There’s the whitebox and pine on the ridges afar,Where the iron-bark, blue-gum, and peppermint are;There is many another, but dearest to me,And the king of them all was the stringy-bark tree.
Then of stringy-bark slabs were the walls of the hut,And from stringy-bark saplings the rafters were cut;And the roof that long sheltered my brothers and meWas of broad sheets of bark from the stringy-bark tree.
And when sawn-timber homes were built out in the West,Then for walls and for ceilings its wood was the best;And for shingles and palings to last while men be,There was nothing on earth like the stringy-bark tree.
Far up the long gullies the timber-trucks went,Over tracks that seemed hopeless, by bark hut and tent;And the gaunt timber-finder, who rode at his ease,Led them on to a gully of stringy-bark trees.
Now still from the ridges, by ways that are dark,Come the shingles and palings they call stringy-bark;Though you ride through long gullies a twelve months you’ll seeBut the old whitened stumps of the stringy-bark tree.