Poetry
Where the Dead Men Lie
Barcroft Boake · 1891
Opening lines
Beyond where farthest drought-fires burn,
By hand of fate it once befell,
I reached the Realm of No-Return
That meets the March of Hell.
Text quoted from gutenberg.net.au
Synopsis
The poem tells where the dead men of the bush lie: in the shimmering heat of the Never Never, among the saltbush, the bleached skulls and the wild dogs that howl at night, at the bottom of a yellow river. Night raises them, and only the frightened cattle and a drover who never sleeps see them pass. They died of thirst and hardship on an owner's farthest station, whom the Oxford Companion describes as a rich absentee living in town on the labour of his men.
Context
The poem appeared on 19 December 1891 in the Christmas number of the Bulletin, under the pseudonym Surcingle; the manuscript bore a shorter title. In 1897, A. G. Stephens included it in the posthumous collection published by Angus and Robertson, which brought together thirty-one texts. Cecil Mann maintained that the two political stanzas that end it were by an editor of the newspaper; Clement Semmler, the author's biographer, has published letters in which the author expresses the same views. The poem helped to spread the name Never Never for the interior of the country.
Who it is for
Eight stanzas in English, with a refrain; a page and a half that can be read in a few minutes.
Prizes and reception
Included in more than twenty-five anthologies from 1909 to 2011; the Cambridge History sees in it the bleakest vision of the Australian landscape.
Sources for this page 4
The pages consulted to check this page.