Men knew and loved my calling in old days— Days ere a bitter wisdom taught me fear. Trusting and unafraid, I went my ways By many a crude hut of the pioneer; Calling by paths where lonely axemen strode, By new-cleared farmland yet to know the plough; Calling by deep sled track and bullock road . . . But where to-day man builds his last abode Few hear my calling now. Too trusting. When they found my flesh was sweet— Was sweet and white and succulent withal— What mattered beauty? I was good to eat! Then trust was my undoing; and my call A summons to men’s hunger and the chase— A tame, ignoble chase with me the prey— Till far into some secret forest place I fled, with that poor remnant of my race In hiding here to-day. And only by lost paths o’ergrown with fern— By old, abandoned tracks in scrubs remote— You may, by chance, around a sudden turn, Win some brief, fleeting glimpse of my grey coat. Then, with a swift wing clapping, I am hence; Or, crouching down, ingenuously seek To merge my colours with the brushwood dense And trick the spoiler, with the vain defence Of all earth’s harried meek. Winter