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THE OLD PLACE
(New Zealand)
So the last day’s come at last, the close of my fifteen year—
The end of the hope, an’ the struggles, an’ messes I’ve put in here.
All of the shearings over, the final mustering done,—
Eleven hundred an’ fifty for the incoming man, near on.
Over five thousand I drove ’em, mob by mob, down the coast;
Eleven-fifty in fifteen year . . . it isn’t much of a boast.
Oh, it’s a bad old place! Blown out o’ your bed half the nights,
And in summer the grass burnt shiny an’ bare as your hand, on the heights:
87
