BellBirds - A Poem by Henry Kendall, in the Australian Bush of 1869

BellBirds - A Poem by Henry Kendall, in the Australian Bush of 1869

By channels of coolness the echoes are calling,
And down the dim gorges I hear the creek falling:
It lives in the mountain where moss and the sedges
Touch with their beauty the banks and the ledges.
Through breaks of the cedar and sycamore bowers
Struggles the light that is love to the flowers;
And, softer than slumber, and sweeter than singing,
The notes of the bell-birds are running and ringing.

The Mul - A Visit Back To Mulbring.

You can't hear them in the picture, but the sound as I took this photo really took me back to childhood as the bellbirds sang their glorious chorus. It's 30 years since we lived out here, and it is kind or eerie, how much 'old town' lives, now much of it derelict, alongside some newer places. It's almost as though the new are oblivious to the old town that whispers like a ghost, of times long past.

The old white bridge. One lane only, no passing on the bridge, and the bus would *bounce* all the way across on the way to school, feeling every plank !

This is the street that went from our house to the primary school. We had 28 children in the school on a good day when everyone was present.

This is the old butcher shop across the road from our house at Mulbring. In those days, ( 1965) it was a pretty thriving business, and the butcher was always on the go with his work, and the floors would be covered in sawdust.

Our old house. My brother and I used to eat cocktail frankfurts and watch the wrestling on Saturday's when our parents took the greyhounds to Sydney to race. Bluey would hide under this house, and being the smallest, I'd be deputised to go under and coax him out. I loved Bluey.

Old Leila was a spinster who lived in this house. Eccentric, and she owned the draft horses that my elder sister and her friends in the town all used to ride on at once.

This house marks the corner of our old street