To The Men Of The Mines

We specked as boys o'er worked-out ground By littered fiat and muddy stream, We watched the whim horse trudging round, And rode upon the circling beam, Within the old uproarious mill Fed mad, insatiable stamps, Mined peaceful gorge and gusty hill With pan, and pick, and gad, and drill, And knew the stir of sudden camps. By yellow dams in summer days We puddled at the tom; for weeks Went seeking up the tortuous ways Of gullies deep and hidden creeks. We worked the shallow leads in style, And hunted fortune down the drives, And missed her, mostly by a mile, Once by a yard or so. The while We lived untrammelled, easy lives. Through blazing days upon the brace We laboured, and when night had passed Beheld the glory and the grace Of wondrous dawns in bushlands vast. We heard the burdened timbers groan In deep mines murmurous as the seas On long, lone shores by drear winds blown. We've seen heroic deeds, and known The digger's joys and tragedies. I write in rhyme of all these things, With little skill, perhaps, but you, To whom each tale a memory brings Of bygone days, will know them true. Should mates who've worked in stope and face, Who've trenched the hill and swirled the dish, Or toiled upon the plat and brace, Find pleasure in the lines I trace, No better welcome could I wish.