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Project Gutenberg Australia HomeReturn to Index of Poems
‘Twas Mulga Mick who chose to stay
Out where the desert frowns,
When boss and men, through drought’s long sway,
Abandoned Mulga Downs.
He worked there from the long ago,
And cared no more to roam;
He’d seen the station built, and so
Regarded it as home.
A great lone run was left to him,
With house and sheds and yards,
And huts where Tom and Jack and Jim
Beguiled cold nights with cards;
A run with not a cloven hoof
To trail across the dunes,
A homestead where each gleaming roof
Heard but wild desert tunes.
The only stock on plain and hill,
He called his flocks and herds,
Whence he betimes his pot could fill,
Were kangaroos and birds,
Plus karnies that he dug with care
Deep in the river loam;
But Mick was used to mulga fare,
And Mulga Downs was home.
Free lord where’er he roamed and prayed,
He dreamed his days away,
Though half the wealth that he surveyed
Was falling to decay;
The yards were choked with drifting sand,
But he saw cattle there,
Great mobs where dust obscured the land—
He heard them everywhere.
At morning’s breath of gum and musk
He called back youth and pride,
And in the golden glow of dusk
Saw phantom horsemen ride.
He took the stockwhip from its peg,
Struck up a stockman’s song,
And, hopping on his “gammy” leg,
Woke echoes with its thong.
He mustered ‘neath the sheen of stars
The mobs of other years,
What time the clink of stirrup bars
Was music to his ears;
And o’er the trails to southern towns
He’d blazed with Tom and Dick
Dream cattle went from Mulga Downs,
From Squatter Mulga Mick.
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