There's the whitebox and pine on the ridges afar, <br />Where the iron-bark, blue-gum, and peppermint are; <br />There is many another, but dearest to me, <br />And the king of them all was the stringy-bark tree. <br />Then of stringy-bark slabs were the walls of the hut, <br />And from stringy-bark saplings the rafters were cut; <br />And the roof that long sheltered my brothers and me <br />Was of broad sheets of bark from the stringy-bark tree. <br /> <br />And when sawn-timber homes were built out in the West, <br />Then for walls and for ceilings its wood was the best; <br />And for shingles and palings to last while men be, <br />There was nothing on earth like the stringy-bark tree. <br /> <br />Far up the long gullies the timber-trucks went, <br />Over tracks that seemed hopeless, by bark hut and tent; <br />And the gaunt timber-finder, who rode at his ease, <br />Led them on to a gully of stringy-bark trees. <br /> <br />Now still from the ridges, by ways that are dark, <br />Come the shingles and palings they call stringy-bark; <br />Though you ride through long gullies a twelve months you’ll see <br />But the old whitened stumps of the stringy-bark tree.<br /><br />Henry Lawson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-stringy-bark-tree/
