Australian Ballads and Rhymes

My Grandmother bought me a nifty little book for my birthday in honor of my upcoming trip to Australia. I'm thinking I am going to take this book with me to keep me company during my time in another country.

I just happened to open it up tonight and read the first page. I thought I'd share it here.

"A Voice from the Bush"

"O! mihi praeteritos..."

High noon, and not a cloud in the sky to break this blinding sun!
Well, I've half the day before me still, and most of my journey done.
There's little enough shade to be got, but I'll take what I can get,
For I'm not as hearty as once I was, although I'm a young man yet.

Young? Well, yes, I suppose so, as far as the seasons go;
Though there's many a man far older than I down there in the town below -
Older, but men to whom, in the pride of their manhood strong,
The hardest work is never too hard, nor the longest day too long.

But I've cut my cake, so I can't complain; and I've only myself to blame.
Ay! that was always their tale at home, and here it's just the same.
Of the seed I've sown in pleasure, the harvest I'm reaping in pain.
Could I put my life a few years back, would I live that life again?

Would I? Of course I would! What glorious days they were!
It sometimes seems but the dream of a dream that life could have been so fair.
So sweet, but a short time back, while now, if one can call
This life, I almost doubt at times if it's worth the living at all.

One of these poets - which is it? somewhere or another since,
That the crown of a sorrow's sorrow, is remembering happier things.
What the crown of a sorrow's sorrow may be I know not; but this I know, -
It lightens the years that are now, sometimes to think of the years ago.

(Poem continues, but not here. You have to get the book to read how it ends!)