Old Merri River Poem by Francis Duggan

The old Merri River crawls on deep and slow
Towards Middle Island near Warrnambool where into the Pacific it does flow
Very old in the age of theDinosaurs and the Dreamtime
It has been the inspiration of song, story and rhyme
It flowed to the sea a waterway without a name
Thousands of centuries before the first people came
To live in the countryside known as south west Victoria today
There is no such a thing as a young waterway
Near the ocean slowed to a snail's pace by the incoming tide
It slowly flows on through the brown countryside
People like the Seasons come to life and life from them does go
But time never becomes any waterway's foe
The old Merri River is so very old
The true story of it's birth will never be told.