OLD coach-road West by Nor’-ward— <br />Old mile-tree by the track: <br />A dead branch pointing forward, <br />And a dead branch pointing back. <br />And still in clear-cut romans <br />On his hard heart he tells <br />The miles that were to fortune, <br />The miles from Bowenfels. <br />Old chief of Western timber! <br />A famous gum you’ve been. <br />Old mile-tree, I remember <br />When all your boughs were green. <br /> <br />There came three boyish lovers <br />When golden days begun; <br />There rode three boyish rovers <br />Towards the setting sun. <br />And Fortune smiled her fairest <br />And Fate to these was kind— <br />The truest, best and rarest, <br />The girls they’d left behind. <br />By the camp-fire’s dying ember <br />They dreamed of love and gold; <br />Old mile-tree, I remember <br />When all our hearts were bold. <br /> <br />And when the wrecks of those days <br />Were sadly drifting back, <br />There came a lonely swagman <br />Along the dusty track; <br />And save for limbs that trembled— <br />For weak and ill was he— <br />Old mile-tree, he resembled <br />The youngest of the three. <br />Beneath you, dark and lonely, <br />A wronged and broken man <br />He crouched, and sobbed as only <br />The strong heart broken can. <br />The darkness wrapped the timber, <br />The stars seemed dark o’erhead— <br />Old mile-tree, I remember <br />When all green leaves seemed dead.<br /><br />Henry Lawson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-old-mile-tree/
