THE LIGHTS OF COBB AND CO
(Lawson/Hallom)

Fire lighted, on the table a meal for sleepy men
A lantern in the stable, a jingle now and then
The mail coach looming darkly by light of moon and star
The growl of sleepy voices, a candle in the bar
A stumble in the passage of folk with wits abroad
A swear word from the driver, the shout of ‘All aboard!’
‘Git-up! ‘Hold fast there!’ and down the range we go
One hundred miles will see tonight the lights of Cobb and Co

Chorus
Past the haunted halway houses where the convicts laid the stones
The scrub yards and the bark huts where the shearers made their homes
Through stringybark and blue gum and box and pine we go
One hundred miles will see tonight the lights of Cobb and Co

Past old coaching towns already decaying for their sins
Uncounted halfway houses and scores of ten-mile inns
The riders from the stations by the lonely granite peaks
The black-boys for the shepherds by sheep and cattle creeks
The roaring camps of Gulgong, and many a digger’s rest
The diggers on the Lachlan, the huts out farthest west
Some twenty thousand exiles who sailed for weal or woe
The bravest hearts of twenty lands will watch for Cobb and Co

Chorus

The morning star has vanished now, the frost and fog are gone
It’s one of those grand mornings which but on mountains dawn
A flask of friendly whisky and each other’s hopes we share
And throw our top-coats open wide and take the mountain air
The roads are rare to travel and life seems all complete
The grind of wheels on gravel, the trot of horses’ feet
The trot, trot, trot and canter as down the spur we go
The green sweeps to horizons blue that call for Cobb and Co

Chorus

We take a bright girl actress through the western dust and damps
To bear the home-world message and sing for miners’ camps
To stir our hearts and break them, wild hearts that hope and ache
And when she thinks again of these, her own must surely break
Five miles this side the goldfield, a loud, triumphant shout
Five hundred cheering miners have snatched the horses out
With an ‘Auld Lang Syne’ in chorus through roaring camps they go
That cheer for her, and cheer for home, and cheer for Cobb and Co

Chorus

Swift scramble up the hillside where teams climb inch by inch
Pausing bird-like on the summit, then breakneck down the pinch
By the clear, ridge-country rivers and hills where tracks run high
Where waits the lonely horseman cut clear against the sky
Across the swollen river a flash beyond the ford
Ride hard to warn the driver, he’s drunk or mad, good lord
It’s on the bank and westward with a broad and cheerful glow
New camps extend across the plains the routes of Cobb and Co

Chorus

Hallom made the Lawson poem into a fine song, including the creation of a chorus from scattered lines.

Youtube clip

Poem