The lonely grey or the evening, like a ghost, stole through the trees.
A hazy far blue In the mountains, in the sky a gloaming of gold ;
But the grayling evening shadows crept on pale and cold,
Till they clung in a wreath of shadow, dimly outlined in water below,
That was greenish and dull and slimy, a seemed to have some strange flow.
Of a current under the rocks, and down to the swamp far below.
Round the edge wore the queer growths dampness, that all of us see and know.
The magpies had ceased their carols, and silently flew overhead,
And the gay tint of sorrel grasses seemed like a flower of red.
To the silent pool 'mid the grasses, now drooping and spangled with dew,
Where the tiny moths were flitting, on the fragile wings of blue,
Silently creeping through scrub, came an odd little band of three,
And wading thro' dry, withered grasses, waving high up to their knee.
Little Black Annie, the leader, with the keen alert eyes of the seer,
And the strain of romance that was in he banished all sigh of fear.
In a short scarlet dress, all tattered, Black Annie pointed the way ;
The two little whites that followed had willingly left all their play,
To hear Annie's wonderful story-more weird than was ever before ;
For Annie oft gathered the school throng to list to her wild bush lore.
But those two were privileged chums, and had come to the "haunted place."
"Nobody knows about this hole save a very few of our race,"
Black Annie whispered softly, upraising her proud little head.
The little white girls were silent as such light on their race was shed.
Black Annie led the way to a seat on a gum bleaching log.
Green eyes gazed at them steadily-but they only belonged to a frog.
In bated breath Annie told them of some wonderful lonesome thing
(As they waved away the mosquitos that swarmed with their deadly sting).
This monster had lived in Australia, unharmed by the native men.
It fled at the sight of thc white folk, and hid in some lonely den.
The uncouth, hideous creature soon disappeared from his native place;
And wailed in the swamp like a phantom, or the lonely "last of his race."
Further and further it wandered, still at night when the clouds hung low.
It rose from the swamp and mourned, when the green waters ebb and flow.
All travellers shunned the passing, their blood seemed to freeze at the sound;
And riders would gallop madly, glad to go ten miles round.
Some said that, this antique monster was a relic from out of the past;
Others said 'twas a ghost of Australia, and as long as the land would last.
The weirdsome wail on the marshes most surely would never cease.
Annie told how folk banded and hunted it headed by mounted police.
Some people talked of the bunyip, and told of some awesome sights,
Out on the haunted swamps, on the darkest and loneliest nights.
Such was the tale Annie told them, her dark eyes bright and wild
(She seemed like a sprite from Dreamland, or a scarlet elfin child).
She held up her small hand, whispering, "Hush !" watch the water below,
And you'll see it moving directly-often I've watched its strange flow.
Perhaps you may hear something sighing, or the sound of a terrible moan,
Get hack from the edge of the water! it will speak if it sees me alone.
It's coming! It's coming! The thing that lives in the water down there."
There was a sound of rushing footsteps, a flaxen mass of flying hair,
And swiftly Black Annie's audience sped away from the Bunyip lair.
Thro' the lonely, shadowy bushland, hoping they could not hear
The terrible groans from the water, echoed from valleys near.
From every tussock of long grass, they feared--what, they did not know.
Their path lay in dim shadows, for paled had the sunset glow.
Their shadows running beside them, made them start In terror anew ;
Their long, lint locks hung straight and damp with the evening dew.
They gasped as they gained the home track, leaving Bunyip bush behind,
And they were not going to "speak to Black Annie" In the state of their present mind.
Now they miss the weird tales of wonder, for their mothers made stringent rule,
That they always walked home with the teacher when Black Annie was at the school. Notes
From the NSW Newspaper The Australian Town and Country Journal 25 Oct 1905 p. 38.
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