Explore "The Homeward Track" by C.J. Dennis on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Once a year we lumber southward with the clip from Yarradee; / Spell the bullocks in the township while we run our yearly spree. / What's a bullocky to live for? Days of toil are hard and long; / And you'd not begrudge him yearly one short week of wine anD song. / While it lasts he asks no better. When it's over "Yoke 'em up," / And we'll make another promise for to shun the brimming cup. / When we've done our little cheque in, and the township's at our back; / Then we start to think of mending -- out along the Homeward Track.
For there comes a time of reck'ning when we're trudging by the team; / Back again to work an' worry; kind of waking from a dream; / We begin to see the folly of a week of wicked fun, / Bought with months of weary slaving, punching bullocks on the run. / But our views are somewhat tempered when we've done a twelve months' drouth; / And our thoughts ain't so religious when the team is heading south. / When the pleasure is before us, work and worry at our back, / We forget the grim reformers out along the Homeward Track.