Where Feathertop frowns thro' the winter scud,
Where Buffalo broods on high,
Dwells she, a la** of royal blood,
And a sparkle lights her eye
The clear, clean glint of the sun on snow,
Where the small streams, singing down,
Into the golden Ovens flow,
To decorate her town.
Wild was she on an olden day
And a wilful la**, forsooth,
When the rough, tough diggers came her way
Ere she emerged from youth.
From her river flats they dredged the gold
And laid sad waste to these,
While they drove in thousands from their fold
The thrifty, scared Chinese.
Waxing in beauty, she has grown
To a maid of wide renown;
For the wild, swift days have long since flown.
Now, by her tree-girt town,
Where her plaited river murmuring flows
Thro' sylvan scenes and rare,
A maiden clad in beauty goes
To her hop-fields gleaming there.
Yet men still scheme to dredge these fields,
And filch their loveliness,
All for the sake of bigger yields
In gold, that count far less
Than the rare, rich harvests won today
In calm security.
Leaving but ruin and decay
To sad posterity.