They trotted away from the homestead fair, Ere the leaves in the noon-tide drooped--They trotted along by the stockyard bare, And under the rails they stooped;Each chubby brown hand "lest a bad wind blowed" Held fast to a sailor hat--They had begged to go "where the daisies growed" And the buttercups out on the flat.
Oh, sing me a song of a fairy bright, Of a spirit the bell-birds know, That guides the feet of the lost aright, Or carries them up through the starry night, Where the bush-lost babies go.
We wander away as our fortune needs, When our feet are strong to roam;But what is the spirit that always leads The toddler's feet from home?A belt of timber, and, miles beyond, The awful scrubs aglow--Oh, plead in prayer that it is not there That the bush-lost babies go!
We thought of the tales that the bush can tell, As the awful suns went round--"And we'll find those babies asleep and well As bush-lost babes are found."We searched all night and we searched all day, We searched thro' the broiling week,But never a sign of a baby's foot Was found by that lonely creek.
The mother waits 'neath the noon-tide glare, And under the midnight skies,Till the wild fixed look of a life's despair Comes into her hopeless eyes.But the strong man kneels by her side and turns Her face from the clearing bare,To the stars above, with a husband's love-- And "Our bush-lost babes are there!"
And she sings in her heart of a fairy bright, Of a spirit the bell-birds know, To guide the feet of the lost aright And lead them on to a land of light Where the bush-lost babies go.