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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,
and old man walking on the air,
for years he wandered in my brain;
and now he lodges there.
And he may drive his cattle still
when Time with us had had his will.

Notes

Bullock teams were a main means of transporting goods from town to town many years ago. 'Bullocky' is the term used for the owner of the team of Bullocks (mainly 10 to a team) and were well known for their ability to curse and swear.

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Comments


  • rufina caraid Moderators member
    March 16

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    'Curse like a Bullocky' is a term still used in Australia to describe the language used by some. Though ever diminshing as time wears on it remains as a reminder to the 'old days'. The Bullock trains are a vision of our Australian past but in Australia's infancy were relied upon to carry goods, mail and people from town to town before the railways and roads.
    There are still towns with wide, very wide main streets which were originally cleared for the Bullock Team to turn. This poem, as a tribute to Harry Pearce (a real person) keeps in mind those men who helped to make Australia grow and prosper.


  • January 16, 2007
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    Finally I can sleep at night!

    From guest Sharon Rogers (contact)
    I had to learn this off by heart when a young girl at school in Brisbane in the late 60's. We moved to the UK soon after, but like Harry Pearce, the poem lodged in my brain. Time indeed had his will though & the last stanza was forgotten; I have hunted the 'net for it periodically over the last 12 years to no avail. Today, I have found it & my children will no longer think that I am making things up. Thanks for posting this. I am delighted.

  • turt
    May 13, 2006
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    The poem Harry Pearce is about my Great Grandfather Henry George Pearce who had a bullock team in the Adelong district in the early 1900's