The Bush Girl

(album: Future Road - 1997)

So you rode from the range where your brothers select
Through the ghostly grey bush in the dawn
You rode slowly at first lest her heart should suspect
That you were so glad to be gone

You had scarcely the courage to glance back at her
By the homestead receding from view
And you breathed with relief as you rounded the spur
For the world was a wide world to you

Grey eyes that grow sadder than sunset or rain
Fond heart that is ever more true
Firm faith that grows firmer for watching in vain
She'll wait by the sliprails for you

Ah the world is a new and a wide one to you
But the world to your sweetheart is shut
For a change never comes to the lonely bush girl
From the stockyard the bush and the hut

And the only relief from its dullness she feels
Is when ridges grow softened and dim
And away in the dusk to the sliprails she steals
To dream of past meetings with him

Grey eyes that grow sadder than sunset or rain
Fond heart that is ever more true
Firm faith that grows firmer for watching in vain
She'll wait by the sliprails for you

Do you think where in place of bare fences dry creeks
Clear streams and green hedges are seen
Where the girls have lily and rose in their cheeks
And the grass in midsummer is green?

Do you think now and then now or then in the whirl
Of the city while London is new
Of the hut in the bush and the freckled-face girl
Who is eating her heart out for you?

Grey eyes that grow sadder than sunset or rain
Fond heart that is ever more true
Firm faith that grows firmer for watching in vain
She'll wait by the sliprails for you

Those grey eyes that are sadder than sunset or rain
Bruised heart that is ever more true
Fond faith that is firmer for trusting in vain
She waits by the sliprails for you

She waits by the sliprails for you
Waits by the sliprails for you
Just for you