Andrew Barton Paterson

Buffalo Country

Out where the grey streams glide, 
Sullen and deep and slow, 
And the alligators slide 
From the mud to the depths below 
Or drift on the stream like a floating death, 
Where the fever comes on the south wind’s breath, 
There is the buffalo. 
Out of the big lagoons, 
Where the Regia lilies float, 
And the Nankin heron croons 
With a deep ill-omened note, 
In the ooze and the mud of the swamps below 
Lazily wallows the buffalo, 
Buried to nose and throat. 

From the hunter’s gun he hides 
In the jungle’s dark and damp, 
Where the slinking dingo glides 
And the flying foxes camp; 
Hanging like myriad fiends in line 
Where the trailing creepers twist and twine 
And the sun is a sluggish lamp. 

On the edge of the rolling plains 
Where the coarse cane grasses swell, 
Lush with the tropic rains 
In the noontide’s drowsy spell, 
Slowly the buffalo grazes through 
Where the brolgas dance, and the jabiru 
Stands like a sentinel. 

All that the world can know 
Of the wild and the weird is here, 
Where the black men come and go 
With their boomerang and spear, 
And the wild duck darken the evening sky 
As they fly to their nests in the reed beds high 
When the tropic night is near.