Everything I Needed to Know I Learnt From Stoutly the Packhorse

The Ballad of the Drover is a poem by Henry Lawson. Lawson was an Australian poet and he was everything a poet should be, that is to say he was an unreliable drunk who died in the gutter. This is absolutely essential if you want to be taken seriously as a poet. Painters are neurotic, chefs are psychotic and poets are unemployable deadbeats. In his most recent volume of memoirs (titled, I think That's Right I'm Still Not Dead) Clive James blames his career in television for the fact he has a hard time being taken seriously as a poet. Not so, Clive James has a hard time being taken seriously as a poet because he hasn't beaten his wife, alienated his daughters and rolled around in the gutter covered in his own vomit.

But I digress, The Ballad of the Drover tells the story of a young (you guessed it) drover who has been away for months herding cattle and is now hurrying home to see his fiancee.

And well his stockhorse bears him,
And light of heart is he,
And stoutly his old packhorse
Is trotting by his knee.

It is an indication of the level of humour in my family that the packhorse was immediately and unanimously christened "Stoutly". Stoutly is rather a favourite of mine for reasons which will soon become clear. The rains have come to the Queensland plains and a river which the drover must cross has changed from a dry gully to a raging torrent but the drover is determined;

We've breasted bigger rivers
When floods were at their height
Nor shall this gutter stop us
From getting home tonight!

But oh, the hubris and alack, the tragedy because;

When flashes next the lightning,
The flood's grey breast is blank,
And a cattle dog and packhorse
Are struggling up the bank.

The dog, of course, does something stupid;

The faithful dog a moment
Sits panting on the bank,
And then swims through the current
To where his master sank.
And round and round in circles
He fights with failing strength,
Till, borne down by the waters,
The old dog sinks at length.

Not surprising Stoutly has other ideas;

Across the flooded lowlands
And slopes of sodden loam
The packhorse struggles onward,
To take dumb tidings home.

From all of which we can determine that Stoutly was the only lifeform in the poem with a grain of commonsense.

I don't think that Stoutly has been given the recognition that he deserves. Day in and day out he goes about his job with dull, uncomprehending application. The others are smarter or more loyal than he. They shine more brightly, gain honour and praise but, like Icarus, they stray to close to the Sun. While the drover and his dog meet a watery death Stoutly takes one look at the unfolding tragedy and goes home. There will be another drover and that drover will need a packhorse.

So to those of you out there like Stoutly, who don't shine but rather struggle through their lives and whose greatest qualification for the job is that they turned up, take heart from Stoutly's tale. Highflyers fall to earth, packhorses rarely do and even if it happens the drop isn't so bad. If the highflyer you're following rides into a raging river, leave the silly bastard there to drown. There will be another along in a minute, and he'll need a packhorse.

PS. For those interested here is a link to the complete poem. http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/1011-Henry-Lawson-Ballad-Of-The-Drover