Is that a Coolibah tree beside the abandoned house? Every Australian knows about Coolibah trees because the bush ballad Waltzing Matilda is nigh on our unoffical national anthem but most of us live nowhere near the inland where they grow. Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong, Under the shade of a Coolibah tree, And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled, You'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me. Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda, You'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me, And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled You'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me.
"To muse, to creep, to halt at will, to gaze ... such sweet wayfaring"
William Wordsworth
Just a walk through one gallery can take me half a day, and then I am totally exhausted from reading and thinking. At least very few people are yacking. It is the ceaseless blather that is so disheartening. And the insistence that this is where the soul of the nation was forged. What absolute tommy-rot.
ReplyDeleteSuch devastation in that image! Very impressive.
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