The Coranna

Fast by his wild resounding River
    The listless Coran lingers ever;
    Still drives his heifers forth to feed,
    Soothed by the gorrah's humming reed;
    A rover still unchecked will range,
    As humour calls, or seasons change;
    His tent of mats and leathern gear
    All packed upon the patient steer.
    'Mid all his wanderings hating toil,
  He never tills the stubborn soil;
  But on the milky dam relies,
  And what spontaneous earth supplies.
  Or, should long-parching droughts prevail,
  And milk, and bulbs, and locusts fail,
  He lays him down to sleep away
  In languid trance the weary day;
  Oft as he feels gaunt hunger's stound,
  Still tightening famine's girdle round;
  Lulled by the sound of the Gareep,
  Beneath the willows murmuring deep:
  Till thunder-clouds, surcharged with rain,
  Pour verdure o'er the panting plain;
  And call the famished Dreamer from his trance,
  To feast on milk and game, and wake the moon-light dance.