"I'm old
Botany Bay;
stiff in the joints,
little to say.
I am he
who paved the way,
that you might walk
at your ease to-day;
I was the conscript
sent to hell
to make in the desert
the living well;
I bore the heat,
I blazed the track-
furrowed and bloody
upon my back.
I split the rock;
I felled the tree:
The nation was-
Because of me!
Old Botany Bay
Taking the sun
from day to day…
shame on the mouth
that would deny
the knotted hands
that set us high!
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Mary Gilmore and Old Botany Bay
From guest Anonymous (contact)
Mary Gilmore has undeniably exemplified Australia at the time, through her descriptive poetic techniques. Mary Gilmore is a literary genius. -
Old Botany Bay
From guest no (contact)
I think that Mary Gilmore has a very appropriate choice of words in this poem, to give Botany Bay such a negative image at the start, and a positive image in the last verse. -
This poem was one of the first to plant the seed of poetry in me. How Dame Mary wrote something with such fondness and feeling inspires me to this day. And, old or not, her poem instills a desire to see the birthplace of colonial Australia.
Irrespective of the Aboriginal contingent's opinion, many of us Australians can look back in deep gratitude, and be proud ... the way this poem depicts.
For it has a meaning beyond one generation, and deserves to survive for the many yet to come.
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