| Gaily in front of the stockwhip
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| The horses come galloping home
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| Leaping and bucking and playing
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| With sides all a lather of foam
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| But painfully, slowly behind them
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| With head to the crack of the fall
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| And trying so gamely to follow
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| Comes limping the pearl of them all
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| He is stumbling and stiff in the shoulder
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| And splints from the hoof to the knee
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| But never a horse on the station
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| Has half such a spirit as he
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| Give these all the boast of their breeding
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| These pets of the paddock and stall
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| But ten years ago not their proudest
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| Could live with the pearl of them all
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| No journey has ever yet beat him
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| No day was too heavy or hard
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| He was king of the camp and the muster
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| And pride of the wings of the yard
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| But Time is relentless to follow
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| The best of us bow to his call
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| And death, with his scythe on his shoulder
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| Is dogging the pearl of them all
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| I watch him go whinnying past me
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| And memories come with a whirl
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| Of reckless, wild rides with a comrade
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| And laughing, gay rides with a girl
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| How she decked him with lilies and love-knots
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| And plaited his mane at my side
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| And once in the grief of a parting
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| She threw her arms round him and cried
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| And I promised, yes I gave her my promise
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| The night that we parted in tears
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| To keep and be kind to the old horse
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| Till Time made a burden of years
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| And then for his sake and one woman’s
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| Go, fetch me my gun from the wall
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| I have only this kindness to offer
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| As gift to the pearl of them all
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| Here hold him out there by the yard wing
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| And don’t let him know by a sign
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| Turn his head to you, mate, just a little
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| 'Cause, I can’t bear his eyes to meet mine
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| Oh stand still, old boy, just for a moment
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| These tears, how they blind as they fall
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| Now, God help my hand to be steady
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| And goodbye to the pearl of them all |