The poem is about a man reminiscing about his friend Clancy who he used to know when Clancy worked as a sheep shearer. The man had tried to contact Clancy by letter years ago but was told in response that Clancy had gone to Queensland to work as a cattle drover instead. The man envies Clancy's freer lifestyle out in the bush and thinks he would prefer Clancy's job droving cattle compared to his own confined office work in the city.