MOONLIGHT DIP -

There is a legend that if a woman with a warm heart swims in the river pool at Marble Bar during a moonlit night, her heart will turn cold but her body will become as beautiful as that of Psyche.

There seems to be something about Marble Bar that inspires those who have been there to write about it. Not everything is complimentary but not all is negative as the following couple of bush ballads show:

Marble Bar

I know the town that God forgot
It’s Marble Bar
The coolest drinks are always hot
At Marble Bar
The place affects you with a thirst
You drink until you nearly burst
And life is a thing accursed
At Marble Bar

The sweat teems from you, in a flood
At marble Bar
Spit ere it lands, turns into mud
At Marble Bar
The flies are bad without a doubt
So thick they shut the sunlight out
You have to grope your way about
At Marble Bar

Strange insects mark you down as prey
At Marble Bar
You get no peace by night or day
At Marble Bar
They buzz and hum and crawl and creep
And if your sanity you’d keep
Under a net you’ve got to sleep
At Marble Bar

A blistered, blasted, burnt up hole
Is Marble Bar
The sky above – a barren scroll
O’er Marble Bar
Set in a barren broken range
Hades would make a pleasant change
From Marble Bar

Annon.
Published in The Westralian Worker.

A slightly different view was taken by the next bush balladeer who had obviously seen the preceding poem.

Marble Bar

You boast about your city, Perth
But Marble Bar
Is the only spot that’s Heaven on Earth
Sweet Marble Bar
Where pleasantly the moments flow
And gentle breezes softly blow
And strenuous work is quite ‘de-trop’
At Marble Bar

Our hardest work is only play
At Marble Bar
We yarn to pass the time away
At Marble Bar
Or else we laze beneath the shade
Like Omar with some dusky maid
Near Marble Bar

We rise – well not before the sun
At Marble Bar
And count the day as well begun
At Marble Bar
If we can score a beer or gin
In payment for the tales we spin
To strangers who have wandered in
To Marble Bar

And then we show the strangers round
At Marble Bar
And talk of minerals that abound
Near Marble Bar
We strive to interest them, and so
We show them where the nuggets grow
And reefs that hold the gold below
Near Marble Bar

Oh blessing on this sun kissed spot
Dear Marble Bar
For the wants of life are easily got
At Marble Bar
At parting cash in massive piles
From tourists whom the North beguiles
It beats all other towns by miles
Does marble Bar

The following was apparently seen in the Ironclad Hotel.

I was born black
When I'm cold I'm black
When I'm scared I'm black
When I'm sunburned I'm black
When I'm sick I'm black
and when I die I'm still black

You were born white
When you're cold you're blue
When you're scared you're yellow
When you're sunburned you're red
When you're sick you're green
and when you die you go grey
and you've got the hide to call ME coloured.

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