Classic Poem

One dark night in Northern Queensland we were camped at Lahy's Fall,
When the horse boy said that trouble ere the dawn there was for all,
For the old roan horse had told him that the rush would be that night,
But what language spoke the roan horse we could not make out aright.
I was lying on some canvas that was spread to dodge the damp,
When I saw the big roan night horse prowling round the sleeping camp,
With the brown mare saddled ready and old Pat, who had that day
Humped a pack from dawn to sunset, but who would not go away.
. . . . . . .
Sure enough a cry at midnight woke us from a fitful sleep,
And another moment saw us each into the saddle leap.
Like a cat the little horse boy climbed upon the big night horse,
Shouting 'mid the awful thunder coming from the stampede's course.
I had made a dart for Judy, mounted her, and with a spring
She was streaking like a greyhound for the cattle's spreading wing.
“Let her go, and mind the branches,” yelled the horse boy back to me,
And I hung on low to Judy, leaving bit and bridle free;
Not sufficient light to make out form of horse and boy ahead,
Nothing but the hoof-beats telling of the way the cattle sped.
Then a jump, it seemed a furlong, over what I could not say—
Might have been a clump of brambles or a gaping wash-away—
Then a low limb caught my jumper, tearing it from off my back,
While I hung to Judy's withers, keeping in the youngster's track.
“Chase at stern is oft a long chase,” but we soon began to gain,
And we heard the watchmen's stockwhips ringing through the pouring rain.
Then a wing off from the main mob, and the old mare swung aside,
With an air, as if to tell me: “There he is, now tan his hide.”
Far ahead in pitchy darkness, “laying on” with all his might,
Was the slender boy of thirteen waking with his whip the night,
George and Bill and Yellow Jimmy, and the old cook who had come
Like a soldier hot for fighting when he hears the tuck of drum,
And the dogs in all their glory, barking half a mile ahead,
Doing more than all the stockmen with the maddened beasts that led.
After hours of reckless riding, howling chaos seemed to reign,
And the mob was slowly headed back into camp again.
But the damage done was awful—eighty head had got away
And entangled in the barbed wire twenty dead and dying lay.
Then the boss turned up at daybreak, with a broken collar bone,
Cook, too, humping Paddy's saddle, reached the camp on foot alone,
For a lagged lancewood sapling like a sword had pierced the heart
Of the game old horse who ever, like a hero, played his part,
And the boy all painted over, thick with bruises sad to see,
Had been torn from out his saddle by the low limb of a tree.
Jim the half-caste's face had altered to a dark and muddy red
With the blood now freely flowing from a deep gash in his head.
People talk of brumby chases that were run in noonday light,
But they cannot touch a gallop with a loose rein in the night.
And what are mountain brumbies to a mad mob hundreds strong,
Taking everything before them as they wildly rush along?
You must count the risk as nothing, broken bones or twisted neck,
If you want a reputation and would keep the mob in check.
And it's only bush-bred riders who can hope to win a place
When the cattle break at midnight in the blindfold steeplechase.