Project Gutenberg Australia a treasure-trove of literature treasure found hidden with no evidence of ownership

Watering-Time

Edward S. Sorenson

‘Tis watering-time, and from scrub and grass
    Come clamorous thousands that,
With feathers and wool in a mingled mass,
    Soon carpet the dusty flat;
The station sheep and the bushland birds—
    Corollas, galahs and crows,
Their Mecca a well that a sandhill girds
    And that every creature knows.

The place that was still and so dead around
    That the shepherd could laze and dream
Is stirred a-sudden to life and sound,
    And he wakes at the eagle’s scream.
‘Tis watering-time, as the shades advise,
    And he hustles and hums and sings
To the patter of hoofs down the timbered rise
    And the beat of a thousand wings.

The troughs are long at Pindara Hut,
    And he fills them one by one,
While the mobs come bleating o’er ridge and rut
    When the sweltering day is done.
Round and round the old whim-horse plods
    In the roseate sunset glow,
To the creak-creak-creak of the lifting rods
    And the gush from the well below.

The cooling air of the closing day
    Is filled with the cries and coughs
Of the eager squads as they swing and sway
    And scramble around the troughs;
While the waiting bevies spread out and close,
    Loud screeching to hawks at heel,
And with flashing of white and of grey and rose
    They circle and swoop and wheel.

The mobs are big at Pindara Hut,
    They gather from every side;
But the well is deep for the daily glut,
    And the old horse keeps his stride
Till the cobbler turns with a labored trot
    For the hills where the pasture grows,
And the troughs are left to the feathered lot—
    The parrots and hawks and crows.

This site is full of FREE ebooks - Project Gutenberg Australia