Murrumbidgee Shearer
Come all you jolly natives and I'll relate to you
Some of
my observations adventures too a few
I've travelled about the country for
miles full many a score
And oft-times would have hungered but for the cheek
I bore
I've coasted on the Barwon low down the Darling too
I've
been on the Murrumbidgee and out on the Paroo
I've been on all the diggings
boys from famous Ballarat
I've loafed upon the Lachlan and fossicked Lambing
Flat
I went up to a squatter and asked him for a feed
But the knowledge
of my hunger was swallowed by his greed
He said I was a loafer and for work
had no desire
And so to do him justice I set his shed on fire
Oh
yes I've touched the shepherd's hut of sugar, tea, and flour
And a tender
bit of mutton I always could devour
I went up to a station and there I got
a job
Plunged in the store and hooked it with a very tidy lob
Oh,
yes my jolly dandies I've done it on the cross
Although I carry bluey now
I've sweated many a horse
I've helped to ease the escort of many's the ounce
of gold
The traps have often chased me more times than can be told
Oh yes the traps have chased me and been frightened of their stripes
They
never could have caught me they feared my cure for gripes
And well they knew
I carried it which they had often seen
A-glistening in my flipper chaps a
patent pill machine
I've been hunted like a panther into my mountain
lair
Anxiety and misery my grim companions there
I've planted in the
scrub my boys and fed on kangaroo
And wound up my avocations by ten years
on Cockatoo
So you can understand my boys just from this little rhyme
I'm a Murrumbidgee shearer and one of the good old time
Notes
Printed in Paterson's Old Bush Songs . See 'Maryborough Miner' in this collection.