The Love Poetry of Breaker Morant by Tony Hammill explores Morant’s romantic verse, bringing together Tony’s commentary and two poems by Harry ‘Breaker’ Morant.
From a brief declaration of passionate love to a moonlit bush camp and memories of Nell, the poems reveal the tenderness and longing in Morant’s writing.
The Love Poetry of Breaker Morant
By Tony Hammill
Harry ‘Breaker’ Morant used to carry small books of poetry in his saddlebags. He was a romantic, and this romanticism expressed itself in lyrical poems, most fairly brief, many of which I’ve collected. He was always a favourite with the girls, and I have an account of his writing jingles for the girls in their autograph books at the Maryborough Show in the 1880’s. Some of his romantic poems published in The Bulletin were ‘A Summer Midnight’ (no doubt inspired by ‘A Tell-TaleTryst’, The Breaker’s favourite Will Ogilvie poem), ‘Kitty’s Broom’, ’At The Crossing Of Warrigal Creek’ (actually a site on the Overlander’s Way in North-West Queensland), and ‘While Yet We May’.
Two of The Breaker’s love poems are worthy of comment. His ‘Much-A little While’, so beautifully illustrated in ‘Pro Hart’s Breaker Morant’ (Rigby 1981) intrigued me, so I researched its background. It’s actually an answer to Robert Herrick’s ‘Love Me Little, Love Me Long’ in which Herrick maintains that love will quickly burn out if it is too passionate. Morant’s riposte was:
Much-A little While
By Harry ‘Breaker’ Morant
‘Love me little, love me long’ –
Laggard lover penn’d such song
Rather, Nell!- in other style-
Love me much a little while.
If that minstrel ever knew
Maid so kissable as you-
(Like you? – there was never such)
He’d have written, ‘Love me much’.
Other loves have pass’d away
Springtimes never last alway!
‘Twill be better – will it not,
To think that once we lov’d ‘a lot’?
I’ve also always admired ‘A Note to Nell’ which reveals Morant’s inspired, poetic mood that tenderly embraces both nature and love. The Bulletin and Fred Cutlack (‘Breaker Morant’, Ure Smith 1962) published it as four verses comprising two quatrains per verse. In my research I came across Morant’s full poem of 14 separate quatrains with minor variations of words and verse order. Quatrains 1-4, 9, and 12-14 make up the published shorter, smoother version. He is here reflecting on his lost love from Rose Bay, Sydney, from whence he had fled due to trouble with the law regarding a stolen pony! He prefaces the poem with, ‘From the Liverpool Range to the Rim of Rose Bay’. Here is the full version, published for probably the first time since it appeared in The Windsor and Richmond Gazette of Saturday, January 21, 1899. Enjoy!
A Note to Nell
By Harry ‘Breaker’ Morant
‘Oh, I watched the full harvest-moon springing,
White faced, o’er the dark rim of the hill;
And the soldier-birds homeward went winging,
And the world for a moment was still.
Down the paddock the crickets are “cheeping,”
While ‘way yonder, in accents more harsh,
The big bull-frogs wake out of their sleeping
And are chanting their songs in the marsh.
Now, the pine in my camp-fire is crackling,
And the summer night gathers in soon;
Whilst a jackass, belated, is cackling
At the placid white face of the moon.
On the sward the moon shadows are lying
Dark and vague – as the moon shadows do;
And a soft summer night-wind is sighing,
Which same sets me sighing – for you!
I can hear all the hobble-chains clinking –
For the horses are feeding quite near;
And the faint stars are solemnly blinking –
But now – what are you doing, my dear?
By the harbour- this sultry December –
Where the white sands with salt spray are wet –
Are you stupid enough to remember
What we vowed we would never forget?
Your light fears! – how that “someone might know us!”
In that eventide ride to South Head, –
Oh, the roar of the billows below us!
And the shine of the stars overhead!
Your side-saddle horse now, alas, is
Out with me on the Wallaby Track –
‘Stead of carrying the lass of all lasses,
He just potters along with the pack!
Faith! It strikes one that p’raps ‘twas a pity
How so many things chanced to go wrong;
Or I might have been yet in the city,
‘Stead of hereabouts singing THIS song.
There’s the mare that we sent steeplechasing –
That could gallop and jump like a toff!
Just the last of those “good things” in racing
Which should have -but didn’t – “come off.”
Girl o’ mine! – with the mouth like ripe cherries,
And with eyes like the summer seas blue!
Nell! – there’s scarce need to tell you that there is
None hereabouts – sweetheart! – like you!
But as tired bird at nightfall flies nestward
When the gay garish daylight is done –
So the broken-up bushman hies westward
When he’s finished and paid for his fun.
Yet, this jingle I send you –to let you
Know still yet you’re dearest and best;
And there’s one fellow will not forget you
As he’s roving away in the West!
But the low-burning camp-fire gives warning
To end this – (I write by its light) –
There’s a dry stage to ride in the morning –
So, my sweetheart, so-long, and good-night!
Keeping The Verse Alive
The Love Poetry of Breaker Morant is shared with permission from Tony Hammill through Keeping The Verse Alive, Country Campfire’s bush poetry preservation project. The accompanying commentary is by Tony Hammill; the poems are by Harry ‘Breaker’ Morant.
By preserving poems like this, we’re helping ensure the stories, humour and characters of country Australia continue to be enjoyed for generations to come.
Tony Hammill
Award-Winning Bush Poet • Australian History Writer • Researcher • Retired Teacher
Tony Hammill is an award-winning bush poet and Australian history writer whose research explores folklore, historical figures and the stories behind Australian legends.
Poems, recitals, photographs, stories and original works remain the property of their original creator and are shared by Country Campfire with permission.
