It was first published in The Bulletin magazine on 30 July 1892,[1] and later in the poet's collection Rhymes from the Mines and Other Lines (1896).

The poem details the fate of an old whim horse, no longer shackled to a winch after the mine has played out.

In a review of the poem in "The Sunday Mail" (Brisbane), the reviewer describes the poem as follows: "Day after day, week after week, this horse comes along to the whim to work his 'shift' but never can he understand why his friends and his master do not come to work also.

But time passes by him swiftly, and gradually, through sadness and his desire to be with his friends again, his reasoning mind drops back into oblivion, and he begins to live in the world of his imagination.

"[2] Geoffrey Blainey, in "Days of Gold", his essay on the 150th anniversary of Eureka: "Nearby, a few spectators are patting a whim-horse, a slightly obstinate Clydesdale, about seven years old.