“The Dying Stockman” is the traditional Australian song , but the composer of the song was unknown.

What the words mean

• billy ~ a tin can with a wire handle or a pot. To make tea, water was boiled in it and
  a handful of tea thrown in.
• tucker bag ~ bag to carry your tucker (food)
• jumbuck ~ sheep
• coolibah ~ species of gum or eucalyptus tree; coolabah (alternate spelling)
• dingo ~ tawny-yellow native Australian wild dog

See also  The Stockman
Stockman’s Last Bed • Flash Stockman

A strapping young stockman lay dying;
   His saddle supporting his head;
His two mates around him were crying,
   As he rose on his elbow and said:

“Wrap me up with my stockwhip and blanket,
   And bury me deep down below,
Where the dingoes and crows can’t molest me,
   In the shade where the coolibahs grow.

“Oh! had I the flight of the bronzewing,
   Far o’er the plains would I fly,
Straight to the land of my childhood,
   And there would I lay down and die.

“Wrap me up with my stockwhip and blanket,
   And bury me deep down below,
Where the dingoes and crows can’t molest me,
   In the shade where the coolibahs grow.

“Then cut down a couple of saplings,
   Place one at my head and my toe,
Carve on them cross, stockwhip, and saddle,
   To show there’s a stockman below.

“Wrap me up with my stockwhip and blanket,
   And bury me deep down below,
Where the dingoes and crows can’t molest me,
   In the shade where the coolibahs grow.

“Hark! there’s a wail of a dingo,
   Watchful and weird — I must go,
For it tolls the death-knell of the stockman
   From the glom of the scrub down below.

“Wrap me up with my stockwhip and blanket,
   And bury me deep down below,
Where the dingoes and crows can’t molest me,
   In the shade where the coolibahs grow.

“There’s tea in the battered old billy;
   Place the pannikins out in a row,
And we’ll drink to the next merry meeting,
   In the place where all good fellows go.

“Wrap me up with my stockwhip and blanket,
   And bury me deep down below,
Where the dingoes and crows can’t molest me,
   In the shade where the coolibahs grow.

“And oft in the shades of the twilight,
   When the soft winds are whispering low,
And the dark’ning shadows are falling,
   Sometimes think of the stockman below.

“Wrap me up with my stockwhip and blanket,
   And bury me deep down below,
Where the dingoes and crows can’t molest me,
   In the shade where the coolibahs grow.