The Bushman's Book

Poem: The Bushman's Book

 by Will Ogilvie

All roughly bound together, The red-brown pages lie
In red sirocco leather, With scored lines to the sky:
The Western suns have burned them, The desert winds dog's-eared,
And winter rains have turned them, With wanton hands and weird!

They flutter, torn and lonely, Far out, like lost brown birds;
The Western stockmen only, Can spell their wondrous words;
And gifted souls and sages, May gather round and look,
They cannot read the pages, That fill the Bushman's Book!

But open, night and day-time, It spreads with witching art
A picture-book of playtime, To hold the Bushman's heart,
And learned in the lore of it, And lessoned in its signs,
He reads the scroll, and more of it, That lies between the lines.

He sees the well-filled purses, From Abbot-tracks like wires,
And hears the deep-drawn curses, That dog the four-inch tyres!
He knows the busy super, By worn hoofs flat as plates,
And tracks the mounted trooper, By shod hoofs at the gates!

He knows the tracks unsteady, Of riders "on the bust,"
Of nags "knocked up already" By toes that drag the dust;
The "split" hoofs and the "quartered," He'll show you on the spot,
And brumbies that have watered, And brumbies that have not!

So, North and West o' westward, Nor'-West and North again,
The Bush Book is the best word, Among the Western men;
They find her lines and hail them, And read with trusting eyes:
They know if old mates fail them. The Bush Book never lies!

First published in The Bulletin, 14 December 1905