River is a household word today,
- And the stockmen tell the story of his ride.
-
- Andrew Barton Paterson
Contact Details
Kerry
near Dubbo NSW Australia
M: 0416 279 377 - NO txt messages please