Down by the sliprails stands our cow
   Chewing, chewing, chewing,
She does not care what folks out there
   In the great, big world are doing. 
She sees the small cloud-shadows pass
   And green grass shining under. 
If she does think, what does she think
   About it all, I wonder?

She sees the swallows skimming by
   Above the sweet young clover,
The light reeds swaying in the wind
   And tall trees bending over. 
Far down the track she hears the crack
   of bullock-whips, and raving
Of angry men where, in the sun,
   Her fellow-beasts are slaving.

Girls, we are told, can scratch and scold,
   And boys will fight and wrangle,
And big, grown men, just now and then,
   Fret o’er some fingle-fangle,
Vexing the earth with grief or mirth,
   Longing, rejoicing, rueing—­
But by the sliprails stands our cow,
   Chewing.

THE TEACHER

I’d like to be a teacher, and have a clever brain,
Calling out, “Attention, please!” and “Must I speak in vain?”
I’d be quite strict with boys and girls whose minds I had to train,
And all the books and maps and things I’d carefully explain;
I’d make then learn the dates of kings, and all the capes of Spain;
   But I wouldn’t be a teacher if . . . 
      I couldn’t use the cane. 
         Would you?

THE SPOTTED HEIFERS

Mr Jeremiah Jeffers
Owned a pair of spotted heifers
These he sold for two pounds ten
To Mr Robert Raymond Wren

Who reared them in the lucerne paddocks
Owned by Mr Martin Maddox,
And sold them, when they grew to cows,
To Mr Donald David Dowse.

A grazier, Mr Egbert Innes,
Bought them then for twenty guineas,
Milked the cows, and sold the milk
To Mr Stephen Evan Silk.

Who rents a butter factory
From Mr Laurence Lampard-Lee. 
Here, once a week, come for his butter
The grocer, Mr Roland Rutter,

Who keeps a shop in Sunny Street
Next door to Mr Peter Peat. 
He every afternoon at two
Sent his fair daughter, Lucy Loo,

To Mr Rutter’s shop to buy
Such things as were not priced too high,
Especially a shilling tin
Of “Fuller’s Food for Folk Too Thin.”

This food was bought for Lucy Loo—­
A girl of charming manners, who
Was much too pale and much too slight
To be a very pleasant sight.

When Lucy Loo beheld the butter
Stocked by Mr Roland Rutter,
She said, “I’ll have a pound of that.” 
She had it, and thenceforth grew fat.

We now go back to Mr Jeffers,
Who sold the pair of spotted heifers. 
He had a son, James Edgar John,
A handsome lad to gaze upon,

Who had now reached that time of life
When young men feel they need a wife;
But no young girl about the place
Exactly had the kind of face