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  • Fantastic rhythm to this Outback epic..

    WHERE THE DEAD MEN LIE by Barcroft Boake

    Out on the wastes of the Never Never -
    That's where the dead men lie!
    There where the heat-waves dance forever -
    That's where the dead men lie!
    That's where the Earth's loved sons are keeping
    Endless tryst: not the west wind sweeping
    Feverish pinions can wake their sleeping -
    Out where the dead men lie!

    Where brown Summer and Death have mated -
    That's where the dead men lie!
    Loving with fiery lust unsated -
    That's where the dead men lie!
    Out where the grinning skulls bleach whitely
    Under the saltbush sparkling brightly;
    Out where the wild dogs chorus nightly -
    That's where the dead men lie!

    Deep in the yellow, flowing river -
    That's where the dead men lie!
    Under the banks where the shadows quiver -
    That's where the dead men he!
    Where the platypus twists and doubles,
    Leaving a train of tiny bubbles.
    Rid at last of their earthly troubles -
    That's where the dead men lie!

    East and backward pale faces turning -
    That's how the dead men lie!
    Gaunt arms stretched with a voiceless yearning -
    That's how the dead men lie!
    Oft in the fragrant hush of nooning
    Hearing again their mother's crooning,
    Wrapt for aye in a dreamful swooning -
    That's how the dead men lie!

    Only the hand of Night can free them -
    That's when the dead men fly!
    Only the frightened cattle see them -
    See the dead men go by!
    Cloven hoofs beating out one measure,
    Bidding the stockmen know no leisure -
    That's when the dead men take their pleasure!
    That's when the dead men fly!

    Ask, too, the never-sleeping drover:
    He sees the dead pass by;
    Hearing them call to their friends - the plover,
    Hearing the dead men cry;
    Seeing their faces stealing, stealing,
    Hearing their laughter, pealing, pealing,
    Watching their grey forms wheeling, wheeling
    Round where the cattle lie!

    Strangled by thirst and fierce privation -
    That's how the dead men die!
    Out on Moncygrub's farthest station -
    That's how the dead men die!
    Hard-faced greybeards, youngsters caflow;
    Some mounds cared for, some left fallow;
    Some deep down, yet others shallow.
    Some having but the sky.

    Moncygrub, as he sips his claret,
    Looks with complacent eye
    Down at his watch-chain, eighteen carat -
    There, in his club, hard by:
    Recks not that every link is stamped with
    Names of the men whose limbs are cramped with
    Too long lying in grave-mould, cramped with
    Death where the dead men lie.

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