Post
by Maureen K Clifford » Fri Jun 15, 2012 7:42 am
Found this but don't know if it is the right Thomas Mitchell - Thomas Livingstone Mitchell, Knight, Honorary of Civil Law in the University of Oxford, accompanied by Charles Nicholson, Doctor of Medicine, in the year of grace 1842, and in the reign of Queen Victoria, laid the foundation stone of this house in a land now divided from the world, but which may one day equal in all the acts of civilization the illustrious regions of his native country.
The house was patterned on 'A Villa in the Cottage Style' from an English book of designs described as Gothic Picturesque, with tall chimneys, pointed gables, dormer windows, crenellation, tracery and turrets. Mitchell and the builder James Hume modified the design to make it somewhat simpler, and added the observation tower. It was built with local materials: shingles cut from the bush, sandstone from Clements Creek; but it was to be a little bit of the old country in the new colony, and a fresh start for a noble Briton in a new untainted land, away from the strife of the city.
Mitchell's feelings can be seen in his (incomplete) poem, Lines Written at Broughton Pass:
Here limpid streams surround untainted earth
Secure from tyranny since Nature's birth
To such steep rocks, the sons of freedom fly
“Lords of the lion hearted and eagle eye"
No other road besides this rugged Pass
Admits the roaming herds to steal the grass
No highway here for highwayman to ply
A th riving trade ...
No wrangling ...
No shop keeper ...
No public here ...
No mob ...
Nor brazen statues, brazen lies to bear
No public meetings called with private crews
No nouveaux riches…
No quakers anxious to save human life
Save when their shepherds with the blacks have strife…
No civil officers so deep in debt
That only creditors aught good can get.
Here from all these, O Nature, keep keep me free
Beyond this Chrystal stream my dwelling be
Thy shady forest dark and meadows green
Refresh the soul where no such men are seen
Here harvests yield the unaluminous bread
No sky blue here, but milk from udders shed
Seated beneath the fig and climbing vine
We quaff the unadulterated wine
Or heaped with blazing logs our ample hearth
Resounds with social hospitable mirth
As in the olden time Come Briton come
Be no man’s servant make the woods thy home
) as I want at least one to put in our July newsletter.
