WE SPECKED as boys o’er worked-out ground <br />By littered fiat and muddy stream, <br />We watched the whim horse trudging round, <br />And rode upon the circling beam, <br />Within the old uproarious mill <br />Fed mad, insatiable stamps, <br />Mined peaceful gorge and gusty hill <br />With pan, and pick, and gad, and drill, <br />And knew the stir of sudden camps. <br /> <br />By yellow dams in summer days <br />We puddled at the tom; for weeks <br />Went seeking up the tortuous ways <br />Of gullies deep and hidden creeks. <br />We worked the shallow leads in style, <br />And hunted fortune down the drives, <br />And missed her, mostly by a mile— <br />Once by a yard or so. The while <br />We lived untrammelled, easy lives. <br /> <br />Through blazing days upon the brace <br />We laboured, and when night had passed <br />Beheld the glory and the grace <br />Of wondrous dawns in bushlands vast. <br />We heard the burdened timbers groan <br />In deep mines murmurous as the seas <br />On long, lone shores by drear winds blown. <br />We’ve seen heroic deeds, and known <br />The digger’s joys and tragedies. <br /> <br />I write in rhyme of all these things, <br />With little skill, perhaps, but you, <br />To whom each tale a memory brings <br />Of bygone days, will know them true. <br />Should mates who’ve worked in stope and face, <br />Who’ve trenched the hill and swirled the dish, <br />Or toiled upon the plat and brace, <br />Find pleasure in the lines I trace, <br />No better welcome could I wish.<br /><br />Edward George Dyson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-the-men-of-the-mines/
