The squatter kings of New South Wales—

The squatter kings who reign

O'er rocky hill, and scrubby ridge,

O'er swamp, and salt-bush plain—

Fenced in their runs, and coves applied

For shepherding in vain.

The squatters said that closed should be

To tramps each station-store;

That parties on the "cadging suit"

Should ne'er have succour more;

And when Bill the shepherd heard the same

He bowed his neck and swore.

Now, though that ancient shepherd felt

So mad he couldn't speak,

No sighs escape his breast, no tears

From out his eyelids leak,

But he swore upon the human race

A black revenge to wreak.

He brooded long, and a fiendish light

Lit up the face of Bill;

He saw the way to work on men

A dark and grievous ill,

And place them far beyond the aid

Of senna, salts, or pill.

He hied him to his lonely hut

By a deep dark, lakelet's shore;

He passed beneath its lowly roof—

He shut and locked the door;

And he emptied out his flour bag

Upon the hard clay floor.

Awhile he eyed the mighty mound

With dark, malignant zeal,

And then, a shovel having found,

"Their fates," said he, "I'll seal";

And he made a "damper" broad and round

As a Roman chariot-wheel.

He soddened it with water drawn

From out that black lagoon,

And he smiled to think that those who ate

A piece of it would soon

Be where they'd neither see the light

Of sun, nor stars, nor moon.

For when that damper came to be

Dug from its glowing bed,

Its fell specific gravity

Was far o'er gold or lead,

And a look of satisfaction o'er

That shepherd's features spread.

Fytte the Second.

The shepherd sat by the gloomy shore

Of the black and dark lagoon;

His face was lit, and his elf-locks hoar

By the rays of the rising moon.

Original

His hand was clenched, and his visage wore

A deadly frown and black,

And his eye-balls glare, for a stranger fair

Is wending down the track.

The shepherd hath bidden the stranger halt

With courtesy and zeal,

And hath welcomed him to his low roof-tree,

And a share of his evening meal.

As the fare he pressed on his hungry guest,

And thought of its deadly weight,

With savage glee he smiled for he

Imagined his after fate.

The stranger hath eaten his fill I ween

Of that fell and gruesome cake,

And hath hied him away in the moon-light's sheen

For a stroll by the deep, dark lake;

For he thought he'd lave each stalwart limb

In the wavelet's curling crest,

And take a dive and a pleasant swim

'Ere he laid him down to rest.

The coat that covered his ample chest

On the lakelet's marge he threw;

His hat, his boots, and his flannel-vest,

And his moleskin trowsers too.

He hummed a tune, and he paused awhile

To hear the night-owl sing;

His ears were cocked, and his palms were locked,

Prepared for the final spring.

An unsuspecting look he cast

At the objects on the shore—

A splash! a thud! and beneath the flood

He sank to rise no more!

The shepherd saw from his lonely hut

The dread catastrophÉ;

A notch on a withered stick he cut—

"That's number one," said he,

"But, if I live 'till to-morrow's sun

"Shall gild the blue-gum tree,

"With more, I'll stake my soul, that cake

"Of mine will disagree."

Then down he sat by his lonely hut

That stood by the lonely track,

To the lakelet nigh, and a horse came by

With a horse-man on his back.

And lean and lank was the traveller's frame

That sat on that horse's crup:

'Twas long I ween since the wight had seen

The ghost of a bite or sup.

"Oh! give me food!" to the shepherd old

With plaintive cry he cried;

A mildewed crust or a pint o'dust *

Or a mutton cutlet fried.

"In sooth in evil case am I,

Fatigue and hunger too

Have played the deuce with my gastric juice,

It's 'got no work to do.'

"I've come o'er ridges of burning sand

That gasp for the cooling rain,

Where the orb of day with his blinding ray

Glares down on the salt-bush plain

"O'er steaming valley, lagoon, and marsh

Where the Sun strikes down 'till, phew!

The very eels in the water feels

A foretaste of a stew.

"I hungered long 'till my wasting form

Was a hideous sight to view;

But fit on a settler's fence to sit

To scare the cockatoo.

"My hair grew rank, and my eyeballs sank

'Till—wasted, withered, and thin—

The ends and points of my jarring joints

Stuck out through my parched up skin.

"Shrunk limb and thew, 'till at length I grew

As thin as a gum-tree rail;

At the horrid sight of my hideous plight

Each settler's face turned pale:

"And as I travelled the mulga scrubs,

And forced a passage through

I scared the soul of the native black

A gathering his 'nardoo.'

"On snake or lizard I'd fain have fed,

But piteous was my plight,

And the whole of the brute creation fled

In horror at the sight.

"Scrub turkeys, emus, I appall;

Their eggs I longed to poach,

But they collared their eggs, their nests and all,

And fled at my approach!

Original

"And the possums 'streaked' it up the trees,

And frightened the young gallÂrs,

And all the hairs on the native-bears

Stood stiff as iron bars!"

The shepherd came from his low roof-tree

And gazed at the shrunken wight;

He gave him welcome courteously,

And jested at his plight.

He led the traveller 'neath his roof,

And gazed in his wan, worn face,

Where want was writ, and he bid him sit

On an empty 'three-star' case.

And a smile of evil import played

On the face of ancient Bill

As some of the damper down he laid,

And bid him take his fill.

With mute thanksgiving in his breast

The food the stranger tore;

Piece after piece he closely pressed

Down on the piece before.

And then—his heart fresh buoyed with hope—

Essayed to mount his steed,

But the horse shut flat as an opera-hat

With the weight of his master's feed;

And horse and man sunk through the sod

Some sixty feet or less!

No crust, I swear, of the Earth could bear

The weight of the gruesome mess!

Original

Then the shepherd grinned with a grizzly grin

As he notched his stick again;

The night passed by and the sun rose high

And glared on the salt-bush plain.

Two "gins" set forth in a bark canoe

To traverse the gloomy lake,

And he bid them take enough for two,

For lunch, of the deadly cake.

Original

Enough for two! 'twas enough I ween

To settle the hash of four,

For the barque o'er-flowed with the crushing load—

They sank to rise no more.

And ever his fiendish lust for blood—

His thirst for vengeance grows;

In sport he threw a crumb or two

To the hawks and carrion crows;

And as they helpless, fluttering lay,

His eldrich laughter rings;

One crumb to bear through the lambent air

Was past the power of wings.

Beside his door he sat 'till noon

When a bullock-team came by;

The echoes 'round with the whips resound,

And the drivers' cheery cry.

Upon the dray a piece he threw

No bigger than your hand,

Of the cursed thing, 'twas enough to bring

The bullocks to a stand.

And, though they bend their sinewy necks

'Till red with their crimson gore,

And fiercely strain yoke, pole, and chain

With savage, muttering roar,

The wheels sank down to the axle-tree—

Through the hard baked clay they tore,

And a single jot from out that spot

They shifted never more.

Then the shepherd called to the drivers, "Ho!

My frugal meal partake."

And, though they ate but a crumb or two

Of the fell, unholy cake,

Down, down they sank on the scorching track,

Immovable and prone,

And steel blue ants crawled up their pants

And ate them to the bone!

For days by his lonely hut sat Bill,

The hut to the lakelet nigh,

And he wrought his dark revengeful will

On each traveller that came by.

And he eats nor drinks meat, bread, nor gruel,

Nor washes, nor combs, nor shaves,

But he yelled, and he danced a wild pas seul

O'er each of his victims' graves.

Three weeks passed by, but his end was nigh—

His day was near its close,

For rumour whispered his horrid deeds,

And in arms the settlers rose.

They came, hinds, shepherds, and shearers too,

And squatters of high degree;

His hands they tied, and his case they tried

'Neath the shade of a blue gum tree.

They sentence passed, and they gripped him fast,

Though to tear their flesh he tried;

His teeth he ground, but his limbs they bound

With thongs of a wild bull's hide.

They laid him down on a "bull-dog's" nest,

For the bull-dog ants to sting;

On his withered chest they pile the rest

Of the damnÈd cursÈd thing.

They gather round and they stir the ground

'Till the insects swarm again,

And the echoes wake by the gloomy lake

With his cry of rage and pain.

O'er his writhing form the insects swarm—

O'er arm, o'er foot, and leg;

The damper pressed on his heaving chest,

And he couldn't move a peg.

'Till eve he lay in the scorching heat,

And the rays of the blinding sun,

Then the black-ants came and they soon complete

What the bull-dogs have begun.

Original

'Tis o'er at last, and his spirit passed

With a yell of fiendish hate,

And down by the shore of that black lagoon,

Where his victims met their fate—

Where the "bunyip" glides, and the inky tides

Lip, lap on the gloomy shore,

And the loathsome snake of the swamp abides,

He wanders ever more.

And when the shadows of darkness fall

(As hinds and stock-men tell)

The plains around with his howls resound,

And his fierce, blood-curdling yell.

The kangaroos come forth at night

To feed o'er his lonely grave,

And above his bones with disma' tones

The dingos shriek and rave.

And when drovers camp with a wild-mob there

They shiver with affright,

And quake with dread if they hear his tread

In the gloom of the ebon night!