THE SAND was heavy on our feet, <br />A Christmas sky was o’er us, <br />And half a mile through dust and heat <br />Lake ’Liza lay before us. <br />‘You’ll have a long and heavy tramp’— <br />So said the last adviser— <br />‘You can’t do better than to camp <br />To-night at Lake Eliza.’ <br /> <br />We quite forgot our aching shanks, <br />A cheerful spirit caught us; <br />We thought of green and shady banks, <br />We thought of pleasant waters. <br />’Neath sky as niggard of its rain <br />As of his gold the miser, <br />By mulga scrub and lignum plain <br />We’d tramp’d to Lake Eliza. <br /> <br />A patch to grey discoloured sand, <br />A fringe of tufty grasses, <br />A lonely pub in mulga scrub <br />Is all the stranger passes. <br />He’d pass the Lake a dozen times <br />And yet be none the wiser; <br />I hope that I shall never be <br />As dry as Lake Eliza. <br /> <br />No patch of green or water seen <br />To cheer the weary plodder; <br />The grass is tough as fencing-wire, <br />And just as good for fodder. <br />And when I see it mentioned in <br />Some local ADVERTISER, <br />’Twill make me laugh, or make me grin— <br />The name of ‘Lake Eliza.’<br /><br />Henry Lawson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/lake-eliza/
