Deliver us from Booligal!'




A Walgett Episode



The sun strikes down with a blinding glare,
The skies are blue and the plains are wide,
The saltbush plains that are burnt and bare
By Walgett out on the Barwon side --
The Barwon river that wanders down
In a leisurely manner by Walgett Town.

There came a stranger -- a `Cockatoo' --
The word means farmer, as all men know
Who dwell in the land where the kangaroo
Barks loud at dawn, and the white-eyed crow
Uplifts his song on the stock-yard fence
As he watches the lambkins passing hence.

The sunburnt stranger was gaunt and brown,
But it soon appeared that he meant to flout
The iron law of the country town,
Which is -- that the stranger has got to shout:
`If he will not shout we must take him down,'
Remarked the yokels of Walgett Town.