McCarthy's Brew : A Gulf Country Yarn
The teams of Black McCarthy crawled adown the Norman-road,
The ground was bare, the bullocks spare, and grievous was the load,
And the brown hawks wheeled above them and the heat-waves throbbed and glowed.
With lolling tongues and blood-shot eyes and sinews all a-strain
M'Carthy's bullocks staggered on across the sun-cracked plain,
The waggons lumbering after and the drivers raising Cain.
Three mournful figures sat around the camp fire’s fitful glare—
M'Kinlay Jim and “Spotty” and M‘Carthy’s self they were—
But their spirits were so dismal that they couldn’t raise a swear!
’Twas not the long, dry stage ahead that made those bold hearts shrink,
The drought-cursed ground, the dying stock, the water thick as ink,
But—the drinking craze was on them, and they had no grog to drink!
Then with a bound up from the ground,
M‘Carthy jumped and cried: “’Tis vain! ’Tis vain! I go insane. These pangs in my inside!
Some sort of grog, for love of God, invent, concoct, provide!”
M'Kinlay Jim straight answered him: “Those lotions, sauce, and things
Should surely make a brew to slake these thirstful sufferings—
A brew that slakes, a brew that wakes and burns and bucks and stings.”
Down came the cases from the load—they wrenched them wide with force.
They poured and mixed and stirred a brew that would have killed a horse—
Cayenne, pain-killer, pickles, embrocation Worcester sauce!
O, wild and high and fierce and free the orgie rose that night;
The songs they sang, the deeds they did, nco poet could indite,
To see them pass that billy round—it was a fearsome sight.
The dingo heard them and with tail between his legs he fled!
The curlew saw them and he ceased his, wailing for the dead!
Each frightened bullock on the plain went straightway off his head!
Alas! and there are those who say that at the dawn of day
Three perforated carriers round a smouldering camp-fire lay:
They did not think M‘Carthy’s brew would take them in that way!
M‘Carthy’s teams at Normanton no more the Gulf men see.
M‘Carthy’s bullocks roam the wilds exuberant and free;
M‘Carthy lies —an instance of preserved anatomee!
Go. Take the moral of this song, which in deep grief I write.
Don’t ever drink M'Carthy’s brew. Be warned in case you might.
Gulf whisky kills at twenty yards, but this stuff kills at sight!
This work is in the public domain in Australia because it was created in Australia and the term of copyright has expired. According to Australian Copyright Council - Duration of Copyright, the following works are public domain:
- published non-government works whose author died before January 1, 1955,
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This work is also in the public domain in the United States because it was first published outside the United States (and not published in the U.S. within 30 days), and it was first published before 1989 without complying with U.S. copyright formalities (renewal and/or copyright notice) and it was in the public domain in Australia on the URAA date (January 1, 1996). This is the combined effect of Australia having joined the Berne Convention in 1928, and of 17 USC 104A with its critical date of January 1, 1996.
Because the Australian copyright term in 1996 was 50 years, the critical date for copyright in the United States under the URAA is January 1, 1946.
This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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