To Mt Rouse Poem by Francis Duggan

Mt Rouse you were here long before people came
In the dinosaur age you were one without a name
You were very old even in the Dreamtime
And you inspired writers to story and rhyme,
You've been sketched by the artists and your praises often sung
And you were quite old when the first humans were young
Down your craggy face many centuries ago
Like rivers the boiling red hot lava did flow,
The Nation's first people called the old hill Kolor by name
Many centuries before the first Europeans came
To live by the mountain where volcanic stones abound
And eke out their livelihood on the hard dry ground
But when the last human from your shadow has gone
Mt Rouse on the high ground you will keep keeping on.