TUSSOCK AND ASPHALT RHYMES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2274, 30 September 1897, Page 49

TUSSOCK AND ASPHALT RHYMES.

Bx David M'Kee Wright.

No 30.— 0N THE WALLABY AGAIN. The grass is green and growing and the year is wearing on, And the fogs and frcsts of winter and the stormy days are gone, Aud the poison gangs are brokeD, and the cheques are mostly done, And the men are moving northward to the springtime and^be sun, To put in the time till shearing on the stations of the plain, Cadging round with swag and billy — on the wallaby again. The>'il be talking of the harvest, they'll be looking for a shed, And the joys of life will centre round the mutton and the bread ; And the hard cases will gather on the lonely mutton track, Telling yarns of hungry ventures to tb.9 stations at the back ; By the homesteads o! the cocksys, by the gum trees on the platD, j Tramping round with swag and billy — cm the wallaby again. Therfc'll be tents among the willows where Temuka's waters flow, There'll be billies boiled in shelter where- the loud nor'-westers blow, And the circle of the stations will be noted like a book, from the cornfields about Longbeach to the shadow of Mount Cook ; In the wilderness of Tarn dale aud the broad Amuri plain, The same old crowd will muster on the wallaby again. There'll be tallish stories telling of the money that was made, Ani the cheques knocked down in dozsns by the publicans' brigade ; And the finest bit of landscape will bs looking pretty blue To the joker th*fc is telling how the spieler pub him through ; And the pipeful of tobacco will be soughb- for all in vain In the empty trousers pockets — on the wallaby again. In the flue beside the rive£ they'll be measuring tb.3 sun ; They'll be looking at the ploughman till his daily work is dotje — Till Wb time to make the homestead for the shakedown aud the feed, And the cliance to find a j ;ker with a pipeful of the weed ; Sailing up with bluey hoisted to the station on the plain — Men of every tcibe and nation on the wallaby agaiu. Dunedin, September 1897.