Explore "With the Cattle" by Andrew Barton Paterson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The drought is down on field and flock, / The river-bed is dry; / And we must shift the starving stock / Before the cattle die. / We muster up with weary hearts / At breaking of the day, / And turn our heads to foreign parts, / To take the stock away. / And it's hunt 'em up and dog 'em, / And it's get the whip and flog 'em, / For it's weary work is droving when they're dying every day; / By stock-routes bare and eaten, / On dusty roads and beaten, / With half a chance to save their lives we take the stock away.
We cannot use the whip for shame / On beasts that crawl along; / We have to drop the weak and lame, / And try to save the strong; / The wrath of God is on the track, / The drought fiend holds his sway, / With blows and cries and stockwhip crack / We take the stock away. / As they fall we leave them lying, / With the crows to watch them dying, / Grim sextons of the Overland that fasten on their prey; / By the fiery dust-storm drifting, / And the mocking mirage shifting, / In heat and drought and hopeless pain we take the stock away.