Where the Dead Men Lie (poem)

by Barcroft Henry Thomas Boake

Out on the wastes of the Never Never —
   That's where the dead men lie!
There where the heat-waves dance forever —
   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 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 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 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 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.