The Hopkins River

Centuries before the black people to this land came
An unknown Country that did not have a name
The river now known as the Hopkins through the scrublands did flow
And that is going back many centuries ago.

The dinosaurs came at the twilight of the day
For to slake their thirst at the quiet water-way
And though the dinosaurs from the World are forever gone
The old Hopkins river keeps babbling on.

Through the flat brown Countryside to Warrnambool to the sea
The Hopkins has flowed for century on century
Through places dry and stony and places remote
The river has inspired the artist and poet.

For to sketch and sing of it in decades gone by
The river that has never stopped flowing through Summer's warm and dry
And though the artist and poet now with the deceased lay
The Hopkins keeps babbling on night after day.

Through places dry and stony and places remote and brown
On down to the ocean near Warrnambool Town
And the Seasons may come and the Seasons may go
But the old Hopkins river forever will flow.