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~ All Poetry ยฉ Dennis N. O'Brien, 2010 – 2019

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Tag Archives: Van Diemen’s Land

Incorrigible

12 Tuesday Nov 2019

Posted by Dennis N. O'Brien in Bush Poetry, Historical, Sonnet

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Tags

Australian convicts, Australian poet, Australian traditional poetry, Bush Poetry, Cat of nine tails, Formal poetry, Incorrigible convicts, poem, poetry, sonnet, Spenserian sonnet, Van Diemen's Land

๐ˆ๐ง๐œ๐จ๐ซ๐ซ๐ข๐ ๐ข๐›๐ฅ๐ž

He heads for hell beneath the surging sails;
One soul of tens of thousands bound in ships
East-driven by the roaring forties gales.
His gruel consumed, a brackish brew he sips โ€”
Stares at the deck, and licks his leathered lips.
Sad hopeless thoughts beat in his beaten brain,
As with cold calloused hands his head he grips.
Perhaps he stole a pound of precious grain,
A handkerchief, a coin, a rich manโ€™s cane.
Perhaps he is a villain through and through,
And so deserves this cruel unnatural pain,
Or maybe he is not โ€” whicheverโ€™s true,
Heโ€™s landed on the wrong side of the law.
Heโ€™s branded by the cat for evermore.

โ€” D.N. Oโ€™Brien

Sarah Island

11 Tuesday Jun 2019

Posted by Dennis N. O'Brien in Bush Poetry, Historical, Sonnet

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Tags

Australian poet, Australian traditional poetry, Convicts in Australia, Macquarie cat, Macquarie Harbour, Penal settlements, poem, poetry, Sarah Island Tasmania, sonnet, Spenserian sonnet, Tasmania, Transportation of convicts, Transportation to Australia, Van Diemen's Land

Sarah Island

There are few signs that once this lonely isle
Was home to men of Empire and their slaves.
Just scattered bricks, worked stone, and shards of tile,
Remind us of when England ruled the waves.
But no doubt close at hand forgotten graves
Hold bones of some of those who trod this ground โ€”
The convicts of The Crown, and other knaves,
Who for Macquarie Harbour once were bound;
And where theyโ€™d surely hear the dreaded sound
Of the โ€œMacquarie Catโ€ โ€” that fiendish whip.
Those men who died in chains and those who drowned,
Were payments made for every well-built ship.
โ€œHellโ€™s Gatesโ€ the convicts called the harbourโ€™s mouth โ€”
Beyond it lay the Hades of the South.

โ€” D.N.O’Brien

Sarah Island

Isle of the Tiger

22 Thursday Sep 2016

Posted by Dennis N. O'Brien in Bush Poetry, Nature, Sonnet

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

australian formal poetry, Australian Marsupials, Australian poet, Australian traditional poetry, Bush Poetry, extinct marsupials, Extinct Tasmanian Tiger, Extinction, poem, poetry, sonnet, Tasmania, Tasmanian tiger, Tasmanian Tiger sightings, Tasmanian Wolf, thylacine, Thylacine sightings, Van Diemen's Land

Iโ€™m going away to Van Diemenโ€™s Land
Where marsupials in the bush abide.
There Iโ€™ll search for scat, and for tracks in sand,
And Iโ€™ll wander the forests far and wide
For a fleeting glimpse of the tigerโ€™s hide.
On the alpine slopes; in the grey-green hills;
To the east and west of the Great Divide,
There his fare he finds in the fresh road kills,
Or the slow or the stricken his belly fills.
But for those who say that the tigerโ€™s dead;
That he hunts no more by the soaks and rills,
Thereโ€™s a man I know, and this man he said
That the tigerโ€™s death is a pack of lies,
For he’s seen the beast with his own two eyes.

Historical Thylacine footage

Recent possible sighting

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