• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

The Institute of Australian Culture

Heritage, history, and heroes; literature, legends, and larrikins

  • Home
  • Articles
  • Biographies
  • Books
  • Ephemera
  • Poetry & songs
  • Slang
  • Timeline
  • Topics
    • Anzac Day
    • Australia Day
    • Australian Aborigines
    • Australianism
    • Australian literature
    • The Eureka Rebellion
    • Explorers
    • Significant events and commemorative dates

Wild Cattle [poem by E. J. Brady]

29 December 2020 · Leave a Comment

[Editor: This poem by E. J. Brady was published in Bells and Hobbles (1911).]

Wild Cattle.

Wild cattle from the Wingen,
Two hundred head of stores,
On hills and ranges mustered,
And by the lone, salt shores;

Through sunlit forests stringing,
Along a Gippsland trail,
The mob is slowly headed
Towards Bruthen, on to Sale.

On far and open pasture
They lifted startled eyes,
To see strange horsemen waking
The morn with whips and cries.

Some, Nemesis accepted,
But one, with spirit free,
Charged hillward through the timber
For life and liberty.

Then cracked the stockwhips louder;
Then yapped the sharp-tongued dogs;
The rotten bark in powder
Flew from the fallen logs.

Bruised ferns and sword-grass trampled,
Torn boughs and saplings bent,
Marked plain across the ridges
What way the wild chase went.

With muzzle dripping freely
The frantic, long-horned steer
Left horse and rider striving
Three times upon his rear.

To blue hills of the Wingen
’Twas hard to bid good-bye;
In some red shambles driven
Far from their peace to die.

* * * * * *

Now as the mob is nearing
The black lands of Orbost,
Perchance in bovine yearning
He pines for freedom lost.

He hears a night-tide pouring
Across the shallow bars,
When all the Bush is sleeping,
Dew-freshened, ’neath the stars.

He sees, in silver gleaming,
The lakes, lit by the moon,
Cape Everard, in shadow,
The marshes of Tamboon.

Long forelands, flower-emblazoned,
Deep gullies and dark streams
Through fern and dogwood gliding
Still linger in his dreams.

And all that coastland lonely
From Nadji to the Bemm,
Where grows a sweet bush herbage,
Calls softly unto him.

* * * * * *

To-night along the Wingen
A warrigal bewails
Calf quarry — in perspective —
Gone south’ard to the sales.

The loved hills of the Wingen,
A long-horned steer desires,
Who sees his human captors
Out-stretched before their fires.

But all his pride lies humbled,
And all his hope is gone.
With lowered head, dejected,
Lean-flanked, he stumbles on.

He knows the wild, free forelands,
And open miles are lost
To him whose Fate is waiting,
Red-handed, by Orbost.



Source:
E. J. Brady, Bells and Hobbles, Melbourne: George Robertson & Co., 1911, pp. 81-83

Editor’s notes:
bovine = cattle; of or pertaining to cattle; an animal belonging to the biological subfamily Bovinae (including bison, African buffalo, water buffalo, and domestic cattle)

Gippsland = a region of south-eastern Victoria, which encompasses Bairnsdale, Drouin, Lakes Entrance, Leongatha, Mallacoota, Moe, Morwell, Omeo, Sale, Seaspray, the Strzelecki Ranges, Traralgon, Walhalla, Warragul, Wilsons Promontory, Wonthaggi, and Yarram; the region was named after George Gipps (1790-1847), who was Governor of New South Wales (1838-1846)

mob = generally “mob” refers to a large group of animals, commonly used when referring to cattle, horses, kangaroos, or sheep; also used to refer to a group of people, sometimes – although definitely not always – used in a negative or derogatory sense (possibly as an allusion to a group of dumb or wild animals), but also used in a positive sense (e.g. “they’re my mob”), especially amongst Aborigines

morn = morning

’neath = (vernacular) beneath

Sale = a city in the Gippsland region of Victoria, located east of Rosedale and west of Lake Wellington

south’ard = (vernacular) southward

’twas = (archaic) a contraction of “it was”

warrigal = (Aboriginal) a dingo; a wild dog (also spelt: warragal, warragle, warragul)

Filed Under: poetry Tagged With: Bells and Hobbles (E. J. Brady 1911), E. J. Brady (author) (1869-1952), poem, SourceArchiveOrg, year1911

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Australian flag, 100hThe Institute of Australian Culture
Heritage, history, and heroes. Literature, legends, and larrikins. Stories, songs, and sages.

Featured books

The Man from Snowy River and Other Verses, by Banjo Paterson A Book for Kids, by C. J. Dennis  The Bulletin Reciter: A Collection of Verses for Recitation from The Bulletin The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke, by C. J. Dennis The Complete Inner History of the Kelly Gang and Their Pursuers, by J. J. Kenneally The Foundations of Culture in Australia, by P. R. Stephensen The Australian Crisis, by C. H. Kirmess Such Is Life, by Joseph Furphy
More books (full text)

Featured lists

Timeline of Australian history and culture
A list of significant Australiana
Significant events and commemorative dates
Australian slang
Books (full text)
Australian literature
Rock music and pop music (videos)
Folk music and bush music (videos)
Early music (videos)
Recommended poetry
Poetry and songs, 1786-1900
Poetry and songs, 1901-1954
Australian explorers
Topics
Links

Featured posts

Advance Australia Fair: How the song became the Australian national anthem
Brian Cadd [music videos and biography]
Ned Kelly: Australian bushranger
Under the Southern Cross I Stand [the Australian cricket team’s victory song]

Some Australian authors

E. J. Brady
John Le Gay Brereton
C. J. Dennis
Mary Hannay Foott
Joseph Furphy
Mary Gilmore
Charles Harpur
Grant Hervey
Lucy Everett Homfray
Rex Ingamells
Henry Kendall
“Kookaburra”
Henry Lawson
Jack Moses
“Dryblower” Murphy
John Shaw Neilson
John O’Brien (Patrick Joseph Hartigan)
“Banjo” Paterson
Marie E. J. Pitt
A. G. Stephens
P. R. Stephensen
Agnes L. Storrie (Agnes L. Kettlewell)

Recent Posts

  • Vale! Percy Mahoney [by H. A. Burton, 14 December 1950]
  • Early-day sportsman’s death [obituary of Percy Mahoney, 7 December 1950]
  • Visits to the IAC site from various countries
  • Poems by J. Shaw Neilson [book review, 22 December 1923]
  • “Australia in Palestine” [book review, 6 November 1919]

Top Posts & Pages

  • The Man from Snowy River [poem by Banjo Paterson]
  • Clancy of The Overflow [poem by Banjo Paterson]
  • The Man from Ironbark [poem by Banjo Paterson]
  • Surely God was a Lover [poem by John Shaw Neilson]
  • The drover’s wife [by Henry Lawson]

Categories

Archives

Posts of note

The Bastard from the Bush [poem, circa 1900]
A Book for Kids [by C. J. Dennis, 1921]
Click Go the Shears [traditional Australian song, 1890s]
Core of My Heart [“My Country”, poem by Dorothea Mackellar, 24 October 1908]
Freedom on the Wallaby [poem by Henry Lawson, 16 May 1891]
The Man from Ironbark [poem by Banjo Paterson]
Nationality [poem by Mary Gilmore, 12 May 1942]
The Newcastle song [music video, sung by Bob Hudson]
No Foe Shall Gather Our Harvest [poem by Mary Gilmore, 29 June 1940]
Our pipes [short story by Henry Lawson]
Rommel’s comments on Australian soldiers [1941-1942]
Shooting the moon [short story by Henry Lawson]

Search this site



For Australia


Copyright © 2022 · Log in