Nimbin [poem by Jack Moses]

[Editor: This is a poem from Beyond the City Gates: Australian Story & Verse (1923) by Jack Moses.]

Nimbin

(Nimbin is an agricultural centre twenty-one miles from Lismore, on the Richmond.)

I can’t forget you, Nimbin;
You charm me like a book,
The cattle in your valley,
The mountain and the brook.
The whip-bird in the ranges,
Waking up his mate,
And the basalt-columns standing
Like pickets at your gate.
You’ve dowry and you’ve beauty,
You’ve wealth, as yet untold,
In the orchard and the timber,
And the streams that carry gold.
You’ve an asset in your baby,
And the soldier who’s come back,
Ye children of the Pioneer,
Who blazed the Nimbin track.
You were nothing but a wilderness
Just a little while ago,
You’re a town of some importance now,
It’s grand to see you grow!
Well, I’d like to toast you, Nimbin,
Now I’m on the job.
“God keep your waters going
That are flowing from the Nob!”

[N.B. — The “Nob” is the dividing ranges of the waters which run east and west in the Richmond District.]

Source:
Jack Moses, Beyond the City Gates: Australian Story & Verse, Sydney: Austral Publishing Co., 1923, page 97 (the related photo is on an unnumbered page between pages 96 and 97)