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Where Hoofs Beat Over Him

(Told of an old-time squatter, Harry Anning)

Edward S. Sorenson

A lover of horses all his life,
    He asked, when his days were done
And his whip no more in the rush and strife
    On old Mount Sturgeon run,
That they plant him deep at the stockyard gate,
    Where the horses, staunch and trim,
Would gallop in ere the day was late,
    And their hoofs beat over him.

Where stockmen mounted the bucking colts
    When the mustering day began,
And saddles creaked to the jars and jolts,
    Was the place for a cattleman;
No stone or rail for his resting-place,
    No flower on his trampled bed,
Nor aught to turn or to dull the race
    Of the hoof-drums overhead.

A pioneer in the squatting days
    When the runs were wild and wide,
He won the blacks from their savage ways,
    And he taught the boys to ride
In the stockyard, where ‘twas a test of skill
    ‘Tween the colt and the station-hand,
And there in spirit he’s with them still
    And the mob with the Anning brand.

Though he may not sit, ere the morning chimes
    Bound over the beaten course,
On the cap he’d straddled a thousand times,
    Or astride of a phantom horse,
They know he’s there, for they can’t forget
    As they pass when the light is dim,
A merry troop for the muster yet,
    Light-clattering over him.

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