Frog fellow singing out, they telling all about

Rain come down!'

Joyously then the tribe came in

With the croaking of frogs little and big,

Filling a swamp with bedlam of joy

At the nearness of rain:

'Wark, awark, wark!'

'Eek, eek, cree-eek!'

'Ork! Ork!'

'Plover here now,

Plover loud now,

He sure rain-bringer, he tell blackfellow

Rain fall down!'

From all the rows of people now

Came perfectly the spurwinged plover's sharp

Excited staccato:

'Karra-karak! '

'Keerk-keerk!'

'Karaka-karra-karak! '

'Wind he come,

Little wind first time,

He say soon big blow follow him

And rain fall down!'

'Wee-oo, Whoo-oo!' came the wail of the wind,

'Whish-awhee-ee!'

'Awhoo-whoo!'

'Thunder up there,

Rumble up there,

Dooloomai the Thunderer he tumble all about,

Shake rain down!'

Like answer came a deep rolling thunder

From the men, while the women with open palms

Beat rapidly upon skin rugs

Stretched taut between their knees like drums

Till the hollow sound

Swelled to a loud booming and then

Gradually died away.

'Rain come down! Rain come down!'

Chorused the line of dancers, threw

Into the air handfuls of water

From bark yorlis as they stamped and swayed,

Chanting

The repetitions of the rain song,

While from the ranked Wyambis rose

The toneless monotone of showers,

Hard to do and done superbly –

Leafy boughs, rattling gravel, voices, all

Blended as one to reproduce

The universal sound of steady rain.

The tempo increased, all the rain symbols now

Mingled in pandemonium. Frogs croaked,

Rainbird screamed, thunder rolled,

The rising whine of wind

Cut across cries of plover, and

As background to it all

The deep steady drumming of the rain:

'Wark, awark-wark!'

'Wee-whoo-awhoo!'

'Karra-karak-karak! '

'Boom! Bombomba-oom-m-m!'

'Cree-eek! Ork! Ork!'

'Whish-awhee-ee!'

'Rain come down! Rain come down!'

It looked like going on half the night.

A dingo on a low ridge

Half a mile away

Stood motionless with pricked ears looking down

On the strange goings-on below, dim-lit

By the dying Wyambi fires. These

Were the feared and hated men-creatures

Nothing in all the bush could understand.

He turned away into the dark.

Down on the squatting-place,

Lost in the merry-making, no one marked

The rising of a little wind

That rustled the belahs and then began

To sway them; none saw

That the clear stars above them had disappeared.

Suddenly

A blinding white fork of lightning

Stood for an instant close above them

And instantaneously

A double shattering crash of thunder

That shook the world. All sprang up

Laughing and screaming,

Half in terror and half in joy as the first

Slow drops of rain began to fall; the wind

Whipped up to a gale and whooped about them,

Sparks from the fires

Went whirled in showers across the dark

As the rain roared to a downpour.

'The caves! The caves!'

Some snatched up firesticks and in a straggling line

The excited Wyambi people