Tommy’s Hut –

Victorian Express 7 April 1893, page 3

TOMMY’S HUT
From The Sydney Bulletin

Reading The Bulletin

There’s a clearing in the ranges on the old bush road to Yea,
Where a shanty once was running in the old and lawless way;
It was here the splitters rallied, and the drifting traveller soaked,
And the drover, halting, tallied, and the Bullocky unyoked.

It was here the bushman melted down the fruits of thrift and toil,
In cooling draughts of chemicals and nips of fusel-oil;
It was here they vied in “shouting” till the quiet ranges rang,
Aud the muffled sounds of “clouting” mingled with the songs they sang.

It was here the strangest stories, too, were told of mining lodes;
Of the streaming strings of wagons that were met upon the roads,
Till listless loungers started as the wondrous tale were told,
And, sobering up, departed for the dazzling fields of gold.

There were evenings at the shanty when you’d see a stranger sight,
And the sound of tuneful voices, then, would fall upon the night;
When homeless, hopeless wanderers softly sang some sweet refrain,
And stealing o’er the squanderers the spirit, rest would reign.

They were men who once had started with the wildest hopes and dreams
That led them from the beaten track to breast the flooded streams;
In their pride they scorned the compass, and struck boldly on ahead,
But they noted not the ridges, nor to where the gullies led.

They were nearer then, those revellers, in their soft but saddened song,
As it bore them, circling, backward past the marks they blazed along,
Nearer to the well-known places drifting slowly into view,
With the dim, reproachful faces in the faintly surging blue.

Drifting often back so dimly, that the bushman, filled with doubt,
Strains his eyes before him, wondering where he might “come out,”
All, in merciless revealing, pass by each well-known trace,
And he sees, with senses reeling, that he’s “made” his starting place.

Tommy’s Hut has gone forever with an age that’s passed away,
And a grassy plot tells only of a wild, adventurous day,
And this scene of noisy riot sleeps in silence so profound
That an air of deathly quiet seems to linger o’er the ground.

When the moonlight floods the ranges, and the bush is cast in light —
And the messmate shells are standing, “hung” in ghostly robes of white,
Pale shadows, fast assembling, steal from scrub lined haunts around
And blacken, as they trembling fall athwart the open ground.

It is then the lonely traveller, should he listen at length may hear
In faint and feeble whispering words that fain would reach his ear,
And with the dark concealing scrawling shadows strive to tell
Of the men, the bush has deadened with its mystic, subtle spell.

by W E. Carew

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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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