[Editor: This poem by Rex Ingamells was published in Forgotten People (1936).]
Long Ago
Corroboree . . .
Corroboree . . .
Red fires all night:
Men in the firelight,
Twisting and turning
Under contorted gums.
Coo-ee . . .
Coo-ee . . .
Echoing over
The calling of the plover,
And the far-ringing notes
Of magpies at dawn.
Boomerang . . .
Swift-hurled boomerang . . .
Glinting with sun,
Killing the emu
On the run;
Felling the proud old
Kangaroo,
In dawn-dim grasses,
Cold
With dew.
Source:
Rex Ingamells, Forgotten People, F. W. Preece & Sons, Adelaide, 1936, page 4
Long Ago [poem by Rex Ingamells] I’ve learnt this poem in 1969 and I can still remember every word of this poem.
I remember learning this in a Rudolph Steiner school twenty years ago. I suddenly recalled the first two verses almost perfectly.