'The Wonga Pigeon'

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 today 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 remant of my race I hiding here today. 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 glance of my grey coat. Then, with a swift wing-clapping, I am hence; Or, crouching down, ingenuously seek To merge my colors with the brush-wood dense And trick the spoiler, with the vain defence Of earth's harried meek.