Thomas Henry Kendall,
The Poems of Henry Kendall — On a Cattle Track
(1920)
“ The false strength of fever, that deadly deceiver, Gives foot to each famishing beast; And over lands rotten, by rain-winds forgotten, The mirage gleams out in the east. Ah! the waters are hidden from riders and ridden In a stream where the cattle track dips; And Death on their faces is scoring fierce traces, And the drouth is a fire on their lips. It is far to the station, and gaunt Desolation Is a spectre that glooms in the way; Like a red smoke the air is, like a hell-light its glare is, And as flame are the feet of the day. ”
