[Editor: This is section 10 of “Barcroft Boake: A Memoir ”, by A. G. Stephens, published in Where the Dead Men Lie and Other Poems (1897).]
[Reminiscences regarding Barcroft Boake]
There is now a considerable gap in the series of letters. Shortly after the date of that last quoted, Boake was employed, as he anticipated, to travel with cattle from Cunnamulla to Bathurst, N.S.W. He reached Bathurst in March, 1890: the cattle were delivered; and Boake engaged with the drover in charge to take a fresh job. Coming to Sydney, he spent a week with his family at Croydon, and returned — as arranged — to find that the drover had knocked down his cheque in a roaring spree, and had left Bathurst the day before, after selling some of his horses in order to get away.
Boake was disgusted and indignant; and his father pointed the moral of his situation with such effect that he agreed to turn once more to surveying, and in May, 1890, took service with Mr. W. A. Lipscomb, a surveyor employed in the Riverina territory of New South Wales. With Mr. Lipscomb he remained till the end of 1891, cutting up Government land into portions for lease or sale, and preparing plans of the country dealt with — chiefly in the districts of Wagga Wagga, Urana, Tarcutta, and Tumbarumba.
This was the period of Boake’s greatest poetic activity. In boyhood he had been used to cap rhymes with his father; and in later days he had composed verses at seasons of special emotion, but without taking his talent seriously. Although a facile rhymer, he always preferred dreaming to creating. Now, however, he was excited by the flattery of Riverina society; and when he found that a newspaper with the literary reputation of The Bulletin would print and pay for his impressions and fancies, he took more pains to rightly embody them. In the pleasure of composition Boake was at times able to banish gloom and anxiety, and even fitfully to nourish the bright hopes of his Monaro days.
Of Boake at this time Mr. Lipscomb says —
He was a good horseman, and a first-class bushman. When he left me and came to Sydney he intended passing the examination for a license as surveyor, and he was thoroughly qualified to do so. In the field he was sufficiently capable, and he was a particularly good draughtsman. His work in the field-books (outlining the topography of the country) was the best I ever saw. He was very temperate — except in the use of tobacco: his pipe was hardly ever out of his mouth. He was fond of reading, whenever he had the chance: a surveyor’s life gives little opportunity for study. I remember his devotion to Shakespeare and The Bulletin. His health seemed good; but his habits were solitary, his disposition melancholy — even morose. He made few friends: indeed, the only people I knew him to be friendly with (besides Raymond, my other assistant) were Dr. and Mrs. O’Connor and their daughters, of Connorton, Wagga Wagga.
Mr. L. C. Raymond writes —
I first met Boake when I joined Mr. Lipscomb’s survey camp at Terong Creek, N.S.W., in August, 1890; and for sixteen months thereafter we lived and worked together, and slept for the most part within the same 12’ x 15’ calico walls. My first impression of him was also my final opinion. I thought he was one of the most reserved (even grumpy) individuals I had ever met. Not that I think he was selfish, but he was entirely self-absorbed, and brooding continually. On two subjects he would chat willingly — his pleasant memories of Rosedale station and his joyous days as a drover. When the talk led up to life among the cattle, overlanding, cutting out on the camp and so on, he was all right. There he had been happy in his work (he hated surveying); there he was again in a moment happy when his thoughts flew back to old times; and there, perhaps, he once more would have had happiness had he again handled his stockwhip, not as a means of ending his life, but for the purpose of sustaining and enjoying it.
Boake was brimming over with Adam Lindsay Gordon; and I have no hesitation in saying that Gordon was the father of his poetry. We used to chaffingly call him ‘the modern Gordon.’ He usually wrote his verses on any odd scraps of paper and copied them carefully into a MS. book, after which they were generally re-written and handed to me to punctuate before being sent for publication. When he wrote ‘Jack’s Last Muster,’ in the metre of ‘How We Beat the Favourite,’ several remarks passed between us comparing the two poems. I laughingly said: ‘You know, if you want to be a second Gordon, you must complete the business properly, and finish up by committing suicide.’ He laughed quietly in reply, and I thought no more of it until some fifteen months afterwards, when I read in The Sydney Morning Herald first a request for information concerning Boake’s whereabouts, as he had been missing some days from his home, and next, a few days later, a paragraph saying that his body had been found hanging by that stockwhip which I know he loved right well. Then I remembered my careless words.
Source:
Barcroft Boake, Where the Dead Men Lie and Other Poems, Sydney (NSW): Angus and Robertson, 1897, pp. 191-193
Editor’s notes:
Adam Lindsay Gordon = Adam Lindsay Gordon (1833-1870), a poet who spent most of his working and literary life in Australia; he was born in Charlton Kings (Gloucestershire, England), and migrated to Adelaide (South Australia) in 1853, at the age of 20; he worked as a mounted policeman, a horse-breaker, a Member of Parliament (in SA), and as a sheep farmer; he became a popular poet, due to such writings as “The Sick Stockrider” (1870); he died in Brighton (Victoria) in 1870
See: 1) Leonie Kramer, “Gordon, Adam Lindsay (1833–1870)”, Australian Dictionary of Biography
2) “Adam Lindsay Gordon”, Wikipedia
calico = plain cotton cloth used in the construction of tents (especially used in the 19th century)
chaff = tease; banter; joking about or teasing in a good-natured or light-hearted fashion
chaffingly = jokingly, teasingly [see: chaff]
metre = the rhythmic arrangement or pattern of a poem, song, or piece of music (also spelt: meter)
Monaro = a region in the south of New South Wales
See: “Monaro (New South Wales)”, Wikipedia
MS. = abbreviation of “manuscript”
overlanding = working on an overland stock route (of which there were several), used for the droving of cattle or sheep overland, especially through remote areas
the Riverina = a region of south-central New South Wales, which encompasses Albury, Coolamon, Cootamundra, Deniliquin, Griffith, Gundagai, Hay, Jerilderie, Junee, Leeton, the Murrumbidgee River, Narrandera, Temora, Tocumwal, Tumbarumba, Tumut, Wagga Wagga, and West Wyalong
See: “Riverina”, Wikipedia
spree = a drinking spree; in general terms, a “spree” refers to an outburst of, or period of, an activity or indulgence (e.g. a crime spree, a drinking spree, a spending spree)
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