There's a dog named " Battler " that was littered long ago,
And he travels on the Outside Track,
Where the miles are endless and feet are slow,
And the plains lie bare in the drought's white glow,
To the Great North-west that drovers know —
O he travels on the plains Outback!

There's a dog named " Battler " (singing any song you like),
And he travels on the Outside Track;
And he might have been a bull-dog or a dingo or a tyke,
But he seemed to know the pack-horse as he learned to know the bike;
And he never asked for wages, and he never went on strike
When he led them to the wide Outback.

He's a half-bred mongrel, with a little man named Smith,
(And he travels on the Outside Track);
And pure-bred mongrels are the men he travels with,
Whose futures are decided, and whose past lives are a myth;
They are finished for the present with the hearts that fight and writhe,
They are shadows on the Outside Track.

There's a dog named " Battler " , who was never seen at all,
(Or mistaken for a dog named " Pride " ),
But you'll feel that he is near you when your back's against the wall,
In some madness born of trouble that you'll care not to recall,
As I felt him on a past day, when the sky seemed like a pall,
Pulling strongly at the sleeve of Suicide.

He always seems to urge you, though he never seems to " rouse " ,
O he travelled with Old Jacob's caravan!
When he's in the room beside you he's as quiet as a mouse,
And his presence seems indulgent when you blame your friends and " grouse " ,
He is waiting in the back-yard of the common boarding-house
Where I'm waiting for the chance to be a man.

There's a dog named " Battler " , and he's always working hard
On the back runs by the Dead Beat Track;
O the drifter and the waster and the rest beneath regard,
They are stock for him to muster, they are sheep for him to yard;
He' the spirit of your dead friend, comrade, chum, or mate, or pard,
And he often brings a lost soul back.

There's a dog whose name is " Battler " , that was littered long ago,
And he travels on the Outside Track;
Through the rain and mud for ever, or the drought's white, dazzling glow,
Where the blazing miles are endless, and the dusty feet are slow,
Where the plains spread to horizons that the Overlanders know,
O he travels on the plains Outback!