[Editor: This poem by Rex Ingamells was published in Gumtops (1935).]
Sale-Time
There’s dust and loud cracking of whips
On the hot dry plain:
The stockmen are droving the cattle in
To the sales again.
The children will hurry from school,
When their lessons are done,
To clamber about on the stockyard rails
In the glaring sun.
There’ll be bidding and buying to-day;
There’ll be hustling and oaths;
And children they worship the strong brown men
In the coarse soiled clothes.
They love to be watching the sight
Of the auctioning
Of bullocks and heifers and calves, and hear
All the bellowing.
They’ll be dreaming all during the week,
When the sales are over,
Though teacher be speaking of spelling and sums,
Of the bullock-drover.
Source:
Rex Ingamells. Gumtops, F. W. Preece & Sons, Adelaide, 1935, page 23
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