And when it's dark he makes the highplains On his quarter horse, with a canvas sack And the stars they bleed together like the flames inside a forge The Earth is molten, time is stretching on a rack Yet he labours like a shadow across the meadows of the moon A diver far beneath the breakers on the rocks There are more bodies in the snow Than there are things that you can know But he knows you don't have to die to walk the netherworld It is a cinch to reach if you can climb a rock Then when the air's too rare to tell and the chill's clear as a bell He lights a fire and he settles down to read He pulls a letter from the sack, makes a pillow of his pack Then hears a wild dog somewhere yanking on a rabbit trap Going crazy as it dawns on it It's beat And the mailman reads "Oh baby take a moment just to think about me You leave me living like a spinster while you're bachelor free You're even more of a burden when you ain't here at home Please, you can't leave me here on my own I won't find my way Please, you can't leave me here on my own." The mailman laughs under his breath And scrutinises the address Who's the poor drunk that knocked up the Baroness? Is it the youth that never talks 'Cept out of earshot with his horse When no one cares less what he thinks or what he says Or the old drover by the fire Who quite enjoys the peace and quiet He's drifting off somewhere beyond the flames Is it the stockman grinding beef Between his horseshoe iron teeth Until the wild dog in the rabbit trap falls quiet He takes the rifle leaning up against a tree And the mailman reads "I had to frighten off your girlfriend with a rock-salt gun Ain't it enough that I adore you? do you prefer them young? Is she a schoolgirl or an ostrich? she's all eyelashes and bones Please, you can't leave me here on my own I won't find my way Please, you can't leave me here on my own." In all his years lugging dispatches from the brides of overlanders There's been no Dear Johns above 7000 feet But now here comes a welcome change He starts to relish the exchange Until a far-off shot rings brightly through the sleet Then through the valleys down below, through where No-one ever goes Spreading thin across the lowlands before vanishing at sea And now a subatomic silence settles fog-like Across the highlands It's too cold here now and it's too quiet to sleep And the mailman reads "I know now why you languish in your doghouse of stone To leave me withered so by loneliness I welcome you home And how could any poor boy leave his Mother in the cold? Please, you can't leave me here on my own I won't find my way Please, you can't leave me here on my own."