The Poetry Corner

Where the Dead Men Lie

By Barcroft Boake

Out on the wastes of the Never Never Thats where the dead men lie! There where the heat-waves dance forever Thats where the dead men lie! Thats where the Earths 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 Thats where the dead men lie! Loving with fiery lust unsated Thats where the dead men lie! Out where the grinning skulls bleach whitely Under the saltbush sparkling brightly; Out where the wild dogs chorus nightly Thats where the dead men lie! Deep in the yellow, flowing river Thats where the dead men lie! Under the banks where the shadows quiver Thats where the dead men he! Where the platypus twists and doubles, Leaving a train of tiny bubbles. Rid at last of their earthly troubles Thats where the dead men lie! East and backward pale faces turning Thats how the dead men lie! Gaunt arms stretched with a voiceless yearning Thats how the dead men lie! Oft in the fragrant hush of nooning Hearing again their mothers crooning, Wrapt for aye in a dreamful swooning Thats how the dead men lie! Only the hand of Night can free them Thats 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 Thats when the dead men take their pleasure! Thats 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 Thats how the dead men die! Out on Moneygrubs farthest station Thats 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. Moneygrub, 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.