From the Gulf
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| "From the Gulf" | |
|---|---|
| by Will H. Ogilvie | |
| Written | 1895 |
| First published in | The Bulletin |
| Illustrator | Frank P. Mahony |
| Country | Australia |
| Language | English |
| Publication date | 14 December 1895 |
| Lines | 48 |
| Full text | |
 From the Gulf at Wikisource | |
"From the Gulf" (1895) is a poem by Scottish poet Will H. Ogilvie.[1]
It was originally published in The Bulletin on 14 December 1895[2] and subsequently reprinted in the author's first poetry collection and in a number of Australian poetry anthologies.[1]
The poem describes a cattle drive from the Gulf Country down towards the Victorian border, "The stockyards at Wodonga are a long way down from here". The country the drovers pass through is dry and parched, "The creeks won’t run till God knows when, and half the holes are dry,/The tanks are few and far between and water’s dear to buy".
Critical reception
A writer in The West Australian mentioned Ogilvie's place in the roll-call of Australian poets in the previous ninety years of major Australian poetry: "Will Ogilvie, another of the horsey poets, turned his five years droving, horse-breaking in Queensland to effective literary account, and he will live long in the memory of Overlanders for those spirited lines on starving cattle from the 'Gulf' reaching a Queensland border station: 'Oh let them wade in Wonga grass, and taste the Wonga dew,/And let them spread, those thousand head–for we've been droving too.'"[3]
In an overview of Ogilvie's bush ballads for The Bulletin Douglas Stewart said of this poem, among others, that the poet "broadened and dramatised his effects until he achieved much of the epic rush and richness of 'The Man from Snowy River,' making immortal Australian legends out of galloping horses, stampeding mobs of cattle, and the courage and resolution of men".[4]