I had written him a letter
which I had, for want of better
Knowledge, sent to where
I met him down the Lachlan, years ago,
He was shearing when I knew
him, so I sent the letter to him,
Just "on spec", addressed
as follows, "Clancy, of The Overflow".
And an answer came directed
in a writing unexpected,
(And I think the same was
written with a thumb-nail dipped in tar)
Twas his shearing mate who
wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it:
"Clancy's gone to Queensland
droving, and we don't know where he are."
In my wild erratic fancy
visions come to me of Clancy
Gone a-droving "down the
Cooper" where the Western drovers go;
As the stock are slowly
stringing, Clancy rides behind them singing,
For the drover's life has
pleasures that the townsfolk never know.
And the bush hath friends
to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him
In the murmur of the breezes
and the river on its bars,
And he sees the vision splendid
of the sunlit plains extended,
And at night the wond'rous
glory of the everlasting stars.
I am sitting in my dingy
little office, where a stingy
Ray of sunlight struggles
feebly down between the houses tall,
And the foetid air and gritty
of the dusty, dirty city
Through the open window
floating, spreads its foulness over all
And in place of lowing cattle,
I can hear the fiendish rattle
Of the tramways and the
buses making hurry down the street,
And the language uninviting
of the gutter children fighting,
Comes fitfully and faintly
through the ceaseless tramp of feet.
And the hurrying people daunt
me, and their pallid faces haunt me
As they shoulder one another
in their rush and nervous haste,
With their eager eyes and
greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy,
For townsfolk have no time
to grow, they have no time to waste.
And I somehow rather fancy
that I'd like to change with Clancy,
Like to take a turn at droving
where the seasons come and go,
While he faced the round
eternal of the cash-book and the journal --
But I doubt he'd suit the
office, Clancy, of "The Overflow".