Now my readers can imagine how the contest ebbed and flowed, When the Geebung boys got going it was time to clear the road; And the game was so terrific that ere half the time was gone A spectator's leg was broken -- just from merely looking on. For they waddied one another till the plain was strewn with dead, While the score was kept so even that they neither got ahead. And the Cuff and Collar Captain, when he tumbled off to die, Was the last surviving player -- so the game was called a tie.
Then the Captain of the Geebungs raised him slowly from the ground, Though his wounds were mostly mortal, yet he fiercely gazed around; There was no one to oppose him -- all the rest were in a trance, So he scrambled on his pony for his last expiring chance, For he meant to make an effort to get victory to his side; So he struck at goal -- and missed it -- then he tumbled off and died.
By the old Campaspe River, where the breezes shake the grass, There's a row of little gravestones that the stockmen never pass, For they bear a crude inscription saying, 'Stranger, drop a tear, For the Cuff and Collar players and the Geebung boys lie here.' And on misty moonlit evenings, while the dingoes howl around, You can see their shadows flitting down that phantom polo ground; You can hear the loud collisions as the flying players meet, And the rattle of the mallets, and the rush of ponies' feet, Till the terrified spectator rides like blazes to the pub -- He's been haunted by the spectres of the Geebung Polo Club.
The roving breezes come and go, the reed beds sweep and sway, The sleepy river murmurs low, and loiters on its way, It is the land of lots o' time along the Castlereagh.
The old man's son had left the farm, he found it dull and slow, He drifted to the great North-west where all the rovers go. 'He's gone so long,' the old man said, 'he's dropped right out of mind, But if you'd write a line to him I'd take it very kind; He's shearing here and fencing there, a kind of waif and stray, He's droving now with Conroy's sheep along the Castlereagh.
'The sheep are travelling for the grass, and travelling very slow; They may be at Mundooran now, or past the Overflow, Or tramping down the black soil flats across by Waddiwong, But all those little country towns would send the letter wrong, The mailman, if he's extra tired, would pass them in his sleep, It's safest to address the note to 'Care of Conroy's sheep', For five and twenty thousand head can scarcely go astray, You write to 'Care of Conroy's sheep along the Castlereagh'.'