We’ll All Be Rooned, Said Hanrahan

14 Feb, 2007 | Australian Values, Cultural Values, Global Warming, Lifestyle & Life, Values

 

Hooray for the Rain! (if you got it)

In praise of the recent rain here is the most Strayan of Australian pomes;
Hanrahan versing the elements.
True Australian values.
Pure Poa Tree.

 

SAID HANRAHAN

by John O’Brien

“We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
In accents most forlorn,
Outside the church, ere Mass began,
One frosty Sunday morn.

The congregation stood about,
Coat-collars to the ears,
And talked of stock, and crops, and drought,
As it had done for years.

“It’s looking crook,” said Daniel Croke;
“Bedad, it’s cruke, me lad,
For never since the banks went broke
Has seasons been so bad.”

“It’s dry, all right,” said young O’Neil,
With which astute remark
He squatted down upon his heel
And chewed a piece of bark.

And so around the chorus ran
“It’s keepin’ dry, no doubt.”
“We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
“Before the year is out.”

“The crops are done; ye’ll have your work
To save one bag of grain;

From here way out to Back-o’-Bourke
They’re singin’ out for rain.

“They’re singin’ out for rain,” he said,
“And all the tanks are dry.
”The congregation scratched its head,
And gazed around the sky.

“There won’t be grass, in any case,
Enough to feed an ass;
There’s not a blade on Casey’s place
As I came down to Mass.”

“If rain don’t come this month,” said Dan,
And cleared his throat to speak –
“We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
“If rain don’t come this week.”

A heavy silence seemed to steal
On all at this remark;
And each man squatted on his heel,
And chewed a piece of bark.

“We want an inch of rain, we do,”
O’Neil observed at last;
But Croke “maintained” we wanted two
To put the danger past.

“If we don’t get three inches, man,
Or four to break this drought,
We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
“Before the year is out.”

In God’s good time down came the rain;
And all the afternoon
On iron roof and window-pane
It drummed a homely tune.

And through the night it pattered still,
And lightsome, gladsome elves
On dripping spout and window-sill
Kept talking to themselves.

It pelted, pelted all day long,
A-singing at its work,
Till every heart took up the song
Way out to Back-o’-Bourke.

And every creek a banker ran,
And dams filled overtop;
“We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
“If this rain doesn’t stop.”

And stop it did, in God’s good time;
And spring came in to fold
A mantle o’er the hills sublime
Of green and pink and gold.

And days went by on dancing feet,
With harvest-hopes immense,
And laughing eyes beheld the wheat
Nid-nodding o’er the fence.

And, oh, the smiles on every face,
As happy lad and lass
Through grass knee-deep on Casey’s place
Went riding down to Mass.

While round the church in clothes genteel
Discoursed the men of mark,
And each man squatted on his heel,
And chewed his piece of bark.

“There’ll be bush-fires for sure, me man,
There will, without a doubt;
We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
“Before the year is out.”

Thank you for reading this far!  You might think producing a post like this takes a bit of work. 
It does! If you’ve appreciated it you might consider encouraging me. ( We all like validation! )   

Buy Me A Coffee

All posts

Categories

You might also like:

A Moron in a Hurry – Part 3

  Or Worse – a Catholic Priest   Previously on Moron in a Hurry :   ir Roger, strapped to the rack by the Madam Intimidatrix of the Hooded Brethren of the Gruff Wiblam Edifice, shouted that “Freedom is a state of mind”, wondering...

Happily, No

  To the – what, 12-year-old? – spammer who wrote: Hey forum members I just became a member of this forum (Great work by the admin, mods and seriously every member around.) [etc. spam spam spam and spam etc…]" we’d just like to say: No, you...

Oliver Sacks and “Soul Murder”

 After:  Oliver Sacks  by Luigi Novi  9.13.09 . . . the arms that long for love   ir Roger was listening to the ABC Science Show today. It was Robyn Williams’ homage to Oliver Sacks (Awakenings, The Man Who Thought His Wife Was a Hat, Seeing...

Dear Bob Correll

  To: Mr Bob Correll, Deputy Secretary Department of Immigration and Censorship   ear Bob, Bob, you aren’t replying to any of my messages. Is everything all right? I thought we had something really special for a while. Bob, you wrote to...

Kev’s Massive Package

  It takes Balls to Punish the Jobless   he thing about the unemployed is that, well, they’re powerless; or rather, they’re disempowered, particularly by the feeling of being unemployed in a culture in which what you do, not to mention...

Wikileaks Cablegate and Hunter S. Thompson

  unter S. Thompson said it, and he wasn’t a traitor: America…just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to...

Not a Civil Society Just Yet

    e have a new hero at Values Australia (no, not Manning Clark). His name is Julian Burnside QC. Not that we didn’t respect him before and agree with him and all like that. But, well…see it’s like this: We got an mp3 player, for the train or...

Happy Birthday

Today was a dual anniversary – the 221st anniversary of the birth of (European) Australia and the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robbie Burns. The two are related. Burns was a fierce advocate of Enlightenment principles and the fight for the rights of citizens...

It’s Time, Mick

after Mr FishIt's Time t’s time for Mick Keelty to resign. Or be sacked. Either way, he has to go: A senior counter-terrorism officer with the Australian Federal Police has testified that police were directed to charge “as many...

Who is DIC’s Grima Wormtongue?

Polishing your arse on a public service seat   leading defence lawyer and close follower of the Haneef case, barrister Greg Barns, last night said the emails showed that “the AFP in conjunction with the Government were essentially completely...

Porter Loo Too

Drip Drip Drip Update  Well. How spot-on is Sir Roger? He's yet again demonstrated how appropriate it is that he was granted the OGPC (Order of the Grater Praesagium Conspiciens) as the World’s First and Only Genuine Political Clairvoyant.  In the previous post he...

(unscheduled interruption)

via GIPHYA Rare and Precious Thing We interrupt this pre-recorded segment to bring you an impromptu message from our sponsor.   ir Roger has been touched by the loyalty of one of his longterm readers and a fellow-blogger to muse on the...

Why NOT Benny Condoms?

  Okay, it can’t be avoided.   ir Roger wrote this in a fit a few weeks ago and he was in a variety of minds as to whether he ought to publish it. Was it intemperate? Of course. It was Sir Roger. Anything else? Was it wrong? Sir Roger, on...

The Undertaker’s Tally

  Son of Leo Strauss   n his extraordinary article, The Undertaker’s Tally, Roger Morris1 chillingly, and deeply disturbingly, lifts the veil on the life, times and evil mind of the real Donald Rumsfeld. Morris begins with Rumsfeld’s...

Every Cloud Has a Saliva Lining

    After Pavlov [Apologies to the source of the original of this image whose provenance we do not know.]

Dear DIC

The Ultimate Dreamcometrue  I n the heat of the 2006 Spring Offensive over Australian values Values Australia was born in response to the cynical and ignorant way real Australian values were being abused by politicians and the sycophantic, right-wing media echo...

Bhutto

t wasn’t such a surprise, we suppose, but Benazir Bhutto’s reported assassination, while it saddens us as another display of humanity’s inability to grow up, confirms our contempt for religion in general and that one in particular. Let those who...

Mount Migently Manifesto

 Australian Values   ustralian values have lately been enthusiastically asserted by some Australians and Sir Roger has been much impressed – in much the same way a washed-up prize fighter feels the repeated impressions of his opponents’ fists...

Assange – Wanted: Dead or Dead

  "Why wasn’t Assange garroted years ago?"   ir Roger had thought that there was a limited number of people who had urged or advocated the murder/assassination/execution of Wikileaks’ Julian Assange. Two people had stood out particularly...

Pedants r Us

  What on earth is going on?   Is it all over, after all? Have the barbarians claimed victory?   First: Sir Roger listens to ABC Radio A LOT. One evening, or early morning, he was listening to an interview with an author by a respected ABC presenter....

UK’s ‘Morale Muscular’ Withdrawal

' “…under no circumstances should we allow ourselves to lose morale muscular and to step back from this…"  [Brendan Nelson]   alues Australia, in partnership with the Ministry of Mateship, notes the recent declaration by the British Government...

The Courtier’s Reply

The Emperor's New Clothes   he King is in the altogether, The altogether, the altogether, He’s altogether as naked as the day that he was born. ~ Danny Kaye/HC Andersen One of the constant “arguments” – actually not so much an argument as a...

Migently Mountain Manifesto: 2

  6. hen we swear to something, that is kind of a proper commitment. The word “swear” comes from an ancient word that means “to speak”; to say words. In one of the most savagely beautiful and exceptional works of fiction, the Book of John...

You can be charged for what you did today…

  So here’s what Haneef was formally charged with on 14 July 2007, as revealed by Tony Jones on Lateline on Tuesday night: “...intentionally providing resources to a terrorist organisation consisting of persons including Sabeel Ahmed and Kafeel Ahmed, his...

$20 A Barrel!

  The Murdoch interview with Max Walsh   The way we were n Wednesday, February 12, 2003, Max Walsh conducted an exclusive interview with Rupert Murdoch.    Max Walsh: Let’s start with Iraq and the war because that...

Burma Railroaded

  Why, stap me, sir! Thou’rt the vewy scoundwel of a knave! And if thou continuest in thy wecalcitwance, why, I might .. I might … flick thee with my perfumed kerchief! Or at the vewy least I shall mightily consider doing so! So there! What sayest...

Keelty Must Go At Last

  Howard’s last ditch: a failure called Keelty    e wish to note the news this week that: ASIO has revealed it “consistently” advised the Howard government it had no evidence connecting Mohamed Haneef to a British...

The Undertaker’s Tally

  Son of Leo Strauss   n his extraordinary article, The Undertaker’s Tally, Roger Morris1 chillingly, and deeply disturbingly, lifts the veil on the life, times and evil mind of the real Donald Rumsfeld. Morris begins with Rumsfeld’s...

Guantánamo Career Suicide

 Guantánamo Policy Chief Pulls Plug on Career: Spills Government Beans in Radio Interview     eputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Guantánamo Policy, Charles “Cully” Stimson, resigned following uproar over a 12 January interview on...

The Whoredom of Philip Ruddock

An Unfinished Canvas hey had, as it seemed, unending life, yet life became unendurable to them… Between rim and robe naught was there to see, save only a deadly gleam of eyes… And they became forever invisible and they entered...

0 Comments