these lyrics were posted in the "Songs that make you weep" thread by Mudlark over here a while back

Mudlark would like to know who wrote it. I'd love to get a tune posted, and a title...

I think I've broken the lines out correctly...

On a lonely selection, a way in the west...
there lived an old woman who worked without rest
And she crooned as she toiled neath the sky's glassy dome,
"Ill keep the old place till the children come home
For she mends all the fences, she lambs and she plows.
She drives the old horse and she milks the old cow.
And she says to herself, as she patches the stack...
"I'll keep the old place til the children come back.

Whenever the scowling old Sundowners come
and cunningly ask if the master's at home
"Be off!" she replies, "with yer blarney and cant,
or I'll call my son Andy who's working behant."
"Be off!" she replies, tho she trembles with fear,
for she lives all alone and no neighbors are near
And she says to herself when she's like to despond,
that her boys are at work in the paddock beyond.

Well, it's 5 lonely years since her old husband died,
and oft as he lay on his deathbed he sighed,
"A man can bring up 10 children, he can...
but it's strange that 10 sons cannot keep one old man"
For none of her children need follow the plow,
and some have grown rich in the city ere now
But she thinks they might come when the shearing is done,
and she'll keep the old place if it's only for one