The horses were ready, the rails were down,
But the riders lingered still —
One had a parting word to say,
And one had his pipe to fill.
Then they mounted, one with a granted prayer,
And one with a grief unguessed.
"We are going," they said, as they rode away —
"Where the pelican builds her nest!"
They had told us of pastures wide and green,
To be sought past the sunset's glow;
Of rifts in the ranges by opal lit;
And gold 'neath the river's flow.
And thirst and hunger were banished words
When they spoke of that unknown West;
No drought they dreaded, no flood they feared,
Where the pelican builds her nest!
The creek at the ford was but fetlock deep
When we watched them crossing there;
The rains have replenished it thrice since then,
And thrice has the rock lain bare.
But the waters of Hope have flowed and fled,
And never from blue hill's breast
Come back — by the sun and the sands devoured —
Where the pelican builds her nest.
New Country
Conde had come with us all the way —
Eight hundred miles — but the fortnight's rest
Made him fresh as a youngster, the sturdy bay!
And Lurline was looking her very best.
Weary and footsore, the cattle strayed
'Mid the silvery saltbush well content;
Where the creeks lay cool 'neath the gidya's shade
The stock-horses clustered, travel-spent.
In the bright spring morning we left them all —
Camp, and cattle, and white, and black —
And rode for the Range's westward fall,
Where the dingo's trail was the only track.
Slow through the clay-pans, wet to the knee,
With the cane-grass rustling overhead;
Swift o'er the plains with never a tree;
Up the cliffs by a torrent's bed.
Bridle on arm for a mile or more
We toiled, ere we reached Bindanna's verge
And saw — as one sees a far-off shore —
The blue hills bounding the forest surge.
An ocean of trees, by the west wind stirred,
Rolled, ever rolled, to the great cliff's base;
And its sound like the noise of waves was heard
'Mid the rocks and the caves of that lonely place.