Chorus
Ah McKenzie, McKenzie, was that you I saw,
Roaming those back-hills just up from Benmore,
With fifty-odd sheep and a good sheperd's dog,
Was that your ghost in the morning fog.
1.
Well, I've mustered in Southland, through Central and North,
In that rough barren country of tussock and gorse,
And I've heard all the tales that the old shearers tell,
And I've passed them along with me own tales as well.
2.
Well, they tell of McKenzie, sheep strealer they say,
Who stole squatters' sheep and then drove them away,
With one strong-eyed dog who could hypnotise sheep,
To a far distand land where no white-man had been.
3.
Some say he was a criminal, some say a good man,
Put down by the law and his dog, it was damned,
They threw him in prison but he set himself free,
When they caught him again his dog hung from a tree.
4.
In those high country gales that blow through the night,
Where the musterers camp by the fire's dim light,
They often bring sounds from way out in the dark,
Of a lone shepherd's whistle or a lone sheep-dog's bark.