While the morning light beams on the fern-matted strams,
And the waterpools flash in its glow,
Down the ridges we fly, with a loud-ringing cry --
Down the ridges and gullies below;
And the cattle we hunt, they go racing in front,
With a roar in the distance like waves;
As the beat, and the beat, of our swift horses' feet,
Starts the echoes away from their caves!
As the beat, and the beat,
Of our swift horses' feet,
Starts the echoes away from their caves!
Like a thundering shore that the billows ride o'er,
All the lowlands are filling with sound;
For swiftly we gain, where the herds on the plain,
Like a tempest, are tearing the ground!
And we'll follow them hard, to the rails of the yard,
O'er the gulches and mountain tops gray,
Where the beat, and the beat, of our swift horses' feet,
Will die with the echoes away!
Where the beat, and the beat,
Of our swift horses' feet,
Will die with the echoes away!
First published in The Empire, 2 November 1861;
And the waterpools flash in its glow,
Down the ridges we fly, with a loud-ringing cry --
Down the ridges and gullies below;
And the cattle we hunt, they go racing in front,
With a roar in the distance like waves;
As the beat, and the beat, of our swift horses' feet,
Starts the echoes away from their caves!
As the beat, and the beat,
Of our swift horses' feet,
Starts the echoes away from their caves!
Like a thundering shore that the billows ride o'er,
All the lowlands are filling with sound;
For swiftly we gain, where the herds on the plain,
Like a tempest, are tearing the ground!
And we'll follow them hard, to the rails of the yard,
O'er the gulches and mountain tops gray,
Where the beat, and the beat, of our swift horses' feet,
Will die with the echoes away!
Where the beat, and the beat,
Of our swift horses' feet,
Will die with the echoes away!
First published in The Empire, 2 November 1861;
and later in
The Sydney Morning Herald, 5 November 1861, and 11 May 1866;
The Illawarra Mercury, 6 December 1861;
Poems and Songs by Henry Kendall, 1862;
The Athenaeum, 17 february 1866;
The Round Table, 17 March 1866;
The Poets and Prose Writers of New South Wales edited by G.B. Barton, 1866;
Leaves from Australian Forests by Henry Kendall, 1869;
The Children's Treasury of Australian Verse edited by Bertram Stevens, 1913;
Selections from Australian Poets edited by Bertram Stevens, 1925;
New Song in an Old Land, edited by Rex Ingamells, 1943;
Australian Bush Songs and Ballads edited by Will Lawson, 1944;
Selected Poems of Henry Kendall edited by T. Inglis Moore, 1957;
The Poetical Works of Henry Kendall edited by Thomas Thornton Reed, 1966;
A Treasury of Colonial Poetry, 1982;
Selected Poems of Henry Kendall edited by T. Inglis Moore, 1988;
A Treasury of Bush Verse edited by G.A. Wilkes, 1991; and
The Penguin Book of Australian Ballads edited by Elizabeth Webby and Philip Butterss, 1993.
Note: this poem is also known by the title The Song of the Cattle Hunters.
Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library
See also.
See also.
