The scrub wav’d gently to and fro,
A green irradiating bow;
The she-oak in the distant view,
Whisper’d a mournful, sad adieu.
The bold hills in a rounding line,
Glorious in a sunny clime,
Purpling when the bright eve declines,
Dark’ning as day its rule resigns.
The tribe was camp’d beside a hill,
Near a transparent gurgling rill;
On a bold bluff the wurleys stood,
Within a copse of wattle-wood.
The warriors were far away,
Creeping on their unwary prey—
Girdling them in a treach’rous ring,
With artful deep manoœuv’ring.
Some spearing fish upon the coast,
Where Koonta’s mystic stream is lost;
Some sneaking emu on the plain,
Searching Kupe, or snaring game.
Or, listless from a cool retreat,
Were watching Cowee’s great heart beat,
Its ebb and flow, its wondrous tide,
Marma’s wayward, beauteous bride.
The jocund laugh resounds along,
Tho lubras mark their little throng:
The scornful look and air they bore,
Engag’d in strife and mimic war.
Behold them on the open plain,
Naked as they from nature came
In fierce opposing bands they range,
Spears rattle, and dire words exchange.
In childish accents, “Death,” they cry,
And mockingly the foe defy;
With quiv’ring limbs, and glaring eye,
They rush to conquer or to die.
Their mimic spears hiss through the air,
And whirring waddies cause despair;
Their shields resound with awful blows—
The ground is strewn with friends and foes.