Out on the wastes of the Never Never
Thats where the dead men lie!
There where the heat-waves dance forever
Thats where the dead men lie!
Thats where the Earths loved sons are keeping
Endless tryst: not the west wind sweeping
Feverish pinions can wake their sleeping
Out where the dead men lie!
Where brown Summer and Death have mated
Thats where the dead men lie!
Loving with fiery lust unsated
Thats where the dead men lie!
Out where the grinning skulls bleach whitely
Under the saltbush sparkling brightly;
Out where the wild dogs chorus nightly
Thats where the dead men lie!
Deep in the yellow, flowing river
Thats where the dead men lie!
Under the banks where the shadows quiver
Thats where the dead men he!
Where the platypus twists and doubles,
Leaving a train of tiny bubbles.
Rid at last of their earthly troubles
Thats where the dead men lie!
East and backward pale faces turning
Thats how the dead men lie!
Gaunt arms stretched with a voiceless yearning
Thats how the dead men lie!
Oft in the fragrant hush of nooning
Hearing again their mothers crooning,
Wrapt for aye in a dreamful swooning
Thats how the dead men lie!
Only the hand of Night can free them
Thats when the dead men fly!
Only the frightened cattle see them
See the dead men go by!
Cloven hoofs beating out one measure,
Bidding the stockmen know no leisure
Thats when the dead men take their pleasure!
Thats when the dead men fly!
Ask, too, the never-sleeping drover:
He sees the dead pass by;
Hearing them call to their friends the plover,
Hearing the dead men cry;
Seeing their faces stealing, stealing,
Hearing their laughter, pealing, pealing,
Watching their grey forms wheeling, wheeling
Round where the cattle lie!
Strangled by thirst and fierce privation
Thats how the dead men die!
Out on Moneygrubs farthest station
Thats how the dead men die!
Hard-faced greybeards, youngsters caflow;
Some mounds cared for, some left fallow;
Some deep down, yet others shallow.
Some having but the sky.
Moneygrub, as he sips his claret,
Looks with complacent eye
Down at his watch-chain, eighteen carat
There, in his club, hard by:
Recks not that every link is stamped with
Names of the men whose limbs are cramped with
Too long lying in grave-mould, cramped with
Death where the dead men lie.
Where the Dead Men Lie
Barcroft Boake
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