The Australian Outback Is Celebrated In Many Stories By Poets To Give An Insight To The Life Of Early Settlers Poem by Reginald Reid

DESPERATE DAN

Up over the rise and down the hill
Four and ten horsemen came riding still
In hot pursuit of their fugitive man
Known round those parts as Desperate Dan

He'd stolen their sheep had desperate Dan
As he liked to eat meat as fast as he can
That's what was told round the bar at the pub
When they all tucked into their favourite grub.

He had no care if it was a ewe or a ram
He'd take any free thing did Desperate Dan
But how could one man so much consume
Was the unsung line of an unsung tune.

On pressed the riders as through trees sunlight flashed
On raced the horses as hooves on rocks crashed
Down into land where no man normally goes
Down to the creek bed where water normally flows

Down through the eucalypts and Banksia trees
Dan escaped away with the birds and the bees
Over that rocky terrain and grassy leaf grave
in his mind following the path to his secret cave

The pace of the horsemen slowed as they lost the trail
It seemed that the chase was to no avail
as the sun slowly set in a vacant sky
and the cockatoos to their home flew screeching by.

Determined to revive the chase at the crack of dawn
The men made their camp as they tiredly yawned
Until on the wind came a distinct perfume
The smell of roast lamb ready to consume.


Abandoning horses, on foot and with stealth
They set off to capture this stealer of wealth
Approaching the cliff face overhung with great rocks
they saw in the darkness the flicker of light
and heard sounds of voices in excited delight

Silently creeping closer not a word was to be said
as the four and ten horsemen wished they'd already been fed
and when Dan's secret cave came into view
their plans all fell useless - now what to do?

What they saw there was Desperate Dan
A sheep on the spit roasting and spuds in the pan
But seated on sheepskins others were laughing and talking
Their voices they'd heard when they were Dan stalking

Dan had assembled the hungry and poor
in his palatial cave without any door
His mother had taught him you need more than just bread
From time to time you should eat meat, she insisted, instead

But the greatest surprise to the horsemen it's told
Was that some of their own families formed part of his fold
So with hungry reluctance they joined the repast
but of Desperate Dan's sheep stealing, this was the last.