Clancy of the Overflow

Hey, Rebecca again, and it's poetry time, folks!  From time to time I'll come across a great quote or poem and I'll share it with you.

I was watching an old favorite movie tonight - "The Man from Snowy River" - and suddenly remembered the character of Clancy was the basis for several of Banjo Paterson's poems.  How many of you know about Banjo Paterson?  Well, if you live in Australia, he's incredibly well known..."Waltzing Matilda" comes to mind; I KNOW you've heard of that one.  No?  Well, look it up.

I'm also a huge fan of Colleen McCollough's "The Thorn Birds," which I've read several times, and Banjo is mentioned in there, too.  I remember the first time I read "The Thorn Birds" - soon after watching the miniseries, of course - and came across the first few stanzas of "Clancy of the Overflow" in one of the chapters.  The poem was so perfectly rhymed and had such outstanding meter that it would have made Shakespeare applaud.  It stuck in my head for months.  I had it locked away in my mental treasure chest, and only while watching the movie tonight did I suddenly remember how I loved it, so I found it online to share.  Read, and enjoy the excellence.

CLANCY OF THE OVERFLOW - A.B. "Banjo" Paterson

I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better
   Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan, years ago,
He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him,
   Just "on spec", addressed as follows: "Clancy, of The Overflow".

And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected,
   (And I think the same was written in a thumbnail dipped in tar)
'Twas his shearing mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it:
   "Clancy's gone to Queensland droving, and we don't know where he are."

In my wild erratic fancy visions come to me of Clancy
   Gone a-droving "down the Cooper" where the western drovers go;
As the stock are slowly stringing, Clancy rides behind them singing,
   For the drover's life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know.

And the bush hath friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him
   In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars,
And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended,
  And at night the wondrous glory of the everlasting stars.

I am sitting in my dingy little office, where a stingy
    Ray of sunlight struggles feebly down between the houses tall,
And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty city
   Through the open window floating, spreads its foulness over all.

And in place of lowing cattle, I can hear the fiendish rattle
   Of the tramways and the buses making hurry down the street,
And the language uninviting of the gutter children fighting,
   Comes fitfully and faintly through the ceaseless tramp of feet.

And the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt me
  As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste,
With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy,
   For townsfolk have no time to grow, they have no time to waste.

And I somehow fancy that I'd like to change with Clancy,
   Like to take a turn at droving where the seasons come and go,
While he faced the round eternal of the cashbook and the journal -
   But I doubt he'd suit the office, Clancy, of "The Overflow."

The Bulletin, 21 December 1889.