Written At Lake Condah Mission Poem by Francis Duggan

The birds still sing as their ancestors years ago
The chock of wattlebird the caw of crow
And the one other remaining link to long gone years
The gum and wattle trees still growing here.

And the only link here to a long gone Race
Is a dark skinned man who now care take the place
And I white man feel taint of white man's shame
Where black man's ghost and skeleton remain.

And signs of white stone mason all around
The walls of cottages they built on black man's ground
They had a vision in their earlier day
Of changing black man from his natural way.

This Country once to dark skinned man belong
And I feel some guilt at the white man's wrong
And I feel some guilt at the white man's sins
Against the natives with the darker skins.

And some white men found strange ways of having fun
They oft rode off on horse back in the sun
Into the bush to seek their ill renown
By gunning poor defenceless people down.

In Lake Condah the magpie sing the same
Song as his ancestors sang before the white man came
In peaceful place where gum and wattle grow
A link to past times centuries ago.