Clancy of "The Overflow"

[Glaurung]

This is a poem, but not by me (and therefore it might belong in another area of the forum). It might well be familiar to Australians, since it's by an Australian poet, but probably not to people elsewhere. It compares the life of a cattle drover in the bush with an office worker - the full text is available in various places, including the University of Adelaide, and Project Gutenberg (choose the HTML version; in that scroll down to the Contents, or the poem itself). There's also a Wikipedia article about it.

It's one of very poems that has stuck with me - I don't read much poetry. I found it written on a display on the wall of a pub in Perth (Western Australia), in 2007. I was at the end of a six-week holiday, touring Australia and New Zealand, and the words seemed to encapsulate a lot of my experience. This verse in particular summed up a lot of the sights and sounds of natural Australia, and implied the scents as well:

And the bush hath friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him
  In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars,
And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended,
  And at night the wond'rous glory of the everlasting stars.

I had seen the "plains extended" (and also mountains, coastlines, tropical jungle, and coral reefs), and heard the voices, kindly or not, of assorted wildlife. The scent of gum trees (eucalyptus) brings back immediate memories from many parts of the holiday. The Southern Hemisphere night sky is indeed "wond'rous", especially when seen from somewhere out of reach of street-lights.

And only a few days later, I would be back in the office, to face the round eternal of the cash-book and the journal, or at least programming the accounting software that handles them now.

[Glaurung]

Also, there's a 21st century version which might appeal as well: clancy@theoverflow.

[Phoenixguard09]

Aye, tis a good one.

I will always associate it with my grandfather, who has recited it to all of us on many an occasion.