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(New South Wales Contingent)
SMELLS are surer than sounds or sights | |
| To make your heart-strings crack— | |
| They start those awful voices o’ nights | |
| That whisper, “Old man, come back!” | |
| That must be why the big things pass | 5 |
| And the little things remain, | |
| Like the smell of the wattle by Lichtenberg, | |
| Riding in, in the rain. | |
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| There was some silly fire on the flank | |
| And the small wet drizzling down— | 10 |
| There were the sold-out shops and the bank | |
| And the wet, wide-open town; | |
| And we were doing escort-duty | |
| To somebody’s baggage-train, | |
| And I smelt wattle by Lichtenberg— | 15 |
| Riding in, in the rain. | |
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| It was all Australia to me— | |
| All I had found or missed: | |
| Every face I was crazy to see, | |
| And every woman I’d kissed: | 20 |
| All that I should n’t ha’ done, God knows! | |
| (As He knows I’ll do it again), | |
| That smell of the wattle round Lichtenberg, | |
| Riding in, in the rain! | |
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| And I saw Sydney the same as ever, | 25 |
| The picnics and brass-bands; | |
| And my little homestead on Hunter River | |
| And my new vines joining hands. | |
| It all came over me in one act | |
| Quick as a shot through the brain— | 30 |
| With the smell of the wattle round Lichtenberg, | |
| Riding in, in the rain. | |
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| I have forgotten a hundred fights, | |
| But one I shall not forget— | |
| With the raindrops bunging up my sights | 35 |
| And my eyes bunged up with wet; | |
| And through the crack and the stink of the cordite | |
| (Ah Christ! My country again!) | |
| The smell of the wattle by Lichtenberg, | |
| Riding in, in the rain! | 40 |
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