Explore "By the Grey Gulf-water" by Andrew Barton Paterson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Far to the Northward there lies a land, / A wonderful land that the winds blow over, / And none may fathom nor understand / The charm it holds for the restless rover; / A great grey chaos -- a land half made, / Where endless space is and no life stirreth; / And the soul of a man will recoil afraid / From the sphinx-like visage that Nature weareth. / But old Dame Nature, though scornful, craves / Her dole of death and her share of slaughter; / Many indeed are the nameless graves / Where her victims sleep by the Grey Gulf-water.
Slowly and slowly those grey streams glide, / Drifting along with a languid motion, / Lapping the reed-beds on either side, / Wending their way to the Northern Ocean. / Grey are the plains where the emus pass / Silent and slow, with their staid demeanour; / Over the dead men's graves the grass / Maybe is waving a trifle greener. / Down in the world where men toil and spin / Dame Nature smiles as man's hand has taught her; / Only the dead men her smiles can win / In the great lone land by the Grey Gulf-water.