Page:The Secret Key and Other Verses - Evans.djvu/43

I hear once more the plover's "peet;"
 The gray hawk wheels in dizzy height,
And swift beneath my horse's feet
 The brown quail rises in his fright,
    And the galahs fly
    With pink breasts high,
A rosy cloud in a cloudless sky.

Afar I mark the emu's run;
 The bustard slow, in motley clad;
And, basking in his bath of sun,
 The brown snake on the cattle-pad,
    And the reddish black
    Of a dingo's back
As he loit'ring slinks on my horse's track.

And now I watch, with slackened rein,
 The scattered cattle, hundreds strong,
As slowly moving home again
 The lazy vanguard feeds along
    To the waters cool
    Of the tree-fringed pool
In the distant creek when the noon is full.