[Verse 1]
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I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better
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Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan, years ago,
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He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him,
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Just ‘on spec’, addressed as follows, ‘Clancy, of The Overflow’.
[Verse 2]
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And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected,
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(And I think the same was written with a thumb-nail dipped in tar)
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’Twas his shearing mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it:
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‘Clancy’s gone to Queensland droving, and we don’t know where he are.’
[Verse 3]
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In my wild erratic fancy visions come to me of Clancy
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Gone a-droving ‘down the Cooper’ where the Western drovers go;
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As the stock are slowly stringing, Clancy rides behind them singing,
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For the drover’s life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know.
[Verse 4]
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And the bush hath friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him
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In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars,
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And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended,
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And at night the wond’rous glory of the everlasting stars.
[Verse 5]
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I am sitting in my dingy little office, where a stingy
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Ray of sunlight struggles feebly down between the houses tall,
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And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty city
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Through the open window floating, spreads its foulness over all
[Verse 6]
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And in place of lowing cattle, I can hear the fiendish rattle
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Of the tramways and the ‘buses making hurry down the street,
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And the language uninviting of the gutter children fighting,
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Comes fitfully and faintly through the ceaseless tramp of feet.
[Verse 7]
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And the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt me
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As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste,
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With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy,
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For townsfolk have no time to grow, they have no time to waste.
[Verse 8]
D G D
And I somehow rather fancy that I’d like to change with Clancy,
G D A
Like to take a turn at droving where the seasons come and go,
G D
While he faced the round eternal of the cash-book and the journal...
A G D
But I doubt he’d suit the office, Clancy, of ‘The Overflow’