Australian Poets Trivia Quiz

Answer: Bullock wagon

"Harry Pearce"
'I sat beside the red stock route
And chewed a blade of bitter grass
And saw in mirage on the plain
A bullock wagon pass.
Old Harry Pearce was with his team
"The flies are bad", I said to him.

The leaders felt his whip. It did
Me good to hear Old Harry swear,
And in the heat of noon it seemed
His bullocks walked on air.
Suspended in the amber sky
They hauled the wool to Gundagai.

He walked in Time across the plain,
An old man walking in the air,
For years he wandered in my brain;
And now he lodges here.
And he may drive his cattle still
When Time with us has had his will.'

Answer: Vietnam War

Dawe's anti war attitude is strongly expressed in this poem, and deals with the bodies of soldiers being returned to their homelands in "green plastic bags".

Answer: We Are Going

Oodgeroo Noonuccal was a writer, painter and activist who served in the Australian Women's Army Service during WW11. She was the first Aboriginal woman to have her writing work published, and she wrote and illustrated several children's books. She died in 1993.

"We Are Going"

'They came in to the little town
A semi-naked band subdued and silent
All that remained of their tribe.
They came here to the place of their old bora ground
Where now the many white men hurry about like ants.
Notice of the estate agent reads: 'Rubbish May Be Tipped Here'.
Now it half covers the traces of the old bora ring.
'We are as strangers here now, but the white tribe are the strangers.
We belong here, we are of the old ways.
We are the corroboree and the bora ground,
We are the old ceremonies, the laws of the elders.
We are the wonder tales of Dream Time, the tribal legends told.
We are the past, the hunts and the laughing games, the wandering camp fires.
We are the lightening bolt over Gaphembah Hill
Quick and terrible,
And the Thunderer after him, that loud fellow.
We are the quiet daybreak paling the dark lagoon.
We are the shadow-ghosts creeping back as the camp fires burn low.
We are nature and the past, all the old ways
Gone now and scattered.
The scrubs are gone, the hunting and the laughter.
The eagle is gone, the emu and the kangaroo are gone from this place.
The bora ring is gone.
The corroboree is gone.
And we are going.'

Answer: Rex Ingamells

Macquarie Harbour is located in Tasmania, and was a convict settlement there.

'Macquarie Harbour jailers lock
the sullen gates no more ...
but lash-strokes sound in every shock
of ocean on the dismal rock
along that barren shore.

No more the bolters hear the hound
that bays upon the wind,
and terror-spurred keep onward bound
until they drop upon the ground,
starved and terror-pinned ....

But gales that whine among the hills
sniff at the savage tracks
the hopeless took. The snowfall fills
bleak ranges; then the moonlight spills
broad arrows on their backs.'

Answer: False

Kendall lived from 1839 to 1882.

"The Last of his Tribe"

'He crouches, and buries his face on his knees,
And hides in the dark of his hair;
For he cannot look up to the storm-smitten trees,
Or think of the loneliness there --
Of the loss and the loneliness there.

The wallaroos grope through the tufts of the grass,
And turn to their coverts for fear;
But he sits in the ashes and lets them pass
Where the boomerangs sleep with the spear --
With the nullah, the sling and the spear.

Uloola, behold him! The thunder that breaks
On the tops of the rocks with the rain,
And the wind which drives up with the salt of the lakes,
Have made him a hunter again --
A hunter and fisher again.

For his eyes have been full with a smouldering thought;
But he dreams of the hunts of yore,
And of foes that he sought, and of fights that he fought
With those who will battle no more --
Who will go to the battle no more.

It is well that the water which tumbles and fills,
Goes moaning and moaning along;
For an echo rolls out from the sides of the hills,
And he starts at a wonderful song --
At the sound of a wonderful song.

And he sees, through the rents of the scattering fogs,
The corroboree warlike and grim,
And the lubra who sat by the fire on the logs,
To watch, like a mourner, for him --
Like a mother and mourner for him.

Will he go in his sleep from these desolate lands,
Like a chief, to the rest of his race,
With the honey-voiced woman who beckons and stands,
And gleams like a dream in his face --
Like a marvellous dream in his face?'

Answer: John O'Brien

John O'Brien was the pseudonym of Patrick Hartigan, a Roman Catholic priest.

"Said Hanrahan"
'"We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,
In accents most forlorn,
Outside the church, ere Mass began,
One frosty Sunday morn.

The congregation stood about,
Coat-collars to the ears,
And talked of stock, and crops, and drought,
As it had done for years.

"It's looking crook," said Daniel Croke;
"Bedad, it's cruke, me lad,
For never since the banks went broke
Has seasons been so bad."

"It's dry, all right," said young O'Neil,
With which astute remark
He squatted down upon his heel
And chewed a piece of bark.

And so around the chorus ran
"It's keepin' dry, no doubt."
"We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,
"Before the year is out."

"The crops are done; ye'll have your work
To save one bag of grain;
From here way out to Back-o'-Bourke
They're singin' out for rain.

"They're singin' out for rain," he said,
"And all the tanks are dry."
The congregation scratched its head,
And gazed around the sky.

"There won't be grass, in any case,
Enough to feed an ass;
There's not a blade on Casey's place
As I came down to Mass."

"If rain don't come this month," said Dan,
And cleared his throat to speak -
"We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,
"If rain don't come this week."

A heavy silence seemed to steal
On all at this remark;
And each man squatted on his heel,
And chewed a piece of bark.

"We want an inch of rain, we do,"
O'Neil observed at last;
But Croke "maintained" we wanted two
To put the danger past.

"If we don't get three inches, man,
Or four to break this drought,
We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,
"Before the year is out."

In God's good time down came the rain;
And all the afternoon
On iron roof and window-pane
It drummed a homely tune.

And through the night it pattered still,
And lightsome, gladsome elves
On dripping spout and window-sill
Kept talking to themselves.

It pelted, pelted all day long,
A-singing at its work,
Till every heart took up the song
Way out to Back-o'-Bourke.

And every creek a banker ran,
And dams filled overtop;
"We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,
"If this rain doesn't stop."

And stop it did, in God's good time;
And spring came in to fold
A mantle o'er the hills sublime
Of green and pink and gold.

And days went by on dancing feet,
With harvest-hopes immense,
And laughing eyes beheld the wheat
Nid-nodding o'er the fence.

And, oh, the smiles on every face,
As happy lad and lass
Through grass knee-deep on Casey's place
Went riding down to Mass.

While round the church in clothes genteel
Discoursed the men of mark,
And each man squatted on his heel,
And chewed his piece of bark.

"There'll be bush-fires for sure, me man,
There will, without a doubt;
We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,
"Before the year is out."'

Answer: No

The first verse of this famous poem speaks of England.

"My Country"
'The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded lanes.
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins,
Strong love of grey-blue distance
Brown streams and soft dim skies
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!

A stark white ring-barked forest
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes,
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops
And ferns the warm dark soil.

Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart, around us,
We see the cattle die-
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.

Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold-
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.

An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land-
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand-
Though earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.'

Answer: No

Gordon was born in the Azores, and came to Australia at the age of 20 in 1853. He enlisted in the Mounted Police of South Australia, and was later elected to Parliament. Sadly, he suicided the day after an anthology of his poetry was published.

Answer: Eureka Stockade (1854)

Eureka Stockade - all the others do not exist to my knowledge.

In 1854, miners in Ballarat, led by Peter Lalor, rebelled against petty officialdom and the "miners right" license fee. It came to be known as the Eureka Stockade, and is one of the best known events in Australian history.
Ian Mudie's poetry tends to gift the Australians of a more modern era with the characteristics of the folk heroes of days gone by e.g. the poem below refers to Eureka, Clancy of the Overflow, and early explorers.

"Cause for Song"

'There's singing in the hills tonight,
With all the stars ashine;
A lad goes whistling homewards,
"Dear land, dear land of mine."
In his heart new heroes ride;
(Hear Clancy's footsteps there?);
Sturt's oars dip in the Murray tide;
Blaxland storms at the Divide;
Through deserts strides the lonely Eyre;
And pioneers are at his side.
He has seen the Southern Cross at last
Sky gum-trees all aflame.
There's lit within his eyes tonight
A fire no force shall tame.
He has found his own Alcheringa,
And a cult-path for his feet;
Now he marches to a deeper tune
Than alien drums may beat.
The flood of all our rivers
Is running in his veins;
Bone of his bone is every hill
And soil of all our plains.
Deep is his love and deep his rage -
The scars have marked his flesh.
If need should call his fate to test
He'll light Eureka fires afresh.
Now every day with spear-keen eyes
This vital earth he'll view;
His shall be the enterprise
To write new dream-time on our skies,
To rouse within this folk anew
Such loyalty as never dies.
For this lad who's whistling homewards
With the Southern Cross above
Has found within his heart tonight
A continent to love.'

Answer: Feral horses

"The Brumbies"
'There are steeds upon many a Western plain
That have never bowed to a bit or rein,
That have never tightened a trace or chain.
They feed in the blue grass, fearless, free
As the curbless wind on the bit-less sea,
And the life they lead is a song to me.
For I know there are those in the world to-day
Who are just such rebels at heart as they,
Running uncurbed in the brumby way.
Men that have never been bridle-bound,
Bitted or girthed to the servile round,
Men of the wide world's stamping ground.
Who have wheeled to the Dawn: have kept lone guard
When the soft Bush nights crept golden-starred;
Rebels that never the world shall yard.
There is room on this earth for the toilers too,
And some must draw where their grandsires drew,
And some must lope on the trails anew.
But as long as the girth and the harness scar,
As long as there's land unfenced and far,
The wild mob feeds under moon and star.'