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Where the wandering Barwin delighteth the eye,
   Befringed with the myall and golden-bloomed gorse,
Oh, a beautiful Squatter came galloping by,
   With a beard on his chin like the tail of his horse;
And his locks trained all round to so equal a pitch,
   That his mother herself, it may truly be said,
Had been puzzled in no small degree to find which
   Was the front, or the back, or the sides of his head.

Beside a small fire 'neath a fair-spreading tree,
   (A cedar, I think, but perhaps 'twas a gum)
What vision of Love did that Squatter now see,
   In the midst of a catch so to render him dumb?
Why, all on the delicate herbage asquat,
   And smiling to see him so flustered and mute,
'Twas the charming Miss 'Possum-skin having a chat
   With the elegant Lady of Lord Bandycoot.

The Squatter dismounted -- what else could he do?
   And meaning her tender affections to win,
'Gan talking of dampers and blankets quite new
   With a warmth that soon ruined poor Miss 'Possum-skin!
And Lord Bandycoot also, while dining that day
   On a baked kangaroo of the kind that is red,
At the very third bite to King Dingo did say --
   O, how heavy I feel all at once in the head!

But alas for the Belles of the Barwin! -- the youth
   Galloped home, to forget all his promises fair;
Whereupon Lady Bandicoot told the whole truth
   To her lord, and Miss 'Possum-skin raved in despair!
And mark the result! royal Dingo straightway,
   And his Warriors, swore to avenge them in arms!
And that beautiful Squatter on beautiful day,
   Was waddied to death in the bloom of his charms!

First published in The Weekly Register of Politics, Facts and General Literature, 15 March 1845;
and later in
The Port Phillip Patriot and Morning Advertiser, 26 March 1845;
The Poetical Works of Charles Harpur edited by Elizabeth Perkins, 1984;
The Penguin Book of Australian Satirical Verse edited by Philip Neilsen, 1986;
Old Ballads from the Bush edited by Bill Scott, 1987;
The Sting in the Wattle: Australian Satirical Verse edited by Philip Neilsen, 1993;
The Penguin Book of Australian Ballads edited by Elizabeth Webby and Philip Butterss, 1993;
Australian Verse: An Oxford Anthology edited by John Leonard, 1998;
100 Australian Poems You Need to Know edited by Jamie Grant, 2008;
Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature edited by Nicholas Jose, Kerryn Goldsworthy, Anita Heiss, David McCooey, Peter Minter, Nicole Moore and Elizabeth Webby, 2009; and
The Puncher & Wattmann Anthology of Australian Poetry edited by John Leonard, 2009.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library

See also.

[Bribie Island was inhabited by a powerful tribe called "Jindoobarrie," a graceful, athletic, and warlike raw. In 1840 they were numbered at 600 to 1000; and to-day there is not a soul left on the island.]

Through vistas dim of vanished years,
With unrecorded sighs and tears,
Thy voice the mournful listener hears, ---
   Dark Jindoobarrie!   

A faint sad voice from days of yore,
An echo from the lonely shore
Where stalk thy stately forms no more,
   Caroomba Jindoobarrie!   

The days when you were wild and free,
And slept beneath the Doorah tree
On sand dunes by the sounding sea,
   Bandarra Jindoobarrie!   

And now! Oh Fate's remorseless doom,
Lone Beerwah rises through the gloom,
And calls in vain above thy tomb,
   "Inta wanya, Jindoobarrie?"

Round where the Cape in ocean dips,
Sailed Flinders in his white-winged ships,
The Heralds of your death eclipse,
   Oh Jindoobarrie!   

And what the deeds, and whose the blame,
When pale-faced "Carooinggi" came
With club of steel and spear of flame?
   Yalba! Jindoobarrie!     

But vengeance came in after years,
Each murdered stranger's ghost appears
Transfixed by dim and shadowy spears, ---
   Warrang Jindoobarrie!   

What reck they now, those deeds of yore?
No more the stranger's blood, no more
Thine own shall stain thy native shore,
   Wild Jindoobarrie!   

Silent the songs when hearts were light,
Gone are the dance, the hunt, the fight,
In darkness of eternal night.
   Lost Jindoobarrie!   

In vain the voice of Beerwah calls
From terraced cliffs and waterfalls,
Hark! Echo from the caverned walls, ---
   "Wanya Jindoobarrie?"

Lost in the dark Cimmerian gloom,
And on thy lonely unknown tomb
Stern Fate records the words of doom, ---
   "Dead is the race of Jindoobarrie!"

First published in The Queenslander, 26 September 1891

Caroomba --- great, mighty.
Doorah tree --- camping tree.
Bandarra --- strong.
Inta wanya --- where are you?
Carooinggi --- strangers.
Yalba -- speak!
Warrang --- bad, fierce.
Wanya --- where?

Author: Archibald Meston (1852-1924) was born in Aberdeenshire, Scotland and arrived in Australia in 1859. He lived near the Clarence River in New South Wales during his chldhood but spent the bulk of his adult years in Queensland.  He was a member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly for 4 years and edited a number of Queensland newspapers before being appointed director of the Queensland Tourist Board in Sydney in 1910.  Throughout his life he wrote as a free-lance journalist, poet and short-story writer.  He died in Brisbane in 1924.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography

It will be remembered that, a few years back, a party of stockmen (several of whom were afterwards executed for the crime) made wholesale massacre of a small tribe of defenceless Blacks, to the number, it is believed, of more than a score, heaping their bodies as they slaughtered them, upon a large fire kindled for the purpose. Of this doomed tribe, one woman only, with her infant as it appeared subsequently on evidence, escaped the Whiteman's vengeance. And this woman, after having fled to a considerable distance from the scene of the massacre, and when wearied and overtaken by the night is supposed to make the following lament.

Oh, I would further fly my child,
   To make thee safer yet
From the unsparing Whiteman's
   Dread hand, all murder-wet!
Yet bear thee on, as I have borne,
   So stealthily and fleet,
But darkness shuts the forest,
   And thorns are in my feet!
Oh, moan not! I would give this braid
   That once bound Hibbi's brow,
But for a single palmful
   Of water for thee now.

Ah, spring not to his name! -- no more
   To glad us may he come!
Afar his ashes smoulder
   Beneath the blasted Gum --
All charred and blasted by the fire
   The Whiteman kindled there,
To burn our murdered kindred,
   And scorch us to despair!
Oh, moan not! I would give this braid
   That once bound Hibbi's brow,
But for a single palmful
   Of water for thee now.

And but for thee, I would their fire
   Had eaten me as fast!
Hark! do I hear death cry?
   Yet drowning up the blast?
But no! -- when his bound hands had signed
   The way that we should fly,
Thrown on the pyre fresh bleeding,
   I saw thy father die!
Oh, moan not! I would give this braid,
   His first fond gift to me,
But for a single palmful
   Of water for thee now.

No more shall his loud tomahawk
   Be plied for our relief;
The streams have lost for ever
   The shadow of a chief;
The fading track of his fleet foot
   May guide not as before;
And the echo of the mountains
   Shall answer him no more.
Oh, moan not! I would give this braid,
   Thy father's gift to me,
But for a single palmful
    Of water now for thee.

First published in The Weekly Register of Politics, Facts and General Literature, 26 July 1845;
and later in
The Bushrangers, a Play in Five Acts and Other Poems by Charles Harpur, 1853;
Australian Ballads and Rhymes: Poems Inspired by Life and Scenery in Australia and New Zealand edited by Douglas Sladen, 1888;
A Treasury of Colonial Poetry, 1982;
The Poetical Works of Charles Harpur edited by Elizabeth Perkins, 1984; and
Family Ties:Australian Poems of the Family edited by Jennifer Strauss, 1998.

Note: this poem is also known by the title A Wail from the Bush.  It references the Myall Creek massacre of 1838.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library

See also.

They watched o'er the flight of his wandering soul
   To the realm of the gone-before;
For they knew he was nearing the coveted goal, ---
   That he stood at the open door:
   At the verge of the open door.

And they tenderly bent o'er his languishing head
   To catch what his lips might say;
Ere the soul of "the last of his tribe" had fled   
   To the land of eternal day:
   Of a lovely eternal day.

They caught at the half-uttered murmurs that fell,
   Like the drops from a failing source;
And still as they hearkened could randomly tell
   Where his wandering thoughts held their course:
   Their restless and volatile course.

He was far away back in his youthful days,
   In the spring of a manful might;   
Once more in the battle he won the praise
   Of his tribe as the foe took flight ---
   From his nullah and spear took flight.

Again he was far from his tropical home,
   In search of a happier spot;
Now eastward; now westward; still home he would come;
   For a cheerier place there was not:
   A home like his own there was not.

And he joined in the chase of the swift kangaroo;
   And he speared the shy fish in the stream;
But he suddenly started --- his journey was through, ---
   And he smiled like a child in a dream:
   Like an innocent child in a dream.

And the watchers knew as the smile died away,
   That the old man's spirit had fled;
And the spear and the boomerang useless lay ---
   For "the last of his tribe" was dead:   
   Of the tribe he had mourned was dead!

* Having had the pleasure, not long ago, of reading the late Henry Kendall's fine poem, "The Last of His Tribe," the thought struck me that he might have written also about the death of that unlucky representative of his dying race.

First published in The Queenslander, 28 January 1888

Author: nothing is known about the author of this poem.

Note: you can read the text of Henry Kendall's poem here.