Two large great birds sit up in a tree,

And they look as solemn as birds can be,

With very big beaks, and half shut eyes –

Did you ever see anything look so wise?

Hark! All on a sudden one of the them

Bursts out laughing! ‘Ha, ha! Ho heel!

The other wakes up and opens his bill,

And his eyes are opening wider still,

He gives his feathers a shimmer and shake

Just to be sure that he’s wide awake,

And then, as if some funny thing he saw,

Joins chorus, with ‘Ho, ho, ho! Ha! haw!’

‘Why are they staring so?’

See – there is a black snake down below!

Gliding along thro’ the dry brown grass –

But not very far will his safety pass;

Those solemn old birds are watching him go,

And chuckle for joy – ‘Ha Ho! Ho Ho!’

The horses were ready, the rails were down,

But the riders lingered still –

One had a parting word to say,

And one had his pipe to fill.

Then they mounted, one with a granted prayer,

And one with a grief unguessed.

‘We are going,’ they said, as they rode away –

‘Where the pelican builds her nest!’

They had told us of pastures wide and green,

To be sought past the sunset’s glow;

Of rifts in the ranges by opal lit;

And gold ‘neath the river’s flow.

And thirst and hunger were banished words

When they spoke of that unknown west;

No drought they dreaded, no flood they feared,

Where the pelican builds her nest!

The creek at the ford was but fetlock deep

When we watched them crossing there;

The rains have replenished it thrice since then,

And thrice has the rock lain bare.

But the waters of hope have flowed and fled,

And never from blue hill’s breast

Come back – by the sun and the sands devoured –

Where the pelican builds her nest!