The Coranna

Fast by his wild resounding river
The listless Córan lingers ever;
Still drives his heifers forth to feed,
Soothed by the gorrah’s humming reed;
A rover still unchecked will range,
As humour calls, or seasons change;
His tent of mats and leathern gear
All packed upon the patient steer.
’Mid all his wanderings hating toil,
He never tills the stubborn soil;
But on the milky dams relies,
And what spontaneous earth supplies.
Should some long parching droughts prevail,
And milk and bulbs and locusts fail,
He lays him down to sleep away
In languid trance the weary day;
Oft as he feels gaunt hunger’s stound,
Still tightening famine’s girdle round;
Lulled by the sound of the Gareep,
Beneath the willows murmuring deep:
Till thunder-clouds surcharged with rain,
Pour verdure o’er the panting plain;
And call the famished dreamer from his trance,
To feast on milk and game, and wake the moonlight dance.