Christmas Camp – by Dryblower Murphy

The miles are long in Mulgaland,
Beyond the beaten pad,
Today is Christmas, but no hand
Grips mine in greeting glad.
Yet, though this stinted meal I make
Burlesques the festal board,
It strums upon the strings that wake
A long forgotten chord.
It bears me back on rushing wings
That time can never cramp –
To olden days, to golden days –
The days of Christmas Camp.

It bears me back to Bayley’s boom
Before a stamp was dropped,
When men swung out for elbow room
And home the timid stopped.
It carries me to Christmas sprees,
When hope was in the cup;
We drank and thought we left the lees
To those that followed up.
The days no promise petered out;
Our ardour hot to damp,
The thriving days, the hiving days -|
The days of Christmas Camp.

It hugged the hill that straggled down,
Coolgardies eastern side,
Its walls and roofs of hop-brush brown,
Its doors of bullock hide.
On Christmas Eve we picked the site,
On Christmas Day ’twas built,
And ringing rose on Christmas night,
|The dolly’s golden lilt.
A week before on Tindal’s Flat,
We’d pegged Aladdin’s lamp,
In roaring days, in scoring days –
The days of Christmas camp

But where are they who with me camped,
Within the six by eights^,1
Who laughed and liquored, toiled and tramped,
When men were more than mates?
Who’d beat a drill and swing a pick,
Or search a dish with wind.
Who’d fight a foe or nurse the sick,
And sin as others sinned;
Whose fists were first within a fight,
A riot or a ramp,
In rousing days, carousing days –
The days of Christmas camp.

Cold Klondike claimed as victim, one
Who bartered heat for frost,
Where swift the Yukon rapids run
The Great Divide he crossed.
Another stopped a Dutchman’s shot
Where Red Tugela rolled,
A third threw in his scanty lot
With something rich and old.
She pegged him in and bore him off,
A handsome ragged scamp,
In needy days, in seedy days –
The days of Christmas Camp.

Another lives across the Bight
In see-you-later style
He beat us, but, he’d black and white
And pocketed a pile.
Today he’s where the swankers are,|
A meal I have to mag,
Today he runs a motor car,
I sweat beneath a swag.
Yet still I laugh and live again,
As tucker-wards I tramp,
The olden days, the golden days –
The days of Christmas Camp.

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Moya Sharp

Owner at Outback Family History

My name is Moya Sharp, I live in Kalgoorlie Western Australia and have worked most of my adult life in the history/museum industry. I have been passionate about history for as long as I can remember and in particular the history of my adopted home the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia. Through my website I am committed to providing as many records and photographs free to any one who is interested in the family and local history of the region.

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