The Lights of Cobb and Co Lyrics & Tabs by Jack Thompson
The Lights of Cobb and Co
guitar chords lyrics
Roaming Roy Catches A Ride - Henry Lawson's The Lights Of Cobb And Co
This week, Roy decided to continue with his Henry Lawson tour.
Henry Lawson is one of his favourite poets, and one of Australia's most famous and important because he really captured Australia at the time when he lived.
He wrote beautiful poems about the Australian bush, but also wrote about the way people lived, even capturing the experience of public transport in the 1800's.
One such poem, The Lights Of Cobb And Co, immortalises the experience of catching the public stage coach, one of the most common modes of transport from 1850 right through until the 1920's.
He even found a Cobb and Co Coach in Gulgong Pioneer Museum before he set out to follow the Cobb and Co route from Mudgee, through Hill End and to Sofala and Bathurst (all in NSW)!
He found another one at the other end of his trip in the Bathurst Visitor Information Centre, along with a Cobb and Co sign.
You can see a picture of it below.
Henry Lawson was born in 1867 and died in 1922, so he saw great changes occur in the way people moved from place to place.
There were many new types of transport which started to grow up in Australia during Henry Lawson's lifetime.
Today Melbourne is famous for its trams, but it didn't get its first cable tram until 1885.
Australia's first electric tram was demonstrated at the Centennial International Exhibition in 1888, but electric trams didn't become common until 1906 and even then, they were only really seen in cities or big towns.
If you would like to learn more about the history of Melbourne's trams, click here.
Australia's first railway, between Melbourne and Port Melbourne was not even built until 1854, and even when the railway systems advanced there were three different size railway tracks and so you had to change trains to travel between the colonies!
If you would like to learn more about Australian railway history, click here.
If you would like to learn more about the history of Melbourne's trams, click here.
Australia's first railway, between Melbourne and Port Melbourne was not even built until 1854, and even when the railway systems advanced there were three different size railway tracks and so you had to change trains to travel between the colonies!
If you would like to learn more about Australian railway history, click here.
For many Australian's the only way to travel any distance, other than riding your own horse or wagon, was to catch the public stage coach, usually a Cobb and Co Coach.
Public horse drawn coaches had been common in Australia for a long time before Cobb and Co became established in the 1850's, but it was not comfortable or fast.
The roads were usually in poor condition so the trip was bumpy and in rain often the coaches became bogged down in mud or simply didn't even try to get through!
The coaches would wait until they were full before they even started their trip and that could take some time - even many hours so you could be 'running late' before the trip really began!
The coaches were English types which were heavy and meant for cobbled roads and short distances.
They were not at all suitable for the rough Australian conditions and were far too heavy for the horses to be able to successfully pull for the long distances they needed to cover.
In 1853 Freeman Cobb, an American, came to Australia with George Mowton to set up a postal express system but soon discovered that the real demand was for decent transport.
Mowton went home to America, but Cobb stayed and with John Peck, James Swanton and John Lamber set up Cobb and Co.
They divided their routes into sections so that they could travel in stages with a fresh coach and horses who weren't already tired, making the trip faster.
They also introduced a new sort of coach, the Concord Coach Through Brace which was an American design.
It was designed to go at a fast gallop across the American prairies and was perfect for the Australian conditions and roads.
They were called through brace coaches because they used an early type of suspension to make the trip more comfortable for their passengers, suspending the actual coach above the wheels by leather straps which absorbed some of the jolts.
The Cobb and Co coaches also left at a specific time, on time, and all of this combined to make them very popular.
Their coaches were red with distinctive yellow wheels so they were also very recognisable.
They became the most common mode of transport right up until the 1920s.
If you would like to learn more about Cobb and Co Coaches, click here.
Henry Lawson's poem The Lights Of Cobb and Co really captures the experience of taking a Cobb and Co coach, and also captures their importance to the Australian community.
Australia is huge compared to many of the European countries which people were immigrating from and many of the places which they lived, especially the gold fields, were quite isolated from the big towns and cities.
The Cobb and Co Coaches which traveled through these settlements were very important because they were a link to the other communities and a way of moving between them.
The picture above really captures the feel of a Cobb and Co coach.
It was taken on the road between Hill End and Sofala which is still a dirt road and follows the road which the coaches would have taken.
The great plumes of dust would have been a familiar and welcome site for many during Henry Lawson's life time, because they heralded the approach of the coach.
The Lights Of Cobb And Co
FIRE LIGHTED, on the table a meal for sleepy men,
A lantern in the stable, a jingle now and then;
The mail coach looming darkly by light of moon and star,
The growl of sleepy voices—a candle in the bar.
A stumble in the passage of folk with wits abroad;
A swear-word from a bedroom—the shout of ‘All aboard!'
‘Tchk-tchk!
Git-up!' ‘Hold fast, there!' and down the range we go;
Five hundred miles of scattered camps will watch for Cobb and Co.
Old coaching towns already ‘decaying for their sins,'
Uncounted ‘Half -Way Houses,' and scores of ‘Ten Mile Inns;'
The riders from the stations by lonely granite peaks;
The black-boy for the shepherds on sheep and cattle creeks;
The roaring camps of Gulgong, and many a ‘Digger's Rest;'
The diggers on the Lachlan; the huts of Farthest West;
Some twenty thousand exiles who sailed for weal or woe;
The bravest hearts of twenty lands will wait for Cobb and Co.
The morning star has vanished, the frost and fog are gone,
In one of those grand mornings which but on mountains dawn;
A flask of friendly whisky—each other's hopes we share—
And throw our top-coats open to drink the mountain air.
The roads are rare to travel, and life seems all complete;
The grind of wheels on gravel, the trot of horses' feet,
The trot, trot, trot and canter, as down the spur we go—
The green sweeps to horizons blue that call for Cobb and Co.
We take a bright girl actress through western dust and damps,
To bear the home-world message, and sing for sinful camps,
To wake the hearts and break them, wild hearts that hope and ache—
(Ah!
when she thinks of those days her own must nearly break!)
Five miles this side the gold-field, a loud, triumphant shout:
Five hundred cheering diggers have snatched the horses out:
With ‘Auld Lang Syne' in through roaring camps they go—
That cheer for her, and cheer for Home, and cheer for Cobb and Co.
Three lamps above the ridges and gorges dark and deep,
A flash on sandstone cuttings where sheer the sidings sweep,
A flash on shrouded waggons, on water ghastly white;
Weird bush and scattered remnants of rushes in the night
Across the swollen river a flash beyond the ford:
‘Ride hard to warn the driver!
He's drunk or mad, good Lord!'
But on the bank to westward a broad, triumphant glow—
A hundred miles shall see to-night the lights of Cobb and Co.!
Swift scramble up the siding where teams climb inch by inch;
Pause, bird-like, on the summit—then breakneck down the pinch
Past haunted half-way houses—where convicts made the bricks—
Scrub-yards and new bark shanties, we dash with five and six—
By clear, ridge-country rivers, and gaps where tracks run high,
Where waits the lonely horseman, cut clear against the sky;
Through stringy-bark and blue-gum, and box and pine we go;
New camps are stretching 'cross the plains the routes of Cobb and Co.
Throw down the reins, old driver—there's no one left to shout;
The ruined inn's survivor must take the horses out.
A poor old coach hereafter!—we're lost to all such things—
No bursts of songs or laughter shall shake your leathern springs
When creeping in unnoticed by railway sidings drear,
Or left in yards for lumber, decaying with the year—
Oh, who'll think how in those days when distant fields were broad
You raced across the Lachlan side with twenty-five on board.
Not all the ships that sail away since Roaring Days are done—
Not all the boats that steam from port, nor all the trains that run,
Shall take such hopes and loyal hearts—for men shall never know
Such days as when the Royal Mail was run by Cobb and Co.
The ‘greyhounds' race across the sea, the ‘special' cleaves the haze,
But these seem dull and slow to me compared with Roaring Days!
The eyes that watched are dim with age, and souls are weak and slow,
The hearts are dust or hardened now that broke for Cobb and Co.
Posted by Elissa on 02/21/2010 in Roaming Roy, Roaming Roy - Central West | Permalink
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