Before the glare o’ dawn I rise <br />To milk the sleepy cows, an’ shake <br />The droving dust from tired eyes, <br />Look round the rabbit traps, then bake <br />The children’s bread. <br />There’s hay to stook, an’ beans to hoe, <br />An’ ferns to cut in the scrub below, <br />Women must work, when men must go <br />Shearing from shed to shed. <br /> <br />I patch an’ darn, now evening comes, <br />An’ tired I am with labour sore, <br />Tired o’ the bush, the cows, the gums, <br />Tired, but we must dree for long months more <br />What no tongue tells. <br />The moon is lonely in the sky, <br />Lonely the bush, an’ lonely I <br />Stare down the track no horse draws nigh, <br />An’ start . . . at the cattle bells.<br /><br />Louis Esson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-shearers-wife/
