It was first published in The Sydney Mail on 13 December 1890,[1] and later in the poet's poetry collection Where the Dead Men Lie, and Other Poems (1897).

He conceived the idea of one when it was too late; when life had destroyed his hope, and he had invited death to put an end to his hopelessness.

It is written in the metre of "How we beat the Favourite;" but beyond portraying Boake's love of the horse, it is scarcely illustrative of the brooding, melancholy bushman as we know him.

"[3] In a survey of the poet's work, an essayist in The Observer (Adelaide) states "Kendall wrote of 'sweet running waters, and soft unfooted dells,' but Boake drew vivid word-pictures of the inland country in its most savage and most pitiless aspects.

In dealing with such scenes lie submerged the idealistic in his temperament, and described the life as he found it — took bright patches from Nature and transferred them to paper.