[Editor: This poem by Henry Lawson was published in Verses Popular and Humorous, 1900.]
The Lights of Cobb and Co.
Fire lighted, on the table a meal for sleepy men,
A lantern in the stable, a jingle now and then ;
The mail coach looming darkly by light of moon and star,
The growl of sleepy voices — a candle in the bar ;
A stumble in the passage of folk with wits abroad ;
A swear-word from a bedroom — the shout of ‘All aboard !’
‘Tchk-tchk ! Git-up !’ ‘Hold fast, there !’ and down the range we go ;
Five hundred miles of scattered camps will watch for Cobb and Co.
Old coaching towns already ‘decaying for their sins,’
Uncounted ‘Half-Way Houses,’ and scores of ‘Ten Mile Inns ;’
The riders from the stations by lonely granite peaks ;
The black-boy for the shepherds on sheep and cattle creeks ;
The roaring camps of Gulgong, and many a ‘Digger’s Rest ;’
The diggers on the Lachlan ; the huts of Furthest West ;
Some twenty thousand exiles who sailed for weal or woe ;
The bravest hearts of twenty lands will wait for Cobb and Co.
The morning star has vanished, the frost and fog are gone,
In one of those grand mornings which but on mountains dawn ;
A flask of friendly whisky — each other’s hopes we share —
And throw our top-coats open to drink the mountain air.
The roads are rare to travel, and life seems all complete ;
The grind of wheels on gravel, the trot of horses’ feet,
The trot, trot, trot and canter, as down the spur we go —
The green sweeps to horizons blue that call for Cobb and Co.
We take a bright girl actress through western dust and damps,
To bear the home-world message, and sing for sinful camps,
To wake the hearts and break them, wild hearts that hope and ache —
(Ah ! when she thinks of those days her own must nearly break !)
Five miles this side the gold-field, a loud, triumphant shout :
Five hundred cheering diggers have snatched the horses out :
With ‘Auld Lang Syne’ in chorus through roaring camps they go —
That cheer for her, and cheer for Home, and cheer for Cobb and Co.
Three lamps above the ridges and gorges dark and deep,
A flash on sandstone cuttings where sheer the sidings sweep,
A flash on shrouded waggons, on water ghastly white ;
Weird bush and scattered remnants of ‘rushes in the night ;’
Across the swollen river a flash beyond the ford :
‘Ride hard to warn the driver ! He’s drunk or mad, good Lord !’
But on the bank to westward a broad, triumphant glow —
A hundred miles shall see to-night the lights of Cobb and Co. !
Swift scramble up the siding where teams climb inch by inch ;
Pause, bird-like, on the summit — then breakneck down the pinch
Past haunted half-way houses — where convicts made the bricks —
Scrub-yards and new bark shanties, we dash with five and six —
By clear, ridge-country rivers, and gaps where tracks run high,
Where waits the lonely horseman, cut clear against the sky ;
Through stringy-bark and blue-gum, and box and pine we go ;
New camps are stretching ’cross the plains the routes of Cobb and Co.
* * * * * *
Throw down the reins, old driver — there’s no one left to shout ;
The ruined inn’s survivor must take the horses out.
A poor old coach hereafter ! — we’re lost to all such things —
No bursts of songs or laughter shall shake your leathern springs
When creeping in unnoticed by railway sidings drear,
Or left in yards for lumber, decaying with the year —
Oh, who’ll think how in those days when distant fields were broad
You raced across the Lachlan side with twenty-five on board.
Not all the ships that sail away since Roaring Days are done —
Not all the boats that steam from port, nor all the trains that run,
Shall take such hopes and loyal hearts — for men shall never know
Such days as when the Royal Mail was run by Cobb and Co.
The ‘greyhounds’ race across the sea, the ‘special’ cleaves the haze,
But these seem dull and slow to me compared with Roaring Days !
The eyes that watched are dim with age, and souls are weak and slow,
The hearts are dust or hardened now that broke for Cobb and Co.
Source:
Henry Lawson. Verses Popular and Humorous, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1900, pages 39-44
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