|
JACK POBAR Holberton St Toowoomba Recorded May 1973
The Bushman's Farewell To QueenslandQueensland thou art a land of pestFrom flies and fleas one never rests Even now mosquitoes round me revel In fact, they are the very devil, Sandflies and hornets just as bad, They nearly drive a fellow mad The scorpion and the centipede With stinging ants of every breed Fever and ague with the shakes Triantelope and poisonous snakes Goannas, lizards and cockatoos Bushrangers, lags and jackaroos Bandicoots and swarms of rats Bull dog ants and swarms of cats Stunted timber, thirsty plains Parched up deserts, scanty rains There's rivers here you sail ships on There's nigger women without shirts on There's humpies, huts and wooden houses There's men who don't wear trousers There's Barcoo rot and sandy blight There's dingoes howling half the night There's curlews wails and croaking frogs There's savage blacks and native dogs There's centralists, flowers and stinging trees There's poisoned grass and Darling peas Which drive the horses and cattle mad Make the sheep, juts as bad And then it never rains in reason There's droughts one year and floods next season Which wash the squatter's sheep away And then there is the devil to pay To stay in Queensland, Oh land of mutton I would not give a single button But bid thee now a long farewell Thous scorching land of sunburnt hell |