ME AND BILL.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume IX, Issue 41, 8 October 1892, Page 1000

ME AND BILL.

I sit beside tbe crackling fire and watch its cheery blaze, And catch within its glowing depths a glimpse of other days; I hear the crack of teamsters’ whips resounding up the hill, And see again the ugly face of my old pardner, Bill. I see bis long, ungainly form, his brown neek hard and bare, His kindly eyes, his gaping month, bis coarse and matted hair; I hear again his ghostly laugh and watch his genial grin, And feel his hard and knotted paw a-grasping of my fin. And visions of the long ago come surging through my brain, I feel the horse between my knees and see the stretching plain, I hear the thundering crash of hoofs, and feel onee more the tb r ill That ian like fire throughout my veins when drovin’ long with Bill. I feel the fresh breeze playing round my thin and withered cheek, And Bill’s long stockwhip cracking (he could almost make it speak, And I hear the cattle lowing, and I feel the headlong rush, As 1 felt it in the old days with the fellers in the bush. And I see the camp-fire blazing ’neath the over-hanging trees. And the boys a-spinning coffers to the sighing of the breeze. Whilst high abo“e the others, like a curlew’s clear and shrill, I can bear the piercing accents of my brave old partner Bill. But my hands have grown unsteady and my sight is getting dim, And I think I have rheumatics near in every blessed limb, And I know that in the saddle now I’d ent a pretty shine, But as every dog his day has so has every man his time. And I think the only horses that I’ll ride on any more Will be those I find in glory when 1 reach the other shore; And I don’t know mnch about it—no, I don’t know much ; but still I bet there ain't a horse there that can throw my pardner Bill. For he’s rode the wildest brumbies, and he sat and stuck them there, Till you’d think that every minute he’d come flying through the air, And I never knew him beaten, though for twenty years and three We have rode and droved together like two brothers, him and me. But now he’s mustered horses and is on the other side, A-teaching of the angels how a stockman ought to ride, And where he has gone Tm goin’, for I’ll never rest until I’m a-drafting heavenly cattle in the plains up there with Bilk W. Cbompton.