Explore "Old Melbourne Memories" by Rolf Boldrewood on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Once upon a time, in a "kingdom by the sea," known to men as Port Fairy, "Yambuk" was a choice and precious exemplar of the old-fashioned cattle station. What a haven of peace -- what a restful elysium, would it be in these degenerate days of hurry and pressure and progress, and all that -- could one but fall upon it! If one could only gallop up now to that garden gate, receive the old cordial welcome, and turn his horse into the paddock, what a _fontaine de jouvence_ would bubble up! Should one ride forth and essay the deed? It could hardly be managed. We should not be able to find our way. There would be roads and fences, with obtrusive shingled cottages, and wheat-fields, barns, and threshing machines -- in short, all the hostile emblems of agricultural settlement, as it is called.
I like it not; I would the plain / Lay in its tall old groves again.