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
* Flour.
"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.
[Original]
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!