Old Merri Poem by Francis Duggan

On a tree in a paddock near where old Merri flow
I hear the harsh cawing of a dark pale eyed crow
One of a corvid species that is widely known
It is true about crows they have ways of their own

A waterway that has flowed forever and will flow forever more
Old Merri flows onward to the Pacific shore
In and out of Lake Pertobe and on to Lady Bay
It flows on by Warrnambool every night and day

By the Merri on warm Summer evenings long gone in the shade of the trees
The local indigenous tribes had their corroborees
They danced their last dance by the old waterway
A beauty lost forever this seems sad to say

But old Merri that has inspired story and rhyme
Flows on to the sea through the Seasons of time
And the past cannot be changed it is in the forever gone
But the old waterway to the ocean flows on

Long before the first people to the Southern Land came
Old Merri the river then without a name
Flowed on to the ocean from it's source far away
Through the flat coastal country by night and by day.