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Tenmiles down Reedy River

A pool of water lies,

And all the year it mirrors

The changes in the skies,

And in that pool’s broad bosom

Is room for all the stars;

Its bed of sand has drifted

O’er countless rocky bars.

Around the lower edges

There waves a bed of reeds,

Where water rats are hidden

And where the wild duck breeds;

And grassy slopes rise gently

To ridges long and low,

Where groves of wattle flourish

And native bluebells grow.

Beneath the granite ridges

The eye may just discern

Where Rocky Creek emerges

From deep green banks of fern;

And standing tall between them,

The grassy sheoaks cool

The hard, blue-tinted waters

Before they reach the pool.

Ten miles down Reedy River

One Sunday afternoon,

I rode with Mary Campbell

To that broad, bright lagoon;

We left our horses grazing

Till shadows climbed the peak,

And strolled beneath the sheoaks

On the banks of Rocky Creek.

Then home along the river

That night we rode a race,

And the moonlight lent a glory

To Mary Campbell’s face;

And I pleaded for my future

All thro’ that moonlight ride,

Until our weary horses

Drew closer side by side.

Ten miles from Ryan’s crossing

And five below the peak,

I built a little homestead

On the banks of Rocky Creek;

I cleared the land and fenced it

And ploughed the rich red loam;

And my first crop was golden

When I brought Mary home.

* * * * * * * * *

Now still down Reedy River

The grassy sheoaks sigh,

And the waterholes still mirror

The pictures in the sky;

The golden sand is drifting

Across the rocky bars;

And over all for ever

Go sun and moon and stars.

But of the hut I builded

There are no traces now.

And many rains have levelled

The furrows of my plough;

The glad bright days have vanished;

For sombre branches wave

And the wattle-blossoms golden

Above my Mary’s grave.