Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ON WIRRABO ROAD, by ERNEST ROBIN


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ON WIRRABO ROAD, by                    
First Line: Gone are now old coaching ways
Last Line: On the road to wirrabo.
Subject(s): Nostalgia; Roads; Trucks & Trucking; Paths; Trails


GONE are now old coaching ways
And the merry drinking days,
When the passengers on top
Treated Jehu to a drop.
And, 'tis said, a man in black
Drank one night to Hell-fire Jack—
Jack, who in a storm of hail
Raced for miles the Southern mail.
It was in the long ago,
On the road to Wirrabo.

Out of fashion are the nights—
Rum galore and stand-up fights—
When the shanty-keeper's grog
Landed teamsters in a bog.
Gone the breakneck driving days
When Jack Fletcher swam his bays,
Covered head to foot with mud,
Slap-bang through the creek in flood.
It was in the long ago,
On the road to Wirrabo.

Vanished with Bohemian days
Careless, open-handed ways;
When the squatter paid to see
Every man-Jack on the spree,
And the young bloods, flush and gay,
Kept it up till break o' day,
Cantering home along the track
Side by side with Hell-fire Jack.
It was in the long ago,
On the road to Wirrabo.

Worthy of more finished rhymes,
Venturous, Homeric times!
When the prisoner, left unbound,
Felled Glendinning to the ground.
But when outlaw Monaghan
Chased the coach by Ryan's Run,
Fletcher, never drawing rein,
Put a bullet in his brain.
It was in the long ago,
On the road to Wirrabo.





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