How M'Ginnis Went Missing

Let us cease our idle chatter, / Let the tears bedew our cheek, / For a man from Tallangatta / Has been missing for a week.

Where the roaring flooded Murray / Covered all the lower land, / There he started in a hurry, / With a bottle in his hand.

And his fate is hid for ever, / But the public seem to think / That he slumbered by the river, / 'Neath the influence of drink.

And they scarcely seem to wonder / That the river, wide and deep, / Never woke him with its thunder, / Never stirred him in his sleep.

As the crashing logs came sweeping, / And their tumult filled the air, / Then M'Ginnis murmured, sleeping, / ''Tis a wake in ould Kildare.'

So the river rose and found him / Sleeping softly by the stream, / And the cruel waters drowned him / Ere he wakened from his dream.

And the blossom-tufted wattle, / Blooming brightly on the lea, / Saw M'Ginnis and the bottle / Going drifting out to sea.