Kenneth Slessor

Here you will find thePoemA Bushrangerof poet Kenneth Slessor

A Bushranger

Jackey Jackey gallops on a horse like a swallow Where the carbines bark and the blackboys hollo. When the traps give chase (may the devil take his power!) He can ride ten mile in a quarter of an hour Take horse and follow, and you'll hurt no feelings; He can fly down waterfalls and jump through ceilings, He can shoot off hats, for to have a bit of fun, With a bulldog bigger than a buffalo-gun Honeyed and profound in his conversation When he bails up Mails on Long Tom Station, In a flyaway coat with a black cravat, A snow-white collar and a cabbage-tree hat. Flowers in his button-hole and pearls in his pocket, He comes like a ghost and he goes like a rocket With a lightfoot heel on a blood-mare's flank And a bagful of notes from the Joint Stock Bank Many pretty ladies he could witch out of marriage, Though he prig but a kiss in a bigwig's carriage; For the cock of an eye or the lift of his reins, They would run barefoot through Patrick's Plains.