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Down south round old Glenkenich
the same Blue Mountains stand
that saw the lordly squatter
once King of Tussock Land
Now south this old Glenkenich
with homesteads all around
has endless fields of waving corn
all coloured gold and brown.
The squatter and shearer
and sleepless musterer
the solitary shepherd
and drunken rabbiter.
All these have passed forever
to other fields of toil
since the mile-long furrow
tore through virgin soil.
From Catlins to Waikaka
wide lands but scarce enough
they ploughed and sowed and harrowed
from Beaumont to Bluff.
They hunted the Merino
back to the mountain crowns;
they took the plain and foothills
they burnt and ploughed the downs.
Wherever team's could clamber
wherever share could rip
the coulter and the mould-board
clung with an iron grip.
The straight long rig and headland
were etched upon the plain
and round the silver ridges
black furrows snaked a-main.
From dawn to the long gloaming
beneath the rising stars,
the big strong-shouldered Clydesdales
hung to the swingle-bars.
The quick two-handed sowers
kept to the seed's faint line
and the wide silent harrows
levelled with ready tine.
Who plants the rose and lily
is sure of it's reward
but on unsheltered hillside
or flood imperilled sward.
Who shall avouch the seasons,
or guarantee man's gain,
though he has sown in season
to reap his wage in grain.
And yet by distance mellowed
there sounds the day-long hum
now rising and now falling
of the ribbed threshing drum.
A harvest moon is shining
and far into the night
the panting coughing engine
thrusts with Samsonian might.
Long Brand is at the engine
Bob Jenkins cuts the bands
Sam Jolly feeds the thresher
with swaying generous hands.
On stack, at elevator,
the steel-bright forks make play
a goggled, goblin figure
drags the white chaff away.
The sheaves are short, well-headed
Brand gives the mill full power
on the last lap she's running
full sixty bags an hour.
With the last whistle sounded
the bullocks haul her out
I hear the long whip cracking
I hear the driver shout.
The harvest days are over
we load the waggon teams
but those folks in old Glenkenich
still hold my thoughts in dreams.
Long Brand (James Brand) was a big man, 6ft 4in in height, weighing 22 stone. He operated his portable threshing mill in the Kelso-Glenkenich Districts, and about 1890 he moved to Wendon and took up farming.
Written by D. M. Ross, Kelso, 1890
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