Lichtenberg (N.S.W. Contingent)

Smells are surer than sounds or sightsTo make your heart-strings crack--They start those awful voices o’ nightsThat whisper, ‘Old man, come back.’That must be why the big things passAnd the little things remain,Like the smell of the wattle by Lichtenberg,Riding in, in the rain.

There was some silly fire on the flankAnd the small wet drizzling down--There were the sold-out shops and the bankAnd the wet, wide-open town;And we were doing escort-dutyTo somebody’s baggage-train,And I smelt wattle by Lichtenberg--Riding in, in the rain.

It was all Australia to me--All I had found or missed:Every face I was crazy to see,And every woman I’d kissed:All that I shouldn’t ha’ done, God knows!(As He knows I’ll do it again),That smell of the wattle round Lichtenberg,Riding in, in the rain!

And I saw Sydney the same as ever,The picnics and brass-bands;And the little homestead on Hunter RiverAnd my new vines joining hands.It all came over me in one actQuick as a shot through the brain--With the smell of the wattle round Lichtenberg,Riding in, in the rain.

I have forgotten a hundred fights,But one I shall not forget--With the raindrops bunging up my sightsAnd my eyes bunged up with wet;And through the crack and the stink of the cordite(Ah Christ! My country again!)The smell of the wattle by Lichtenberg,Riding in, in the rain!