In that whim he worked when the night winds bellowed
    On the riven summit of Giant’s Hand,
And by day when prodigal Spring had yellowed
    All the wide, long sweep of enchanted land;
And he knew his shift, and the whistle’s warning,
    And he knew the calls of the boys below;
Through the years, unbidden, at night or morning,
    He had taken his stand by the old whim bow.

But the whim stands still, and the wheeling swallow
    In the silent shaft hangs her home of clay,
And the lizards flirt and the swift snakes follow
    O’er the grass-grown brace in the summer day;
And the corn springs high in the cracks and corners
    Of the forge, and down where the timber lies;
And the crows are perched like a band of mourners
    On the broken hut on the Hermit’s Rise.

All the hands have gone, for the rich reef paid out,
    And the company waits till the calls come in;
But the old grey horse, like the claim, is played out,
    And no market’s near for his bones and skin.
So they let him live, and they left him grazing
    By the creek, and oft in the evening dim
I have seen him stand on the rises, gazing
    At the ruined brace and the rotting whim.

The floods rush high in the gully under,
    And the lightnings lash at the shrinking trees,
Or the cattle down from the ranges blunder
    As the fires drive by on the summer breeze.
Still the feeble horse at the right hour wanders
    To the lonely ring, though the whistle’s dumb,
And with hanging head by the bow he ponders
    Where the whim boy’s gone—why the shifts don’t come.

But there comes a night when he sees lights glowing
    In the roofless huts and the ravaged mill,
When he hears again all the stampers going—
    Though the huts are dark and the stampers still:
When he sees the steam to the black roof clinging
    As its shadows roll on the silver sands,
And he knows the voice of his driver singing,
    And the knocker’s clang where the braceman stands.

See the old horse take, like a creature dreaming,
    On the ring once more his accustomed place;
But the moonbeams full on the ruins streaming
    Show the scattered timbers and grass-grown brace.
Yet he hears the sled in the smithy falling,
    And the empty truck as it rattles back,
And the boy who stands by the anvil, calling;
    And he turns and backs, and he “takes up slack”.

While the old drum creaks, and the shadows shiver
    As the wind sweeps by, and the hut doors close,
And the bats dip down in the shaft or quiver
    In the ghostly light, round the grey horse goes;
And he feels the strain on his untouched shoulder,
    Hears again the voice that was dear to him,
Sees the form he knew—and his heart grows bolder
    As he works his shift by the broken whim.

He hears in the sluices the water rushing
    As the buckets drain and the doors fall back;
When the early dawn in the east is blushing,
    He is limping still round the old, old track.
Now he pricks his ears, with a neigh replying
    To a call unspoken, with eyes aglow,
And he sways and sinks in the circle, dying;
    From the ring no more will the grey horse go.

In a gully green, where a dam lies gleaming,
    And the bush creeps back on a worked-out claim,
And the sleepy crows in the sun sit dreaming
    On the timbers grey and a charred hut frame,
Where the legs slant down, and the hare is squatting
     In the high rank grass by the dried-up course,
Nigh a shattered drum and a king-post rotting
    Are the bleaching bones of the old grey horse.