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hi maria, i would be very interested if you developed more your statement on Nietzsche (i am less interested in the concept of "a drifting Europe", i guess the topic could find too many opposite voices) - against which Australian poets sought an identity. being a person who developed her thought on Nietzsche, i was in my twenties when i devoured him, together with Camus and the existentialists, i am very interested in your, or maybe better, that part of Australia that joins your thought, explanations. take care, anny > Thanks for the thoughts on "bush poetry" - one other influence comes to > mind, Nietzsche and a drifting Europe - against which Australian poets > sought an identity - gaining a "central almost mystic" symbolism - a > vision of Australia "not childlike but regenerative; a purification > which is the result of hardship and endurance, of sacrifice of personal > ease, sacrifice perhaps of life itself...death is part of the legend; > Australia has always been 'the land where the dead men lie' - against > which, it seems in our time at least, we have no measure in a globally > shifting world...oh, and that rhyme, that achingly familiar meter...how > to measure that - now? > > maria > > > WHERE THE DEAD MEN LIE by Barcroft Boake > > Out on the wastes of the Never Never - > That's where the dead men lie! > There where the heat-waves dance forever - > That's where the dead men lie! > That's where the Earth's loved sons are keeping > Endless tryst: not the west wind sweeping > Feverish pinions can wake their sleeping - > Out where the dead men lie! > > Where brown Summer and Death have mated - > That's where the dead men lie! > Loving with fiery lust unsated - > That's where the dead men lie! > Out where the grinning skulls bleach whitely > Under the saltbush sparkling brightly; > Out where the wild dogs chorus nightly - > That's where the dead men lie! > > Deep in the yellow, flowing river - > That's where the dead men lie! > Under the banks where the shadows quiver - > That's where the dead men he! > Where the platypus twists and doubles, > Leaving a train of tiny bubbles. > Rid at last of their earthly troubles - > That's where the dead men lie! > > East and backward pale faces turning - > That's how the dead men lie! > Gaunt arms stretched with a voiceless yearning - > That's how the dead men lie! > Oft in the fragrant hush of nooning > Hearing again their mother's crooning, > Wrapt for aye in a dreamful swooning - > That's how the dead men lie! > > Only the hand of Night can free them - > That's when the dead men fly! > Only the frightened cattle see them - > See the dead men go by! > Cloven hoofs beating out one measure, > Bidding the stockmen know no leisure - > That's when the dead men take their pleasure! > That's when the dead men fly! > > Ask, too, the never-sleeping drover: > He sees the dead pass by; > Hearing them call to their friends - the plover, > Hearing the dead men cry; > Seeing their faces stealing, stealing, > Hearing their laughter, pealing, pealing, > Watching their grey forms wheeling, wheeling > Round where the cattle lie! > > Strangled by thirst and fierce privation - > That's how the dead men die! > Out on Moncygrub's farthest station - > That's how the dead men die! > Hard-faced greybeards, youngsters caflow; > Some mounds cared for, some left fallow; > Some deep down, yet others shallow. > Some having but the sky. > > Moncygrub, as he sips his claret, > Looks with complacent eye > Down at his watch-chain, eighteen carat - > There, in his club, hard by: > Recks not that every link is stamped with > Names of the men whose limbs are cramped with > Too long lying in grave-mould, cramped with > Death where the dead men lie. >