Vonda Stanley's collection of early Australian bush poems

‘You can talk about yer sheep dorgs,’ said the man from Allan’s Creek,

‘But I know a dorg that simply knocked ‘em bandy!—

Do whatever you would show him, and you’d hardly need to speak;

Owned by Daley, drover cove in Jackandandy.

‘We was talkin’ in the parlour, me and Daley, quiet like,

When a blow-fly starts a-buzzin’ round the ceilin’,

Up gets Daley, and he says to me, "You wait a minute Mike,

And I’ll show you what a dorg he is at heelin’"

‘And an empty pickle-bottle was a-standin’ on the shelf,

Daley takes it down and puts it on the table,

Amd he bets me drinks that blinded dorg would do it by himself---

And I didn’t think as how as he was able!

‘Well, he shows the dorg the bottle, and he points up to the fly,

And he shuts the door and says to him---"Now Wattle!"

And in less than fifteen seconds, spare me days, it ain’t a lie,

That there dorg had got the inseck in the bottle.’