Some of my forebears were Scottish immigrants to New Zealand in the 1800s. Tough times, but a gold rush beckoned….

A dirty gangway, freezing day.

From a Clydeside dock you sailed away

The old ship was your ticket outa there

You always were the curious one

So where are you going to, my son?

I’m off to the goldfields downunder, ma.

You drew a map for what it’s worth

See the curvature of the earth?

She said go, it’s the promise of escape.

To be so young but penniless

Let your mother acquiesce

And saw her son leave his Glasgow home

Pipe dreams, no guaranteed pay-dirt

But a place to be so free it hurts

Looking for great adventure in the South

The voyage was a test of you

The prize was for the living who

Finally made it to the promised land

The race was lost for bodies poured

with sad reverence overboard

into the emptiness of ocean wild and blue.

Otago 1864

The day your boots hit the shore

Was the day you started to believe

You wouldn’t be again deterred

You came to live the tales you’d heard

You came with thoughts of romance in your head

You arrived with many others

Found camaraderie of brothers

Whom you had only met the night before

Arrowtown with its boom-town noise!

Come and make your fortune boys!!

Not certain, but a promise of escape.

Were there scaraps of gold for you?

As this new land when winter blew

Was as hard as the Highlands of your home.

Then came the aching times of hunger

Where you grew weak, not stronger

But you dreamed of the nuggets you might find

Your boots were old, trousers worn to rag

Your shirt hung like a surrender flag.

You lived in a damp and rusty shed

Would the dreams that fueled you,

run lean, and finally fool you

And take from you the promise of escape?

You found oh, so little gold

This young land could make you old

Fist fights and boozing every other night.

You were often wrong though sometimes right

Sunday penance, you were non too bright

But you stayed on, resisting, never giving in

Because this new land rewoke you

Just as the old one broke you

Clean air of forests, mountains and the lake

So you failed to find the mother lode

But the fear of failing and returning home

Was the thought that made you carry on

A grim resolve to finally make your mark.

It was time to make some changes

You saw a life out in the ranges

And claimed a patch of hilly gravel ground.

You dug and carved out a flattened place

Sun beat on your wind-tanned face

in the cradle of the Southern Alps

You chiseled and carried the shist rocks back

And built some walls and a chimney stack

Then with a crude saw, cut the timbers for the roof

Then, exhausted, slumped upon the ground

You slept on bracken that you’d found

And dreamed of the promise of escape

Then miraculously, you found some work

Building stone walls for new farms and kirk

Using Scottish skils that were in your blood

Two years of building, calloused hands

then working in the valley lands

for a sheep station owner with no sons.

And then the eyes of his daughter, blue

Captivated and melted you

And it was there that you finally saw your gold.

And you realised that what was to be found

Was sometimes on, not under the ground

Realisation was your true escape

Twenty years down the track

You have a farm and home, no rusty shack

A wife, a son and daughters three

Who all listen avidly

As you tell the tales of poverty

When you sailed away across the sea

With nothing but a promise of escape

Copyright: Rod de Lisle