And the mariner says, What Cheer!






THE AUSTRALIAN STOCKRIDER

I ride to the tramp and shuffle of hoofs
Away to the wild waste land,
I can see the sun on the station roofs,
And a stretch of the shifting sand;
The forest of horns is a shaking sea,
Where white waves tumble and pass;
The cockatoo screams in the myall-tree,
And the adder-head gleams in the grass.

The clouds swing out from beyond the hills
And valance the face of the sky,
And the Spirit of Winds creeps up and fills
The plains with a plaintive cry;
A boundary-rider on lonely beat
Creeps round the horizon's rim;
He has little to do, and plenty to eat,
And the world is a blank to him.

His friends are his pipe, and dog, and tea,
His wants, they are soon supplied;
And his mind, like the weeping myall-tree,