[566] Clancy of the Overflow
This week I'll be running a series of Australian poems; thanks to Vikram
Doctor for the suggestion.
I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better
Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan, years ago,
He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him,
Just on spec, addressed as follows, "Clancy, of The Overflow"
And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected,
(And I think the same was written with a thumb-nail dipped in tar)
Twas his shearing mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it:
"Clancy's gone to Queensland droving, and we don't know where he are."
* * * * * * * * *
In my wild erratic fancy visions come to me of Clancy
Gone a-droving "down the Cooper" where the Western drovers go;
As the stock are slowly stringing, Clancy rides behind them singing,
For the drover's life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know.
And the bush hath friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him
In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars,
And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended,
And at night the wond'rous glory of the everlasting stars.
* * * * * * * * *
I am sitting in my dingy little office, where a stingy
Ray of sunlight struggles feebly down between the houses tall,
And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty city
Through the open window floating, spreads its foulness over all
And in place of lowing cattle, I can hear the fiendish rattle
Of the tramways and the buses making hurry down the street,
And the language uninviting of the gutter children fighting,
Comes fitfully and faintly through the ceaseless tramp of feet.
And the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt me
As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste,
With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy,
For townsfolk have no time to grow, they have no time to waste.
And I somehow rather fancy that I'd like to change with Clancy,
Like to take a turn at droving where the seasons come and go,
While he faced the round eternal of the cash-book and the journal --
But I doubt he'd suit the office, Clancy, of The Overflow.
-- A. B. "Banjo" Paterson
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Today's choice of poet was easy - Banjo Paterson is far and away the best
known of Australian poets - and not just for his ubiquitous masterpiece
"Waltzing Matilda". His poems of the Australian bush capture the 'feel' of
country (at least from my perspective) vividly - the wide open spaces, the
sweep of the sky reaching down to the horizon, the
vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended,
And at night the wond'rous glory of the everlasting stars
are what I mostly associate with the Australia of song and story.
Which brings us to today's poem - a rather straightforward contrast between
the two Australias of open space and city. All brought out in Paterson's
wonderfully flowing verse, with its long, pattering lines and internal
rhymes, drawing the reader in not so much by the imagery as by the sheer
sound of it. Indeed, I would not be too surprised if 'Clancy' has been set
to music; like much of Paterson's poetry, it has a wonderfully musical
quality to it. (Strangely enough, the internym "Banjo" does not stem from
any connection to music; the story, quoted from the biography referred to
below, runs as follows:
By the time Paterson came to submit his first verses (in 1885) to the
Bulletin, he had been admitted to the Roll of Solicitors. Paterson
claimed, afraid to use his own name "lest the editor, identifying one with
the author of the pamphlet, would dump my contribution, unread, into the
waste-paper basket...", adopted the pen-name of "The Banjo" after a
"so-called racehorse" his family had owned - and the legend was born.
)
The other noteworthy element in the poem is Clancy himself, a typically
larger-than-life character of the sort that Australian - and, indeed,
frontier - tradition abounds with. (Another example worth mentioning here is
Paterson's own 'Man from Snowy River'). The contrast between the life of the
drover and that of the townsman is summed up beauifully in the wonderfully
dry last line
But I doubt he'd suit the office, Clancy, of The Overflow.
Notes:
The Lachlan and the Cooper are rivers in New South Wales and Queensland
respectively; the illustrated poem (see the links) includes popup maps of
their courses.
Biography:
There's a nice biography (only one of several; just feed 'banjo paterson
biography' into google) at
http://www.waltzingmatilda.com/wmbanjo.html
I quote one paragraph for its striking parallel with Kipling:
Today, in some circles, there is a view that Paterson was "the spokesman of
the squattocracy and the station owners". But this is certainly not true of
Paterson the balladist and Bulletin sketch writer (even if in his last
years, took a less impassioned and more detached view of life around him).
But in his hey-day he wrote about the underdogs of bush and city life. Take
Waltzing Matilda for example.
Links:
There's an illustrated copy of the poem at
- http://www.uq.oz.au/~mlwham/banjo/clancy_of_the_overflow.html
Taken from the extensive Banjo Paterson site
- http://www.uq.oz.au/~mlwham/banjo/
A rather different poem with a similar theme:
- poem #261
On the Theme:
As usual, guest poems and suggestions are both welcome, as are comments
added to the poems. In fact, given that this is a topic with which I am
relatively unfamiliar, I'd be glad to replace one or more of my selections
with additional guest poems, so any fans of Australian poetry, speak now or
forever hold your piece.
-martin
From: "Helen Newton" <hnewton@>
A couple of comments on Clancy of the Overflow, and a suggested Australian
poet:
My Grandmother went to school with Banjo Patteson, in a small town
(Binalong) about an hour west of Canberra.
I lived in the Nyngan area, on the Bogan River. The locals there place the
Overflow a little further west than the map on your link does.
A completely different, and more contemporary Australian poet is Oodjeroo
Noonuccle, an Aboriginal woman, originally known as Kath Walker.
Helen
From: "Helen Hall" <hhall@>
My grandfather, who knew Paterson, and drove for Diuracks etc., owned a
property called "The Overflow" in the Moree area. The name was changed
by subsequent owners.
Helen Hall
From: "Ian Baillieu" <ianbaill@>
Your presentation of this poem isn't quite right. The
first eight lines shouldn't be shown as a single stanza.
Paterson wrote them as two four line stanzas. And what are
all those asterisks doing?! They aren't his. They suggest
something has been left out, which isn't so.
This is a famous and much-loved poem of Paterson's. IMHO
however it is a flawed masterpiece. The first sixteen
lines are wonderful, with their combination of images quirky
(the shearing mate writing with a thumbnail dipped in tar)
and luminous, even numinous (the breezes on the river bars,
and the 'vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended').
The poem's second half descends into unconvincing caricature
and, save for one or two lines, hardly rises above doggerel.
Of course Paterson intended to write two contrasting halves,
to compare life in the country with life in the city. The
trouble is, the country inspired him, whereas the city
didn't. So in trying to give effect to his concept he
couldn't maintain in the second half the writing standard he
set in the first. Creation became mere concoction. The
result is the difference between real and artificial
flowers.
Incidentally I don't think anyone seriously regards
'Waltzing Matilda' divorced from its melody (of which there
are several haunting versions) as Paterson's best poem, or
as a POETIC masterpiece. Paterson certainly didn't.
Popular, yes, but for reasons having little to do with
literary merit.
From: "winmac" <wimac@>
You suggested that a song could be made out of this poem
There was.
I don't remember exactly when or even who sang it but the tune goes
through my head often and I loved it from the moment I heard it.
It is sung by a group of men, perhaps the Four Kinsmen or similar sound
and I heard it about in the '70's or early 80's. It was sung in a sort
of harmonious ballad.
It was on the Australian radio stations for quite some time
Johanna Winkel
From: "Kevin & Glenda Fox" <foxke@>
In regards to "Clancy of the Overflow" as a song, it has been performed
by a few Australian Country Artists such as Slim Dusty and the
Bushwackers, however, the version that I think Winkel is referring to
was released in 1980, by Festival Records and arranged by a man called
John Wallis. I believe the group who sang this'folk like' version were
called Wallis & Matilda.
From: david@ Fri Jul 11 00:05:28 2003
It was Wallis & Matilda who put this and other Banjo poems to music on
an album.
Here is a poem by Thomas Clancy aka "Clancy of the overflow".
Written long after he had given up droving, he refers to Paterson's well
known poem about Clancy:
"Neath the star-spangled dome
Of my Austral home,
When watching by the camp fire's ruddy glow,
Oft in the flickering blaze
Is presented to my gaze
The sun-drenched kindly faces
Of the men of Overflow.
Now, though years have passed forever
Since I used, with best endeavour
Clip the fleeces of the jumbucks
Down the Lachlan years ago,
Still in memory linger traces
Of many cheerful faces,
And the well-remembered visage
Of the Bulletin's "Banjo".
Tired of life upon the stations,
With their wretched, scanty rations,
I took a sudden notion
That a droving I would go;
Then a roving fancy took me,
Which has never since forsook me,
And decided me to travel,
And leave the Overflow.
So with maiden ewes from Tubbo,
I passed en route to Dubbo,
And across the Lig'num country
'where the Barwon waters flow;
Thence onward o'er the Narran,
By scrubby belts of Yarran,
To where the landscape changes
And the cotton bushes grow.
And my path I've often wended
Over drought-scourged plains extended,
where phantom lakes and forests
Forever come and go;
And the stock in hundreds dying,
Along the road are lying,
To count among the 'pleasures"
That townsfolk never know.
Over arid plains extended
My route has often tended,
Droving cattle to the Darling,
Or along the Warrego;
Oft with nightly rest impeded,
when the cattle had stampeded,
Save I sworn that droving pleasures
For the future I'd forego.
So of drinking liquid mire
I eventually did tire,
And gave droving up forever
As a life that was too slow.
Now, gold digging, in a measure,
Affords much greater pleasure
To your obedient servant,
"Clancy of the Overflow"."
-Thomas Gerald Clancy 1897.
More info on the Clancy family including extracts from Clancy's diary
can be found here.
The Overflow of Clancy by By Eric Gerald Clancy
http://www.users.bigpond.com/mr_brianpowell/clancy/01_title.html
From: John Payne <john@>
I first heard the Wallis and Matilda version of "Clancy", along with some
others, well over 20 years ago. Earlier this year, picked up a 3-CD set of
their first 3 albums, and decided to try and find them. I made contact with
John Wallis, and to make a long story short, my son and I are now building
a website for the group. The <http://wallisandmatilda.com.au/>Wallis and
<http://wallisandmatilda.com.au/>Matilda site will feature the text of all
the recorded poems, information on the band, and sound clips from each
track. Any suggestions and contributions will be very welcome at the site-
http://wallisandmatilda.com.au/
John Payne
John
John Payne
Email: john@
Website: http://www.WebMarketingEzine.com
Phone: 61 26231 9853
Address: 13 Finnerty Place Kambah ACT 2902 Australia
From: "Ian Baillieu" <ianbaill@>
I take it that Thomas Gerald Clancy, supposedly writing in
1897 (and plagiarising a few phrases from Banjo), is
a fictional character.
From: "KArussell" <karussell@>
Greetings from the driest state.
This not a comment but can you tell me, or direct me to the meaning of
'the overflow'?
From: Steve Martin <smartin@>
Hello Joanna
I saw your name on a site which was discussing AB Patterson's poem "Clancy....."
Are you any relation to Michael Winkel - he's now living in NZ??
Just interested,
Steve Martin.
From: "Frederick Cooper" <flcooper1@>
The Following links may prove helpfull if you are interested in Banjo
Patterson's legacy to all.
Note that a real sense of humor runs through a lot of the works, as well
as his love of all things equine. (Read either "Father Riley's horse",
or "The Geebung Polo Club")
http://www.acn.net.au/articles/snowy/
http://www.racinghalloffame.com.au/inductees/banjo.htm
http://www.wallisandmatilda.com.au/
A contempory of Patterson at the time and a verry different outlook on
Australian life can be found in the work of Henry Lawson.
http://www.abc.net.au/btn/australians/lawson.htm
http://www.acn.net.au/articles/lawson/
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~natinfo/lawson/
I hope this will be helpfull to someone out there sometime.
From: "Ian Baillieu" <ianbaill@>
Apropos the last couple of posts, the correct spelling is
Paterson, with one t.
From: "adlardfisherys" <adlardfisherys@>
HELP...... for years I have been tracking an cd/ tape/ record all i know
is that the record my mother use to have came in a red cover and had all
the great poems sung on it like The man from snowy river, clancy of the
overflow,etc... you see i can't ask my mom what it was called as she had
a car accident and now has brain dammage and as far as my step dad goes
well he passed away... so if anyone can help i would much appriciate
it.... last time i heard it was about 22 years ago.... yours sincerly
kimiko any information please e-mail to adlardfisherys@
From: "pking" <pking@>
How would i get a hold of banjo tabs for wallace & matilda songs
From: Paul & Gaye Westcott <p_gwestcott@>
From: Paul & Gaye Westcott <p_gwestcott@>
"The Overflow" is the name for the floodplains of the rivers in western
New South Wales and south-west Queensland. Being semi-desert country
the normal water flow is minimal, but in very wet seasons the rivers
spread over for hundreds of square kilometres over the flat surrounding
countryside.
Paul Westcott
From: Vern Simmons <vernmsimmons@>
For All of you who are after the Fantastic music of Wallis and Matilda I suggest looking at the web site below.
http://www.wallisandmatilda.com.au/
I came accross this website while looking for the music which my perants had played while I was a child. I now know the band was Wallis and Matilda, and it appears that they are still playing.
It was really interesting to see the comments from people(or their grandparents) who know the areas.
Good luck, Enjoy the Poetry, and Love the Bush.
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