Classic Poem

Are you looking from the sky,
Billy Boy, Billy Boy?
Are you looking from the sky,
Billy Boy?
O the Red Soil Plains are green,
For the winter rains have been,
And all splendid is the scene,
Billy Boy!

Are you squinting out at dawn,
Billy Boy, Billy Boy?
Are you squinting out at dawn,
Billy Boy?
I am sitting in the camp,
Hearing not the horse's tramp,
Nor the wild duck in the swamp,
Billy Boy!

For my heart is like a stone,
Billy Boy, Billy Boy,
And I cannot shoot alone,
Billy Boy;
Though the gun is lying here,
With the cartridges and beer,
And the ducks are flying near,
Billy Boy!

Are you up amongst the stars,
Billy Boy, Billy Boy?
Are you up amongst the stars,
Billy Boy —
Looking down from Heaven's ranks
On the Murrumbidgee banks,
And the " whalers " and the cranks,
Billy Boy?

O the fire is flaring high,
Billy Boy, Billy Boy,
On the boughs against the sky,
Billy Boy!
It is all as God designs
In the gum-trees and the pines —
But I hate to bait the lines,
Billy Boy!

They don't know what mateship is,
Billy Boy, Billy Boy;
They don't know what mateship is,
Billy Boy —
What a mate can say or do
When there's something wrong with you,
Ah! " the old mate and the new! "
Billy Boy!

It will all come out all right,
Billy Boy, Billy Boy;
I will dig me in and fight,
Billy Boy!
And no matter how they wrench
At my heart so very French —
Die as you did, in the trench,
Billy Boy!

There's a woman in the world,
Billy Boy, Billy Boy —
One whose life on rocks was hurled,
Billy Boy!
There are children to be fed,
Of the crippled and the dead —
There are kind words to be said,
Billy Boy!