IN THE MORN when the keen blade bites the tree, <br />And the chips on the dead leaves dance, <br />And the bush echoes back right merrily <br />Blow for blow as the sunbeams glance <br />From the axe when it sweeps in circles true, <br />Then the splitter at heart is gay; <br />He exults in the work he’s set to do, <br />And he feels like a boy at play. <br /> <br />Swinging free with a stroke that’s straight and strong <br />To the heart of the messmate sent, <br />He is cheered by the magpie’s morning song <br />With the ring of the metal blent, <br />But the birds in their terror scatter high <br />When she falls with a rush and bound, <br />And the quivering saplings split and fly, <br />And the ranges all roar around. <br /> <br />Who is lord when the axeman mounts his spar, <br />And the breeze on his brown breast blows, <br />When the scent of the new wood floats afar, <br />And the gum from its red wounds flows? <br />With the bush at his back he laughs at care, <br />With a pipe and a right good mate— <br />There is drink in the billy, grub to spare, <br />And a bunk in the ten-by-eight. <br /> <br />When the sun’s in the west, from nooks aloft <br />Where the stringy is straight and tall, <br />Come the strains of a chorus quaint and soft, <br />Or the clink of the wedge and maul; <br />From the gully a murmur of broken talk <br />Or the song that the crosscut sings; <br />For the bush is a-dream, and high the hawk <br />Hangs at rest on his cradling wings. <br /> <br />But at night, by the tent, when tea is done <br />And when euchre’s begun to flag— <br />In the bush he may hear a distant gun <br />Or the neigh of a lonely nag— <br />Then the splitter has thoughts no longer gay, <br />And sorrows he cannot drown, <br />For he dreams of a girl who’s far away, <br />Or the joys of a spree in town.<br /><br />Edward George Dyson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-splitter/
