And marching with us on the track
Full many friends we find:
We see them looking sadly back
For those that dropped behind.
But God forbid a fate so dread --
ALONE to travel down
The dreary road we all must tread,
With faltering steps and whitening head,
The road to Old Man's Town!
The Old Timer's Steeplechase
The sheep were shorn and the wool went down
At the time of our local racing:
And I'd earned a spell -- I was burnt and brown --
So I rolled my swag for a trip to town
And a look at the steeplechasing.
'Twas rough and ready -- an uncleared course
As rough as the blacks had found it;
With barbed-wire fences, topped with gorse,
And a water-jump that would drown a horse,
And the steeple three times round it.
There was never a fence the tracks to guard, --
Some straggling posts defined 'em:
And the day was hot, and the drinking hard,
Till none of the stewards could see a yard
Before nor yet behind 'em!
But the bell was rung and the nags were out,
Excepting an old outsider
Whose trainer started an awful rout,
For his boy had gone on a drinking bout
And left him without a rider.
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