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Only there's a drowsy humming
From yon warm lagoon slow-coming :
'Tis the dragon-hornet-
see!
All bedaubed resplendently
Yellow on a tawny ground-
Each rich spot not square nor round,
Rudely heart-shaped, as it were
The blurred and hasty impress there
Of a vermeil-crusted seal
Dusted o'er with golden meal.
Only there's a droning where
Yon bright beetle shines in air,
Tracks it in its gleaming flight
With a slanting beam of light
Rising in the sunshine higher,
Till its shards flame out like fire.

Every other thing is still,
Save the ever-wakeful rill,
Whose cool murmur only throws
Cooler comfort round repose;
Or some ripple in the sea,
Of leafy boughs, where, lazily,
Tired summer, in her bower
Turning with the noontide hour,
Heaves a slumbrous breath ere she
Once more slumbers peacefully.

Oh, 't is easeful here to lie
Hidden from noon's scorching eye,
In this grassy cool recess
Musing thus of quietness.

AN ABORIGINAL MOTHER'S

LAMENT

STILL farther would I fly, my child, To make thee safer yet

From the unsparing white man, With his dread hand murder-wet!

I'll bear thee on as I have borne

With stealthy steps wind-fleet,
But the dark night shrouds the forest,
And thorns are in my feet.

O moan not! I would give this braid-
Thy father's gift to me -
But for a single palmful

Of water now for thee.

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Ah, spring not to his name - no more
To glad us may he come
He is smouldering into ashes
Beneath the blasted gum;
All charred and blasted by the fire
The white man kindled there,
And fed with our slaughtered kindred
Till heaven-high went its glare !

And but for thee, I would their fire
Had eaten me as fast!

Hark! Hark! I hear his death-cry
Yet lengthening up the blast!

But no- when his bound hands had signed
The way that we should fly,
On the roaring pyre flung bleeding —
I saw thy father die !

No more shall his loud tomahawk
Be plied to win our cheer,
Or the shining fish pools darken

Beneath his shadowing spear;
The fading tracks of his fleet foot
Shall guide not as before,
And the mountain-spirits mimic
His hunting call no more!

O moan not! I would give this braid-
Thy father's gift to me
For but a single palmful

Of water now for thee.

Kobert Lowe, Uiscount Sherbrooke

SONG OF THE SQUATTER

THE Commissioner bet me a pony - I won, So he cut off exactly two-thirds of my run; For he said I was making a fortune too fast,

And profit gained slower the longer would last.

He remarked, as devouring my mutton be

sat,

That I suffered my sheep to grow sadly too fat;

That they wasted waste land, did preroga tive brown,

And rebelliously nibbled the droits of the Crown;

That the creek that divided my station in

two

Showed that Nature designed that two fees should be due.

Mr. Riddle assured me 't was paid but for show,

But he kept it and spent it, that's all that I know.

The commissioner fined me because I forgot

To return an old ewe that was ill of the rot,

And a poor wry-necked lamb that we kept for a pet;

And he said it was treason such things to forget.

The commissioner pounded my cattle be

cause

They had mumbled the scrub with their famishing jaws

On the part of the run he had taken away, And be sold them by auction the costs to defray.

The border police they were out all the day

To look for some thieves who had ransacked my dray;

But the thieves they continued in quiet and peace,

For they'd robbed it themselves, had the border police!

When the white thieves had left me the

black thieves appeared,

My shepherds they waddied, my cattle they speared;

But from fear of my license I said not a word,

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"But none can outlast her, and few travel faster,

She strides in her work clean away from
The Drag;

You hold her and sit her, she could n't be fitter,

Whenever you hit her she 'll spring like a stag.

"And p'raps the green jacket, at odds though they back it,

May fall, or there's no knowing what may turn up.

The mare is quite ready, sit still and ride steady,

Keep cool; and I think you may just win the Cup."

Dark-brown with tan muzzle, just stripped for the tussle,

Stood Iseult, arching her neck to the curb, A lean head and fiery, strong quarters and wiry,

A loin rather light, but a shoulder superb.

Some parting injunction, bestowed with great unction,

I tried to recall, but forgot like a dunce, When Reginald Murray, full tilt on White Surrey,

Came down in a hurry to start us at

once.

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'T was merry in the glowing morn among the gleaming grass,

To wander as we 've wandered many a mile,

And blow the cool tobacco cloud, and watch the white wreaths pass,

Sitting loosely in the saddle all the while. 'T was merry 'mid the blackwoods, when we spied the station roofs,

To wheel the wild scrub cattle at the yard, With a running fire of stock whips and a fiery run of hoofs;

Oh! the hardest day was never then too hard!

Aye! we had a glorious gallop after "Starlight" and his gang,

When they bolted from Sylvester's on the flat;

How the sun-dried reed-beds crackled, how the flint-strewn ranges rang,

To the strokes of "Mountaineer" and "Acrobat,"

Hard behind them in the timber, harder still across the heath,

Close beside them through the tea-tree scrub we dashed;

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