Town Hall, Lonsdale Street, Dandenong, undated.

There were poets in Dandenong in the very early times, and from an old “Journal” the following writing was taken. The author was at one time likely the licensee of Dunn’s Hotel, as the name fits in with several incidents connected with the friendly intercourse between the police and the publicans, when food, etc., was scarce, and in a neighbourly fashion they borrowed from each other.

"A township sweet and beautiful,
With homes pretty and neat;
Gardens decked with flowers rare,
And clean in every street.

With hills each side where we look,
Close by ranges rising high;
A running brook, so clear, so clear,
Continuously running by.

Where a forest large and wild once stood,
Where the black man lived for years;
Where the kangaroo so oft’ was killed,
With the long and pointed spears.

Where corrobboree so oft’ was held.
Around the blazing pile;
Where, when in battle stealthy crept,
The warriors in single file.

The white man camped long, long ago,
And Dunbar with the natives laid
A consultation with the then great men,
When he taught them good from bad.

Where children were kidnapped from homes,
But now all these have gone;
And reminding us of the days of yore,
Stands the township — Dandenong!"

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