Out where the grey streams glide, <br />Sullen and deep and slow, <br />And the alligators slide <br />From the mud to the depths below <br />Or drift on the stream like a floating death, <br />Where the fever comes on the south wind's breath, <br />There is the buffalo. <br />Out of the big lagoons, <br />Where the Regia lilies float, <br />And the Nankin heron croons <br />With a deep ill-omened note, <br />In the ooze and the mud of the swamps below <br />Lazily wallows the buffalo, <br />Buried to nose and throat. <br /> <br />From the hunter's gun he hides <br />In the jungle's dark and damp, <br />Where the slinking dingo glides <br />And the flying foxes camp; <br />Hanging like myriad fiends in line <br />Where the trailing creepers twist and twine <br />And the sun is a sluggish lamp. <br /> <br />On the edge of the rolling plains <br />Where the coarse cane grasses swell, <br />Lush with the tropic rains <br />In the noontide's drowsy spell, <br />Slowly the buffalo grazes through <br />Where the brolgas dance, and the jabiru <br />Stands like a sentinel. <br /> <br />All that the world can know <br />Of the wild and the weird is here, <br />Where the black men come and go <br />With their boomerang and spear, <br />And the wild duck darken the evening sky <br />As they fly to their nests in the reed beds high <br />When the tropic night is near.<br /><br />Andrew Barton Paterson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/buffalo-country/
