From the snow hills of Mt Baw Baw in your cloak of gray to brown <br />Through the scrublands and the paddocks and through many country town <br />All the way through Melbourne City where you back up and move slow <br />And you travel at a snail's pace as near to the sea you flow. <br /> <br />You've been travelling forever for how long god only know? <br />Long before black man first saw you sixty thousand years ago <br />And from tribe of 'Yarra Yarra' came your indigenous name <br />And your name of Yarra river ever with you will remain. <br /> <br />If you could talk Yarra river you'd go down the centuries <br />Long before the white man's coming when this Land was full of trees <br />And you'd tell about the white man how he cut the tall gums down <br />And he sacrificed the forest for to build a concrete town <br /> <br />And you could go back much further way back down the centuries long <br />On your banks the black tribes gathered for to party and sing song <br />You have known so many changes as the centuries come and go <br />But through droughts and long hot summers you have never ceased to flow. <br /> <br />Before coming of dinosaur before birth of first gum tree <br />All the way down from Mt Baw Baw on your journey to the sea <br />Through the scrublands and the paddocks and through many country town <br />And through Melbourne to Port Phillip in your cloak of gray to brown.<br /><br />Francis Duggan<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-the-yarra-river/
