Dedication: This volume is inscribed
To my Mother.
Loyal alike to your birthland and race whence you sprung, Daughter (and mother of daughters and sons) of the South! As a love-tribute, I proffer stray songs I have sung In my lone hours in these regions of dust and of drouth, Hours that were long, when the singing was solace for cares, Work of some sort the sole spur to the slowness of time,- Cherish the grain, and forgive me for much of the tares, Mother of mine, if aught worthy you find in my rhyme!
And to my Father.
True to the instinct of progress in young blood that runs, True to the best aspirations Australians hold, Built on the cherished traditions that fathers to sons, Britons to Britons, have handed from ages of old, Firm in your love for the new land of children and wife, Grafted on love of the old land of sires and of birth! If, here and there, with your spirit my verses be rife, Maybe that heritage only is all of their worth. Charles Allan Sherard. Charlton, Victoria, 6th May 1889.
