The Prospector – by Prospect Good

We pined in the crowded city,
And tired of sordid marts
Where misery glutted pity,
Where yesterday limn’d to tomorrow,
While loud avarice stalked
All day, and at night wan sorrow
And vice in vainness walked.

We longed for the wide horizon
The low, long skyline meets.
For the reeded, open roadways,
In place of narrow streets.
And the open roads, they lead us
From Clunes to Kimberley,
By the cross-roads we have freed us
From city slavery.

We were sired by ‘Bold Adventure,
Our mother was Romance.
We were bred in Glamor’s borders –
Nursed on the knees of Chance.
We were schooled by Adversity,
Teacher of discipline,
To take our luck as we found it
and fight – or lose or win.

So we felt no pang in parting –
Watching the town lights fade,
For we sought the glister golden
Our sire, Adventure bade.
Sought – and some died in the seeking –
Gleam of a Golden Grail,
Oh, we were true knights of fortune
Knowing no backward trail.

We have fought our fights and lost them –
Given them battle and won.
When Labor led at Eureka,
Witness the deeds then done.
We drove the heathen before us,
From Flat and Castlemaine,
And what we have done aforetime
We’ll do in time again.

Bright stars, they made for us beacons,
The mirage it led astray.
The graves where we left our comrades,
Like milestones mark the way.
Some fell by the trainers’ bullet,
Some by the myalis’ spear,
And dream in their lone camps ever
A comrades camp is near.

We’ve seen lone claims in the desert
Staked by lost bygone bands,
And one, with its blood-writ letters,
Sad memorial stands.
Strange wraiths passed by through the pine-patch
Along lost Leichhardt’s tracks,
And dark by gumtree and gidys
Went shades the moonlight lacks.

And the gold we got by seeking
We lost again in quest.
From the first find in the fifties
To last found in the West.
But lose by hazard of fortune
Or gain by turn o’luck
We kept our place in the forefront
And left the rest in the ruck.

But the cities rise Phoenix-wise
In place of tented camps,
The quiet bush goes echoing
To rhythm of roaring stamps.
Prideless hirelings are at our heels
Fettered to wage and due,
Now must we watch in quest again
Through the wilderness anew.

Recommended Reading: 

A Good Prospect –
The life and works of F.W. Ophel
“Prospect Good.”

Compiled and edited by Chris Holyday.

Frederick Ophel (1871- 1911) was considered the best and brightest of the Goldfields poets a century ago. However his work has never been published as a collection. A.G. Stephens of the Bulletin collected his works and letters but twice lost the papers and eventually economics signed the death knell.

He lies here. See the bush
All grey through grief for him
Hoar scrub – like ashes cast –
Sprinkles the valley grim.

This epitaph for a lone prospector could be one for our society. It is fundamental to this publishers policy that these brilliant gems of our culture should be unearthed and displayed. Newspapers such as the Kalgoorlie Sun were the gem cutters of the day. But now they are reduced to a single copy in the archives, looted by marauding journalists to fill their reminiscences.
Available from Hesperian Press

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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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