No soft-skinned Durham steers are they,
Pull out, pull out, at break of morn
He needs no sign of cross or kirn
Where eaglehawks their eyries make,
Beyond the furthest bridle track
On easy grade and rubber tyre
No Devons plump and red,
But brindled, black, and iron-grey
That mark the mountain-bred;
For mountain-bred and mountain-broke,
With sullen eyes agleam,
No stranger's hand could put a yoke
On old Black Harry's team.
The creeks are running white,
And Tiuger, Spot, and Snailey-horn
Must bend their bows by night;
And axles, wheels and flooring boards
Are swept with flying spray
As, shoulder-deep, through mountain fords
The leaders feel their way.
To guide him as he goes,
For every twist and every turn
That old black leader knows.
Up mountains steep they heave and strain
Where never wheel has rolled,
And what the toiling leaders gain
The body bullocks hold.
On sidelings steep and blind,
He rigs the good old-fashioned brake--
A tree tied on behind.
Up mountains, straining to the full,
Each poler plays his part--
The sullen, stubborn bullock pull
That breaks a horse's heart.
His wheels have blazed the way;
The forest giants, burnt and black,
Are earmarked by his dray.
Through belts of scrub where messmates grow
His juggernaut has rolled,
For stumps and saplings have to go
When Harry's team takes hold.
The tourist car goes through;
The halt a moment to admire
The far-flung mountain view.
The tourist folk would be amazed
If they could get to know
They take the track Black Harry blazed
A hundred years ago.
On the outer Barcoo where the churches are few,
Now this Mike was the dad of a ten-year-old lad,
And his wife used to cry, "If the darlin' should die
Now the artful young rogue, while they held their collogue,
He was none of your dolts -- He had seen them brand colts,
So away with a rush he set off for the bush,
Like a young native dog he ran into a log,
But he lay there as snug as a bug in a rug,
"Poke a stick up the log, give the spalpeen a prog;
"Here he comes, and for shame, ye've forgotten the name --
As the howling young cub ran away to the scrub
Now Maginnis Magee has been made a J.P.,
The stranger came from Narromine and made his little joke--
"Last summer up in Narromine 'twas gettin' rather warm--
"We don't respect the clouds up there, they fill us with disgust,
"There's clouds of rain and clouds of dust -- we've heard of them before,
"It wasn't like a common cloud, 'twas more a sort of haze;
"Oh, Lord! we had a dreadful time beneath that cloud of thirst!
"We couldn't leave the private bar no matter how we tried;
"We drank until the drink gave out, we searched from room to room,
"And, once outside the cloud of thirst, we felt as right as pie,
"But when you see these clouds about -- like this one over here--
We stood the man from Narromine a pint of half-and-half;
And now beyond the Western Range, where sunset skies are red,
I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better
And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
In my wild erratic fancy visions come to me of Clancy
And the bush has friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
I am sitting in my dingy little office where a stingy
And in place of lowing cattle, I can hear the fiendish rattle
And the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt me
And I somehow rather fancy that I'd like to change with Clancy,
'Twas the horse thief, Andy Regan, that was hunted like a dog
`Now, it's listen, Father Riley, to the words I've got to say,
`Yes, I'm making home to mother's, and I'll die o' Tuesday next
`And there's nothing in the district that can race him for a step,
`But it's getting on to daylight and it's time to say goodbye,
So they buried Andy Regan, and they buried him to rights,
Then the races came to Kiley's -- with a steeplechase and all,
And they read the nominations for the races with surprise
And the priest would join the laughter: `Oh,' said he, `I put him in,
It was Hogan, the dog poisoner -- aged man and very wise,
`For there's some has got condition, and they think the race is sure,
Oh, the steeple was a caution! They went tearin' round and round,
Oh, the shouting and the cheering as he rattled past the post!
And the poor of Kiley's Crossing drank the health at Christmastide
A Bush Christening
And men of religion are scanty,
On a road never cross'd 'cept by folk that are lost,
One Michael Magee had a shanty.
Plump, healthy, and stoutly conditioned;
He was strong as the best, but poor Mike had no rest
For the youngster had never been christened.
Saint Peter would not recognize him."
But by luck he survived till a preacher arrived,
Who agreed straightaway to baptize him.
With his ear to the keyhole was listenin';
And he muttered in fright, while his features turned white,
"What the divil and all is this christenin'?"
And it seemed to his small understanding,
If the man in the frock made him one of the flock,
It must mean something very like branding.
While the tears in his eyelids they glistened --
"'Tis outrageous," says he, "to brand youngsters like me;
I'll be dashed if I'll stop to be christened!"
And his father with language uncivil,
Never heeding the "praste", cried aloud in his haste
"Come out and be christened, you divil!"
And his parents in vain might reprove him,
Till his reverence spoke (he was fond of a joke)
"I've a notion," says he, "that'll move him.
Poke him aisy -- don't hurt him or maim him;
'Tis not long that he'll stand, I've the water at hand,
As he rushes out this end I'll name him.
Is it Patsy or Michael or Dinnis?"
Here the youngster ran out, and the priest gave a shout --
"Take your chance, anyhow, wid `Maginnis'!"
Where he knew that pursuit would be risky,
The priest, as he fled, flung a flask at his head
That was labelled "Maginnis's Whisky"!
And the one thing he hates more than sin is
To be asked by the folk, who have heard of the joke,
How he came to be christened Maginnis!
The City Of Dreadful Thirst
"They say we folks in Narromine are narrow-minded folk.
But all the smartest men down here are puzzled to define
A kind of new phenomenon that came to Narromine.
Two hundred in the water bag, and lookin' like a storm--
We all were in the private bar, the coolest place in town,
When out across the stretch of plain a cloud came rollin' down,
They mostly bring a Bogan shower -- three raindrops and some dust;
But each man, simultaneous-like, to each man said, "I think
That cloud suggests it's up to us to have another drink!"
And sometimes in the daily press we read of "clouds of war":
But -- if this ain't the Gospel truth I hope that I may burst--
That cloud that came to Narromine was just a cloud of thirst.
It settled down about the streets, and stopped for days and days,
And now a drop of dew could fall and not a sunbeam shine
To pierce that dismal sort of mist that hung on Narromine.
We all chucked up our daily work and went upon the burst.
The very blacks about the town that used to cadge for grub,
They made an organised attack and tried to loot the pub.
Shearers and squatters, union men and blacklegs side by side
Were drinkin' there and dursn't move, for each was sure, he said,
Before he'd get a half a mile the thirst would strike him dead!
And round the pub, like drunken ghosts, went howling through the gloom.
The shearers found some kerosene and settled down again,
But all the squatter chaps and I, we staggered to the train.
But while we stopped about the town we had to drink or die.
But now I hear it's safe enough, I'm going back to work
Because they say the cloud of thirst has shifted on to Bourke.
All white and frothy at the top, just like a pint of beer,
It's time to go and have a drink, for if that cloud should burst
You'd find the drink would all be gone, for that's a cloud of thirst!"
He drank it off without a gasp in one tremendous quaff;
"I joined some friends last night," he said, "in what they called a spree;
But after Narromine 'twas just a holiday to me."
And clouds of dust, and clouds of thirst, go drifting overhead,
The railway train is taking back, along the Western Line,
That narrow-minded person on his road to Narromine.
Clancy Of The Overflow
Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan years ago;
He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him,
Just on spec, addressed as follows, "Clancy, of The Overflow."
(And I think the same was written with a thumbnail dipped in tar);
'Twas his shearing mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it:
"Clancy's gone to Queensland droving, and we don't know where he are."
Gone a-droving "down the Cooper" where the Western drovers go;
As the stock are slowly stringing, Clancy rides behind them singing,
For the drover's life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know.
In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars,
And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended,
And at night the wondrous glory of the everlasting stars.
Ray of sunlight struggles feebly down between the houses tall,
And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty city,
Through the open window floating, spreads its foulness over all.
Of the tramways and the buses making hurry down the street;
And the language uninviting of the gutter children fighting
Comes fitfully and faintly through the ceaseless tramp of feet.
As they shoulder one another in the rush and nervous haste,
With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy,
For townsfolk have no time to grow, they have no time to waste.
Like to take a turn at droving where the seasons come and go,
While he faced the round eternal of the cashbook and the journal --
But I doubt he'd suit the office, Clancy of The Overflow.
Father Riley's Horse
By the troopers of the upper Murray side,
They had searched in every gully -- they had looked in every log,
But never sight or track of him they spied,
Till the priest at Kiley's Crossing heard a knocking very late
And a whisper `Father Riley -- come across!'
So his Rev'rence in pyjamas trotted softly to the gate
And admitted Andy Regan -- and a horse!
For it's close upon my death I am tonight.
With the troopers hard behind me I've been hiding all the day
In the gullies keeping close and out of sight.
But they're watching all the ranges till there's not a bird could fly,
And I'm fairly worn to pieces with the strife,
So I'm taking no more trouble, but I'm going home to die,
'Tis the only way I see to save my life.
An' be buried on the Thursday -- and, of course,
I'm prepared to meet my penance, but with one thing I'm perplexed
And it's -- Father, it's this jewel of a horse!
He was never bought nor paid for, and there's not a man can swear
To his owner or his breeder, but I know,
That his sire was by Pedantic from the Old Pretender mare
And his dam was close related to The Roe.
He could canter while they're going at their top:
He's the king of all the leppers that was ever seen to lep,
A five-foot fence -- he'd clear it in a hop!
So I'll leave him with you, Father, till the dead shall rise again,
Tis yourself that knows a good 'un; and, of course,
You can say he's got by Moonlight out of Paddy Murphy's plain
If you're ever asked the breeding of the horse!
For the stars above the east are growing pale.
And I'm making home to mother -- and it's hard for me to die!
But it's harder still, is keeping out of gaol!
You can ride the old horse over to my grave across the dip
Where the wattle bloom is waving overhead.
Sure he'll jump them fences easy -- you must never raise the whip
Or he'll rush 'em! -- now, goodbye!' and he had fled!
In the graveyard at the back of Kiley's Hill;
There were five-and-twenty mourners who had five-and-twenty fights
Till the very boldest fighters had their fill.
There were fifty horses racing from the graveyard to the pub,
And their riders flogged each other all the while.
And the lashin's of the liquor! And the lavin's of the grub!
Oh, poor Andy went to rest in proper style.
For the folk were mostly Irish round about,
And it takes an Irish rider to be fearless of a fall,
They were training morning in and morning out.
But they never started training till the sun was on the course
For a superstitious story kept 'em back,
That the ghost of Andy Regan on a slashing chestnut horse,
Had been training by the starlight on the track.
And amusement at the Father's little joke,
For a novice had been entered for the steeplechasing prize,
And they found it was Father Riley's moke!
He was neat enough to gallop, he was strong enough to stay!
But his owner's views of training were immense,
For the Reverend Father Riley used to ride him every day,
And he never saw a hurdle nor a fence.
For there's five-and-twenty sovereigns to be won.
And the poor would find it useful, if the chestnut chanced to win,
And he'll maybe win when all is said and done!'
He had called him Faugh-a-ballagh, which is French for `clear the course',
And his colours were a vivid shade of green:
All the Dooleys and O'Donnells were on Father Riley's horse,
While the Orangemen were backing Mandarin!
Who was camping in the racecourse with his swag,
And who ventured the opinion, to the township's great surprise,
That the race would go to Father Riley's nag.
`You can talk about your riders -- and the horse has not been schooled,
And the fences is terrific, and the rest!
When the field is fairly going, then ye'll see ye've all been fooled,
And the chestnut horse will battle with the best.
And the chestnut horse will fall beneath the weight,
But the hopes of all the helpless, and the prayers of all the poor,
Will be running by his side to keep him straight.
And it's what's the need of schoolin' or of workin' on the track,
Whin the saints are there to guide him round the course!
I've prayed him over every fence -- I've prayed him out and back!
And I'll bet my cash on Father Riley's horse!'
And the fences rang and rattled where they struck.
There was some that cleared the water -- there was more fell in and drowned,
Some blamed the men and others blamed the luck!
But the whips were flying freely when the field came into view,
For the finish down the long green stretch of course,
And in front of all the flyers -- jumpin' like a kangaroo,
Came the rank outsider -- Father Riley's horse!
For he left the others standing, in the straight;
And the rider -- well they reckoned it was Andy Regan's ghost,
And it beat 'em how a ghost would draw the weight!
But he weighed in, nine stone seven, then he laughed and disappeared,
Like a banshee (which is Spanish for an elf),
And old Hogan muttered sagely, `If it wasn't for the beard
They'd be thinking it was Andy Regan's self!'
Of the chestnut and his rider dressed in green.
There was never such a rider, not since Andy Regan died,
And they wondered who on earth he could have been.
But they settled it among 'em, for the story got about,
'Mongst the bushmen and the people on the course,
That the Devil had been ordered to let Andy Regan out
For the steeplechase on Father Riley's horse!
They made him a bet in a private bar,
In a private bar when the talk was high,
And they bet him some pounds no matter how far
He could pelt a stone, yet he could not shy
A stone right over the river so brown,
The Darling river at Walgett town.
He knew that the river from bank to bank
Was fifty yards, and he smiled a smile
As he trundled down, but his hopes they sank
For there wasn't a stone within fifty mile;
For the saltbush plain and the open down
Produce no quarries in Walgett town.
The yokels laughed at his hopes o'erthrown,
And he stood awhile like a man in a dream;
Then out of his pocket he fetched a stone,
And pelted it over the silent stream --
He had been there before: he had wandered down
On a previous visit to Walgett town.