All audio files can be found on our catalog page: https://librivox.org/a-mountain-station-by-andrew-barton-paterson/
Each fortnight a poem is chosen to be recorded by as many LibriVox volunteers as possible!Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson, CBE was an Australian bush poet, journalist and author. He wrote many ballads and poems about Australian life, focusing particularly on the rural and outback areas, including the district around Binalong, New South Wales, his "Waltzing Matilda" (1895) is regarded widely as Australia's unofficial national anthem.
This poem is taken from The Man from Snowy River and Other Verses by Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson. (Summary by Wikipedia)
This fortnight's poem can be found here.
Project Code: BfO0K2YJ
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Begin your reading with the abbreviated LibriVox disclaimer:
Leave 0.5 to 1 second of silence at the beginning.
Then read the poem:A Mountain Station by Andrew Barton Paterson, read for librivox.org by [your name].
[Add, if you wish, date, and/or your location.]
At the end of your reading, leave a space and then say:I bought a run a while ago,
On country rough and ridgy,
Where wallaroos and wombats grow —
The Upper Murrumbidgee.
The grass is rather scant, it's true,
But this a fair exchange is,
The sheep can see a lovely view
By climbing up the ranges.
And She-oak Flat's the station's name,
I'm not surprised at that, sirs:
The oaks were there before I came,
And I supplied the flat, sirs.
A man would wonder how it's done,
The stock so soon decreases —
They sometimes tumble off the run
And break themselves to pieces.
I've tried to make expenses meet,
But wasted all my labours,
The sheep the dingoes didn't eat
Were stolen by the neighbours.
They stole my pears — my native pears —
Those thrice-convicted felons,
And ravished from me unawares
My crop of paddy-melons.
And sometimes under sunny skies,
Without an explanation,
The Murrumbidgee used to rise
And overflow the station.
But this was caused (as now I know)
When summer sunshine glowing
Had melted all Kiandra's snow
And set the river going.
And in the news, perhaps you read:
'Stock passings. Puckawidgee,
Fat cattle: Seven hundred head
Swept down the Murrumbidgee;
Their destination's quite obscure,
But, somehow, there's a notion,
Unless the river falls, they're sure
To reach the Southern Ocean.'
So after that I'll give it best;
No more with Fate I'll battle.
I'll let the river take the rest,
For those were all my cattle.
And with one comprehensive curse
I close my brief narration,
And advertise it in my verse —
'For Sale! A Mountain Station.'
Leave 5 seconds of silence at the end.End of poem. This recording is in the public domain.
Filename: station_paterson_your initials in lowercase_128kb.mp3 (e.g. station_paterson_klh_128kb.mp3)
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MC to select: aradlaw
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