Sale

The placid Lady of the Plains
   Grown elderly and sanely sure;
Watchful at all times of her gains,
   She sees her fortunes now secure.
Stout, comfortable, ne'er perturbed,
   Depression's flowing, ebbing tide
Laps by, and leaves her undisturbed,
   Safe by her shaded riverside.
 
But when about our southern strand
   The tall old wooden ships went round,
With produce of the hinterland
   Out of Port Albert, Melbourne bound,
She was a buxom, bustling lass,
   Fit daughter for a pioneer;
She watched the old stage coaches pass,
   And waxed in vigor year by year.
 
She saw, from out a wilderness,
   Great Gippsland rise to fruitful age;
And all brought, in those days of stress,
   Tribute to swell her heritage.
She saw the days of road, of rail,
  Then road again, where cars speed down
To bring within her easy hail
   All the amenities of Town.
 
And now, in sight of Wellington,
   Wrapped in his winter snow and haze,
She sits and dreams of great things done
   By great men of the coaching days.
Meet daughter of the pioneer,
   Grown broad and most beneficent,
Her pride rests with an earlier year
   That gave her strength, and now content.