Half-way back from the Gulf

Burke and Wills come upon a tree at the base of a post-office in Camberwell near the football oval and at its roots sits John Longstaff.

Hullo John Longstaff cry they in harmony and back to them John Longstaff sings

Oh how is it that

You have come upon me

When dead I found you

At the base of a tree

But the base of that tree was not very near to here,

this suburb of Camberwell,

although upon our travails ending at the base of that tree do stand

the multitudes who now pass this tree,

in the suburb of Camberwell and also others.

Continued he

And I found you at the base of a tree and on that tree in blaze I found

The unpleasant news

That you’d been abandoned

And

Inadvertently

Chimed they then

Abandoned

Though

Inadvertently

But we were our own abandoners, and we were the journeyers, and though you may have found us, at the base of a tree,

blown to prostration and abandoned, though inadvertently,

your find was made but figuratively.

And while, all of our fibres, lived uncomfortably

And every motion strained our parts violently

You did live so comfortably

Here near the base of this tree

In Camberwell

Or near one much like it

So comfortably

On the backs of our egos

Taken most obsessively

To travel over the inland sea

And bathe ourselves in the extremities

And though our indulgence

May yet yield for you some benefits

It was but indulgence still

And all your comforts

Here at the base of this tree

Owe nothing to our egos and all to our peril

Though inadvertently

And your comfort here at the base of this tree

Says much of what we did for you

But none of why

And is not what we deserve

For our actions were for ourselves

But our consequences, not

And in that hive are absorbed the highest deeds

Into the routine of easy survival

And easily ill-deserved

For our actions were ours alone

but their consequences

Are for the urbs and urbs and their suburbs