Where brown Summer and Death have mated—
    That’s where the dead men lie!
Loving with fiery lust unsated—
    That’s where the dead men lie!
Out where the grinning skulls bleach whitely
    Under the saltbush sparkling brightly;
Out where the wild dogs chorus nightly—
    That’s where the dead men lie!

Deep in the yellow, flowing river—
    That’s where the dead men lie!
Under the banks where the shadows quiver—
    That’s where the dead men he!
Where the platypus twists and doubles,
    Leaving a train of tiny bubbles.
Rid at last of their earthly troubles—
    That’s where the dead men lie!

East and backward pale faces turning—
    That’s how the dead men lie!
Gaunt arms stretched with a voiceless yearning—
    That’s how the dead men lie!
Oft in the fragrant hush of nooning
    Hearing again their mother’s crooning,
Wrapt for aye in a dreamful swooning—
    That’s how the dead men lie!

Only the hand of Night can free them—
    That’s 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—
That’s when the dead men take their pleasure!
    That’s 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—
    That’s how the dead men die!
Out on “Moneygrub’s” farthest station—
    That’s 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.