4-099 (Original)

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<source><g=m><o=a><age=19><status=2><abode=nv><p=nsw><r=pcw><tt=ve><4-099>
WHERE THE DEAD MEN LIE
Out on the wastes of the Never Never - That's where the dead men lie!
There where the heat-waves dance for ever - That's where the dead men lie!
That's where the Earth's loved Sons are keeping
Endless tryst: not the west wind sweeping
Feverish pinions can wake their sleeping - Out where the dead men lie!
Where brown Summer and Death have mated - That's where the dead men die!
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 lie!
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 stretch with a voiceless yearning - That's how the dead men lie!
Oft in the fragrant bush 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! [99]
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 callow;
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.
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