Judith Wright - Bora Ring lyrics

The song is gone; the dance is secret with the dancers in the earth, the ritual useless, and the tribal story lost in an alien tale. Only the gra** stands up to mark the dancing-ring; the apple-gums posture and mime a past corroboree, murmur a broken chant. The hunter is gone; the spear is splintered underground, the painted bodies a dream the world breathed sleeping and forgot. The nomad feet are still. Only the rider's heart halts at a sightless shadow, an unsaid word that fastens in the blood the ancient curse, the fear as old as Cain.