The Drover's Sweetheart
Lawson, Henry (1867 - 1922)

An hour before the sun goes down
    Behind the ragged boughs,
I go across the little run
    To bring the dusty cows;
And once I used to sit and rest
    Beneath the fading dome,
For there was one that I loved best
    Who'd bring the cattle home.

Our yard is fixed with double bails,
    Round one the grass is green,
The bush is growing through the rails,
    The spike is rusted in;
It was from there his freckled face
    Would turn and smile at me --
For he'd milk seven in a race
    While I was milking three.

He kissed me twice and once again
    And rode across the hill,
The pint-pots and the hobble-chain
    I hear them jingling still;
About the hut the sunlight fails
    the fire shines through the cracks,
I climb the broken stockyard rails
    And watch the bridle-tracks.

And he is coming back again,
    He wrote from Evatt's Rock
A flood was in the Darling then --
    And foot-rot in the flock
The sheep were falling thick and fast,
    A hundred miles from town,
And when he reached the line at last
    He trucked the remnant down.

And so he'll have to stand the cost,
    His luck was always bad,
Instead of making more, he lost
    The money that he had;
And how he'll manage, heaven knows
    (My eyes are getting dim)
He says -- he says -- he don't -- suppose
    I'll want -- to -- marry -- him.

As if I wouldn't take his hand
    Without a golden glove;
Oh! Jack -- you men won't understand
    How much a girl can love.
I long to see his face once more --
    Jack's dog! thank God, it's Jack! --
(I never thought I'd faint before)
    He's coming -- up -- the track. x2

Notes
drover: someone who herds droves of livestock.
run: "range of pasture- or grazing-land; a sheep station", pastoral holding (OED "run" n1, 22; courtesy of Eric Sharpham).
dome: the firmament (the sky's concave vault).
bails: stakes, fence-posts.
pint-pots: bells, shaped like small beer pots.
the hobble-chain: a small loose chain around the hind fetlocks, preventing cattle from running.
Darling-River: the longest river in Australia, flowing from Queensland to join the Murray River at Wentworth in New South Wales and continuing on through South Australia to empty into the Great Australian Bight (courtesy of Eric Sharpham).
bankers: full up to their banks.
Bourke: in the centre of the Australian outback, once the largest inland port on the Darling River.

Set to music and recorded by Priscilla Herdman. The lyrics given here match what she sings, which is a modification of what Lawson wrote.