Nocturne Bulba
Lying on the eastern front of the verandah the lights of Swansea beckon across the lake.
Further to the left, through a depression on Wangi peninsular one can see the white haze caused by the lights of the city of Newcastle.
On the foreshores of the peninsular burns a fire of one of the night line fishermen.
At my head burns, my own light, so that I may read myself to sleep: but it was not of lights that I set myself to write about, but my own immediate surroundings. The night is dark with but faint star light, but one's eye becomes accustomed to the gloom, and can see shadow shapes forming on the lawn around the cottage. Bush wallabies or "Toby's" are grazing all around. Some with tiny young ones. A startled grunt, followed by a scurrying pat pat on the grass, and we know that the kangaroo rats are having a "box" on. A shrill scream and a speeding shadow form, and I know that an o 'possum has lost a tuft of fur! On the verandah rail a black Tasmanian and also a silver grey o’possum sit within a few yards of each other waiting for another piece of bread. At my feet my pet "Peke" turns a disdainful stare at a kangaroo rat sitting begging at the bed side. The aristocrat and the beggar! How history repeats itself. Bats are flying overhead always in hurried flight as though the night hours were all too short to fill that empty stomach. Mo-poke, Mo-poke. There goes one of our feathered friends putting up a plaintive plea for sustenance.High overhead we hear the honk honk of the water fowl migrating. Suddenly from an oak in the swamp comes a coo, cooing and we know that "snowy" the ring dove is at the feet of Venus again pouring out his fountain of love. >The croaking of the frogs in the swamp give 'life' to the still quiet of the night.
It is thus that we dwellers of the bush see life, that is life, and find the near contact with the creatures of Nature, a never ending education and uplift.
Thompson Noble. September, 1932.
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