pelter, An' the sheep drift off before the wind, an' the horses strike for shelter. Don’t take me for a howler, but I find it come annoyin' To hear these fellers rave about the pleasures we're enjoyin', When p’r’aps we’ve nothin' better than some fluky water handy, An' they’re right on all the lickers—rum, an' plenty beer an' brandy. The town is dusty, may be, but it isn’t worth the curses 'Side the dust a feller swallers an' the blinded thirst he nurses When he’s on the hard macadam, where the jumbucks cannot browse, an' The wind is in his whiskers, an' he follers twenty thousan'. This drovin' on the plain, too, it’s all O.K. when the weather Isn’t hot enough to curl the soles right off your upper leather, Or so cold that when the mornin' wind comes hissin' through the grasses You can feel it cut your eyelids like a whip-lash as it passes. Then there’s bull-ants in the blankets, an' a lame horse, an' muskeeters, An' a D.T. boss like Halligan, or one like Humpy Peters, Who is mean about the tucker, an' can curse from start to sundown, An' can fight like fifty devils, an' whose growler’s never run down. Yes, I wonder why the fellers what go buildin' chipper ditties 'Bout the rosy times out drovin' an' the dust an' death of cities, Don't sling the bloomin' office, strike ole Peters for a billet, An' soak up all the glory that comes handy while they fill it. 1896 variation By 1896 the poem was reworded and renamed 'The drovers in reply' and appeared in Dyson's first anthology Rhymes from the Mines and Other Lines in 1896: We are wondering why those fellows who are writing cheerful ditties Of the rosy times out droving, and the dust and death of cities, Do not leave the dreary office, ask a drover for a billet, And enjoy 'the views,’ 'the campfires,’ and 'the freedom' while they fill it. If it’s fun to travel cattle or to picnic with merinoes, Well the drover doesn't see it—few poetic raptures he knows. As for sleeping on the plains beneath "the pale moon" always seen there, That is most appreciated by the man who’s never been there. And the "balmy air", the horses, and the 'wondrous constellations,’ The 'possum-rugs, and billies, and the tough and musty rations, It's strange they only please