Work and Profession

There are many that I miss
having sent my last one out a car window
sparking along the road one night, years ago.


The heralded one, of course:
after sex, the two glowing tips
now the lights of a single ship;
at the end of a long dinner
with more wine to come
and a smoke ring coasting into the chandelier;
or on a white beach,
holding one with fingers still wet from a swim.


How bittersweet these punctuations
of flame and gesture;
but the best were on those mornings
when I would have a little something going
in the typewriter,
the sun bright in the windows,
maybe some Berlioz on in the background.
I would go into the kitchen for coffee
and on the way back to the page,
curled in its roller,
I would light one up and feel
its dry rush mix with the dark taste of coffee.


Then I would be my own locomotive,
trailing behind me as I returned to work
little puffs of smoke,
indicators of progress,
signs of industry and thought,
the signal that told the nineteenth century
it was moving forward.
That was the best cigarette,
when I would steam into the study
full of vaporous hope
and stand there,
the big headlamp of my face
pointed down at all the words in parallel lines.

HURRAH! the seaward breezes
Sweep down the bay amain;
Heave up, my lads, the anchor!
Run up the sail again!
Leave to the lubber landsmen
The rail-car and the steed;
The stars of heaven shall guide us,
The breath of heaven shall speed.
From the hill-top looks the steeple,
And the lighthouse from the sand;
And the scattered pines are waving
Their farewell from the land.
One glance, my lads, behind us,
For the homes we leave one sigh,
Ere we take the change and chances
Of the ocean and the sky.
Now, brothers, for the icebergs
Of frozen Labrador,
Floating spectral in the moonshine,
Along the low, black shore!
Where like snow the gannet's feathers
On Brador's rocks are shed,
And the noisy murr are flying,
Like black scuds, overhead;
Where in mist the rock is hiding,
And the sharp reef lurks below,
And the white squall smites in summer,
And the autumn tempests blow;
Where, through gray and rolling vapor,
From evening unto morn,
A thousand, boats are hailing,
Horn answering unto horn.
Hurrah! for the Red Island,
With the white cross on its crown!
Hurrah! for Meccatina,
And its mountains bare and brown!
Where the Caribou's tall antlers
O'er the dwarf-wood freely toss,
And the footstep of the Mickmack
Has no sound upon the moss.
There we'll drop our lines, and gather
Old Ocean's treasures in,
Where'er the mottled mackerel
Turns up a steel-dark fin.
The sea's our field of harvest,
Its scaly tribes our grain;
We'll reap the teeming waters
As at home they reap the plain!
Our wet hands spread the carpet,
And light the hearth of home;
From our fish, as in the old time,
The silver coin shall come.



As the demon fled the chamber
Where the fish of Tobit lay,
So ours from all our dwellings
Shall frighten Want away.
Though the mist upon our jackets
In the bitter air congeals,
And our lines wind stiff and slowly
From off the frozen reels;
Though the fog be dark around us,
And the storm blow high and loud,
We will whistle down the wild wind,
And laugh beneath the cloud!
In the darkness as in daylight,
On the water as on land,
God's eye is looking on us,
And beneath us is His hand!
Death will find us soon or later,
On the deck or in the cot;
And we cannot meet him better
Than in working out our lot.
Hurrah! hurrah! the west-wind
Comes freshening down the bay,
The rising sails are filling;
Give way, my lads, give way!
Leave the coward landsman clinging
To the dull earth, like a weed;
The stars of heaven shall guide us,
The breath of heaven shall speed!

I've thought a power on men and things,
As my uncle ust to say,--
And ef folks don't work as they pray, i jings!
W'y, they ain't no use to pray!
Ef you want somepin', and jes dead-set
A-pleadin' fer it with both eyes wet,
And _tears_ won't bring it, w'y, you try _sweat_,
As my uncle ust to say.


They's some don't know their A, B, Cs,
As my uncle ust to say,
And yit don't waste no candle-grease,
Ner whistle their lives away!
But ef they can't write no book, ner rhyme
No ringin' song fer to last all time,
They can blaze the way fer the march sublime,
As my uncle ust to say.


Whoever's Foreman of all things here,
As my uncle ust to say,
He knows each job 'at we 're best fit fer,
And our round-up, night and day:
And a-sizin' _His_ work, east and west,
And north and south, and worst and best
I ain't got nothin' to suggest,
As my uncle ust to say.

Tall and freckled and sandy,
Face of a country lout;
This was the picture of Andy,
Middleton's Rouseabout.

Type of a coming nation,
In the land of cattle and sheep,
Worked on Middleton's station,
`Pound a week and his keep.'

On Middleton's wide dominions
Plied the stockwhip and shears;
Hadn't any opinions,
Hadn't any `idears'.

Swiftly the years went over,
Liquor and drought prevailed;
Middleton went as a drover,
After his station had failed.

Type of a careless nation,
Men who are soon played out,
Middleton was: -- and his station
Was bought by the Rouseabout.

Flourishing beard and sandy,
Tall and robust and stout;
This is the picture of Andy,
Middleton's Rouseabout.

Now on his own dominions
Works with his overseers;
Hasn't any opinions,
Hasn't any `idears'.

The Government -- I heard about the Government and
I went out to find it. I said I would look closely at
it when I saw it.
Then I saw a policeman dragging a drunken man to
the callaboose. It was the Government in action.
I saw a ward alderman slip into an office one morning
and talk with a judge. Later in the day the judge
dismissed a case against a pickpocket who was a
live ward worker for the alderman. Again I saw
this was the Government, doing things.
I saw militiamen level their rifles at a crowd of
workingmen who were trying to get other workingmen
to stay away from a shop where there was a strike
on. Government in action.
Everywhere I saw that Government is a thing made of
men, that Government has blood and bones, it is
many mouths whispering into many ears, sending
telegrams, aiming rifles, writing orders, saying
"yes" and "no."
Government dies as the men who form it die and are laid
away in their graves and the new Government that
comes after is human, made of heartbeats of blood,
ambitions, lusts, and money running through it all,
money paid and money taken, and money covered
up and spoken of with hushed voices.
A Government is just as secret and mysterious and sensitive
as any human sinner carrying a load of germs,
traditions and corpuscles handed down from
fathers and mothers away back.

WE WANT the man who will lead the van,
The man who will pioneer.
We have no use for the gentleman,
Or the cheating Cheap-Jack here;
We have no room for the men who shirk
The sweat of the brow. Condemn
The men who are frightened to look for work
And funk when it looks for them.


We’ll honour the man who can’t afford
To wait for a job that suits,
But sticks a swag on his shoulders broad
And his feet in blucher boots,
And tramps away o’er the ridges far
And over the burning sand
To look for work where the stations are
In the lonely Western land.


He’ll brave the drouth and he’ll brave the rain,
And fight his sorrows down,
And help to garden the inland plain
And build the inland town;
And he’ll be found in the coming years
With a heart as firm and stout,
An honoured man with the pioneers
Who lead the people out.

He was bare—we don’t want to be rude—
(His condition was owing to drink)
They say his condition was nood,
Which amounts to the same thing, we think
(We mean his condition, we think,
’Twas a naked condition, or nood,
Which amounts to the same thing, we think)
Uncovered he lay on the grass
That shrivelled and shrunk; and he stayed
Three hot summer days, while the glass
Was one hundred and ten in the shade.
(We nearly remarked that he laid,
But that was bad grammar we thought—
It does sound bucolic, we think
It smacks of the barnyard—
Of farming—of pullets in short.)


Unheeded he lay on the dirt;
Beside him a part of his dress,
A tattered and threadbare old shirt
Was raised as a flag of distress.
(On a stick, like a flag of distress—
Reversed—we mean that the tail-end was up
half-mast—on a stick—an evident flag of distress.)


Perhaps in his dreams he persood
Bright visions of heav’nly bliss;
And artists who study the nood
Never saw such a study as this.
The ‘luggage’ went by and the guard
Looked out and his eyes fell on Grice—
We fancy he looked at him hard,
We think that he looked at him twice.


They say (if the telegram’s true)
When he woke up he wondered (good Lord!)
‘Why the engine-man didn’t heave to—
‘Why the train didn’t take him aboard.’
And now, by the case of poor Grice,
We think that a daily express
Should travel with sunshades and ice,
And a lookout for flags of distress.

On the moonlighted decks there are children at play,
While smoothly the steamer is holding her way;
And the old folks are chatting on deck-seats and chairs,
And the lads and the lassies go strolling in pairs.


Some gaze half-entranced on the beautiful sea,
And wonder perhaps if a vision it be:
And surely their journeys no sorrow nor care,
For wealth, love, and beauty are passengers there.


But down underneath, ’mid the coal dust that smears
The face and the hands, work the ship’s engineers.
Whate’er be the duty of others, ’tis theirs
To stand by their engines whatever occurs.


The sailor may gaze on the sea and the sky;
The sailor may tell when the danger is nigh;
But when Death his black head o’er the waters uprears,
Unseen he is met by the ship’s engineers.


They are thrown from their feet by the force of a shock;
They know that their vessel has struck on a rock.
Now stand by your engines when danger appears,
For all may depend on the ship’s engineers!


No thought of their danger! No mad rush on deck!
They stand at their posts in the hull of a wreck,
Firm hands on the valves; and the white steam appears;
And down with their ship go the brave engineers!

When I was up the country in the rough and early days,
I used to work along ov Jimmy Nowlett's bullick-drays;
Then the reelroad wasn't heered on, an' the bush was wild an' strange,
An' we useter draw the timber from the saw-pits in the range --
Load provisions for the stations, an' we'd travel far and slow
Through the plains an' 'cross the ranges in the days of long ago.


Then it's yoke up the bullicks and tramp beside 'em slow,
An' saddle up yer horses an' a-ridin' we will go,
To the bullick-drivin', cattle-drovin',
Nigger, digger, roarin', rovin'
Days o' long ago.


Once me and Jimmy Nowlett loaded timber for the town,
But we hadn't gone a dozen mile before the rain come down,
An' me an' Jimmy Nowlett an' the bullicks an' the dray
Was cut off on some risin' ground while floods around us lay;
An' we soon run short of tucker an' terbacca, which was bad,
An' pertaters dipped in honey was the only tuck we had.


An' half our bullicks perished when the drought was on the land,
An' the burnin' heat that dazzles as it dances on the sand;
When the sun-baked clay an' gravel paves for miles the burnin' creeks,
An' at ev'ry step yer travel there a rottin' carcase reeks --
But we pulled ourselves together, for we never used ter know
What a feather bed was good for in those days o' long ago.


But in spite ov barren ridges an' in spite ov mud an' heat,
An' dust that browned the bushes when it rose from bullicks' feet,
An' in spite ov cold and chilblains when the bush was white with frost,
An' in spite of muddy water where the burnin' plain was crossed,
An' in spite of modern progress, and in spite of all their blow,
'Twas a better land to live in, in the days o' long ago.


When the frosty moon was shinin' o'er the ranges like a lamp,
An' a lot of bullick-drivers was a-campin' on the camp,
When the fire was blazin' cheery an' the pipes was drawin' well,
Then our songs we useter chorus an' our yarns we useter tell;
An' we'd talk ov lands we come from, and ov chaps we useter know,
For there always was behind us OTHER days o' long ago.


Ah, them early days was ended when the reelroad crossed the plain,
But in dreams I often tramp beside the bullick-team again:
Still we pauses at the shanty just to have a drop er cheer,
Still I feels a kind ov pleasure when the campin'-ground is near;
Still I smells the old tarpaulin me an' Jimmy useter throw
O'er the timber-truck for shelter in the days ov long ago.


I have been a-driftin' back'ards with the changes ov the land,
An' if I spoke ter bullicks now they wouldn't understand,
But when Mary wakes me sudden in the night I'll often say:



`Come here, Spot, an' stan' up, Bally, blank an' blank an' come-eer-way.'
An' she says that, when I'm sleepin', oft my elerquince 'ill flow
In the bullick-drivin' language ov the days o' long ago.


Well, the pub will soon be closin', so I'll give the thing a rest;
But if you should drop on Nowlett in the far an' distant west --
An' if Jimmy uses doubleyou instead of ar an' vee,
An' if he drops his aitches, then you're sure to know it's he.
An' yer won't forgit to arsk him if he still remembers Joe
As knowed him up the country in the days o' long ago.


Then it's yoke up the bullicks and tramp beside 'em slow,
An' saddle up yer horses an' a-ridin' we will go,
To the bullick-drivin', cattle-drovin',
Nigger, digger, roarin', rovin'
Days o' long ago.

Luck to the craft that bears this name of mine,
Good fortune follow with her golden spoon
The glazed hat and tarry pantaloon;
And wheresoe'er her keel shall cut the brine,
Cod, hake and haddock quarrel for her line.
Shipped with her crew, whatever wind may blow,
Or tides delay, my wish with her shall go,
Fishing by proxy. Would that it might show
At need her course, in lack of sun and star,
Where icebergs threaten, and the sharp reefs are;
Lift the blind fog on Anticosti's lee
And Avalon's rock; make populous the sea
Round Grand Manan with eager finny swarms,
Break the long calms, and charm away the storms.

Old Time is tramping close to-day—you hear his bluchers fall,
A mighty change is on the way, an’ God protect us all;
Some dust’ll fly from beery coats—at least it’s been declared.
I’m glad that wimin has the votes—but just a trifle scared.
I’m just a trifle scared—For why? The wimin mean to rule;
It makes me feel like days gone by when I was caned at school.
The days of men is nearly dead—of double moons and stars—
They’ll soon put out our pipes, ’tis said, an’ close the public bars.


No more we’ll take a glass of ale when pushed with care an’ strife,
An’chuckle home with that old tale we used to tell the wife.
We’ll laugh an’joke an’ sing no more with jolly beery chums,
An’ shout ‘Here’s luck!’ while waitin’ for the luck that never comes.


Did we prohibit swillin’ tea clean out of common-sense
Or legislate on gossipin’ across a backyard fence?
Did we prohibit bustles—or the hoops when they was here?
The wimin never think of this—they want to stop our beer.


The track o’ life is dry enough, an’ crossed with many a rut,
But, oh! we’ll find it long an’ rough when all the pubs is shut,
When all the pubs is shut, an’ gone the doors we used to seek,
An’ we go toilin’, thirstin’ on through Sundays all the week.


For since the days when pubs was ‘inns’—in years gone past’n’ far—
Poor sinful souls have drowned their sins an’ sorrers at the bar;
An’ though at times it led to crimes, an’ debt, and such complaints—
I scarce dare think about the time when all mankind is saints.


’Twould make the bones of Bacchus leap an’ break his coffin lid;
And Burns’s ghost would wail an’ weep as Bobby never did.
But let the preachers preach in style, an’ rave and rant—’n’ buck,
I rather guess they’ll hear awhile the old war-cry: ‘Here’s Luck!’


The world might wobble round the sun, an’ all the banks go bung,
But pipes’ll smoke an’ liquor run while Auld Lang Syne is sung.
While men are driven through the mill, an’ flinty times is struck,
They’ll find a private entrance still! Here’s Luck, old man—Here’s Luck!

My brothers knew
The things you know.
I did not scorn
learning them;
It’s just my mind
Was busy being trained

For “Other Things”:

Poetry, Philosophy, Literature.
Survival, for a girl.

But now,
What a relief
To see you understand
The ways
Of horses
Their shyness
& hatred
Of
Loneliness:

That you will not
Hesitate
To rescue
An old horse,
Dying on

His feet
&
That you will
Cheerfully
Wash him,
Aged
&
Incontinent
Head
To
Toe. Missing
With your bucket
&
Rag
Not
One
Hidden
Crevice
As he
Trembles
& weeps.

What peace
To see


Raising chickens
Does not
Mystify you
and
Hot water heaters
& their ways
Are well known;
That electricity
& how it
Works
Is something
Within
Your grasp.

That you can
Get a car
To run
By poking
It in
A few mysterious
Places
Under
The hood.

That you can
Fix a
Broken
Anything: battery, truck, stove,
Door, fridge, lamp, chicken coop hinge
While teaching me
The ins and outs
Of Opera
Or
While singing
Lusty
Italian
Tenor
That
Shakes
The walls.

That you can
Sit, comfy,
Unperturbed
By traffic
In the womb-like
Back seat
Of my
Aging
Chariot
While I drive
& you


Ride
The silver
Black
& Golden
Horses
Of
Your
Trumpet.

Robin to beggars with a curse,
Throws the last shilling in his purse;
And when the coachman comes for pay,
The rogue must call another day.
Grave Harry, when the poor are pressing
Gives them a penny and God's blessing;
But always careful of the main,
With twopence left, walks home in rain.
Robin from noon to night will prate,
Run out in tongue, as in estate;
And, ere a twelvemonth and a day,
Will not have one new thing to say.
Much talking is not Harry's vice;
He need not tell a story twice:
And, if he always be so thrifty,
His fund may last to five-and-fifty.
It so fell out that cautious Harry,
As soldiers use, for love must marry,
And, with his dame, the ocean cross'd;
(All for Love, or the World well Lost!)
Repairs a cabin gone to ruin,
Just big enough to shelter two in;
And in his house, if anybody come,
Will make them welcome to his modicum
Where Goody Julia milks the cows,
And boils potatoes for her spouse;
Or darns his hose, or mends his breeches,
While Harry's fencing up his ditches.
Robin, who ne'er his mind could fix,
To live without a coach-and-six,
To patch his broken fortunes, found
A mistress worth five thousand pound;
Swears he could get her in an hour,
If gaffer Harry would endow her;
And sell, to pacify his wrath,
A birth-right for a mess of broth.
Young Harry, as all Europe knows,
Was long the quintessence of beaux;
But, when espoused, he ran the fate
That must attend the married state;
From gold brocade and shining armour,
Was metamorphosed to a farmer;
His grazier's coat with dirt besmear'd;
Nor twice a-week will shave his beard.
Old Robin, all his youth a sloven,
At fifty-two, when he grew loving,
Clad in a coat of paduasoy,
A flaxen wig, and waistcoat gay,
Powder'd from shoulder down to flank,
In courtly style addresses Frank;
Twice ten years older than his wife,
Is doom'd to be a beau for life;



Supplying those defects by dress,
Which I must leave the world to guess.

Toil's a tunnel, there's no way out
For fellows, the like o' me;
A beggar wi' only a crust an' a clout
At the worst o' the worst is free;
but I work to eat, an' I eat to work;
It's always the same old round,
And I dassent fail for the day I shirk
They'll shovel me underground.


I guess God meant it to be that way,
For a man must make his bread;
I was born to bondage, to earn my pay,
To slave to the day I'm dead;
To live in a tunnel, to die in a ditch That's
just what us fellows do;
For the poor must be makin' the rich more rich,
An' the many must serve the few.


Aye, we live in a tunnel, most o' us,
A-fearin' to lose our job;
But who has the right to gripe an' cuss
So the goblet's hot on the hob.
An' I mustn't be havin' the wife complain,
An' I can't let the childer fast:
So I'll toil in my tunnel an' drag my chain,
Clank! Clank! Clank! to the last.

The shipping-office clerks are ‘short,’ the manager is gruff—
‘They cannot make reductions,’ and ‘the fares are low enough.’
They ship us West with cattle, and we go like cattle too;
And fight like dogs three times a day for what we get to chew. . . .
We’ll have the pick of empty bunks and lots of stretching room,
And go for next to nothing at the Bursting of the Boom.
So wait till the Boom bursts!—we’ll all get a show:
Then when the Boom bursts is our time to go.
We’ll meet ’em coming back in shoals, with looks of deepest gloom,
But we’re the sort that battle through at the Bursting of the Boom.


The captain’s easy-going when Fremantle comes in sight;
He can’t say when you’ll get ashore—perhaps tomorrow night;
Your coins are few, the charges high; you must not linger here—
You’ll get your boxes from the hold when she’s ‘longside the pier.’
The launch will foul the gangway, and the trembling bulwarks loom
Above a fleet of harbour craft—at the Bursting of the Boom.


So wait till the Boom bursts!—we’ll all get a show;
He’ll ‘take you for a bob, sir,’ and where you want to go.
He’ll ‘take the big portmanteau, sir, if he might so presume’—
You needn’t hump your luggage at the Bursting of the Boom.


It’s loafers—Customs-loafers—and you pay and pay again;
They hinder you and cheat you from the gangway to the train;
The pubs and restaurants are full—they haven’t room for more;
They charge us each three shillings for a shakedown on the floor;
But, ‘Show this gentleman upstairs—the first front parlour room.
‘We’ll see about your luggage, sir’—at the Bursting of the Boom.


So wait till the Boom bursts!—we’ll all get a show;
And wait till the Boom bursts, and swear mighty low.
‘We mostly charge a pound a week. How do you like the room?’
And ‘Show this gentleman the bath’—at the Bursting of the Boom.


I go down to the timber-yard (I cannot face the rent)
To get some strips of oregon to frame my hessian tent;
To buy some scraps of lumber for a table or a shelf:
The boss comes up and says I might just look round for myself ;
The foreman grunts and turns away as silent as the tomb—
The boss himself will wait on me at the Bursting of the Boom.


So wait till the Boom bursts!—we’ll all get a load.
‘You had better take those scraps, sir, they’re only in the road.’
‘Now, where the hell’s the carter?’ you’ll hear the foreman fume;
And, ‘Take that timber round at once!’ at the Bursting of the Boom.


Each one-a-penny grocer, in his box of board and tin,
Will think it condescending to consent to take you in;
And not content with twice as much as what is just and right,
They charge and cheat you doubly, for the Boom is at its height.
It’s‘Take it now or leave it now;’ ‘your money or your room;’



But ‘Who’s attending Mr. Brown?’ at the Bursting of the Boom.


So wait till the Boom bursts!—and take what you can get,
‘There’s not the slightest hurry, and your bill ain’t ready yet.’
They’ll call and get your orders until the crack o’ doom,
And send them round directly, at the Bursting of the Boom.


No Country and no Brotherhood—such things are dead and cold;
A camp from all the lands or none, all mad for love of gold ;
Where T’othersider number one makes slave of number two,
And the vilest women of the world the vilest ways pursue;
And men go out and slave and bake and die in agony
In western hells that God forgot, where never man should be.
I feel a prophet in my heart that speaks the one word ‘Doom!’
And aye you’ll hear the Devil laugh at the Bursting of the Boom.

There was a whispering in my hearth,
A sigh of the coal.
Grown wistful of a former earth
It might recall.
I listened for a tale of leaves
And smothered ferns,
Frond-forests; and the low, sly lives
Before the fawns.
My fire might show steam-phantoms simmer
From Time's old cauldron,
Before the birds made nests in summer,
Or men had children.
But the coals were murmuring of their mine,
And moans down there
Of boys that slept wry sleep, and men
Writhing for air.
And I saw white bones in the cinder-shard,
Bones without number.
For many hearts with coal are charred,
And few remember.
I thought of all that worked dark pits
Of war, and died
Digging the rock where Death reputes
Peace lies indeed.
Comforted years will sit soft-chaired
In rooms of amber;
The years will stretch their hands, well-cheered
By our lifes' ember.
The centuries will burn rich loads
With which we groaned,
Whose warmth shall lull their dreaming lids,
While songs are crooned.
But they will not dream of us poor lads
Left in the ground.

'A man should write to please himself,'
He proudly said.

Well, see his poems on the shelf,
Dusty, unread.

When he came to my shop each day,
So peaked and cold,

I'd sneak one of his books away
And say 'twas sold.

And then by chance he looked below,
And saw a stack

Of his own work,--speechless with woe
He came not back.

I hate to think he took to drink,
And passed away;

I have not heard of him a word
Unto this day.

A man must write to please himself,
Of all it's true;

But happy they who spurning pelf-Please
people too.

So the time seems come at last,
And the drums go rolling past,
And above them in the sunlight Labour's banners float and flow;
They are marching with the sun,
But I look in vain for one
Of the men who fought for freedom more than fifteen years ago.


They were men who did the work
Out at Blackall, Hay, and Bourke –
They were men who fought the battle that the world shall never know;
And they vanished one by one
When their bitter task was done –
Men who worked and wrote for freedom more than fifteen years ago.


Some are scattered, some are dead,
By the shanty and the shed,
In the lignum and the mulga, by the river running low;
And I often wish in vain
I could call them back again –
Mates of mine who fought for freedom more than fifteen years ago.


From the country of their birth
Some have sailed and proved their worth;
Some have died on distant deserts, some have perished in the snow.
Some are gloomy, bitter men,
And I meet them now and then –
Men who'd give their lives for Labour more than fifteen years ago.


Oh, the drums come back to me,
And they beat for victory,
But my heart is scarcely quickened, and I never feel the glow;
For I've learnt the world since then,
And the hopelessness of men,
And the fire it burnt too fiercely more than fifteen years ago.


Lucky you who still are young,
When the rebel war-hymn's sung,
And the sons of slaves are marching with their faces all aglow,
When the revolution comes
And the blood is on the drums –
Oh! I wish the storm had found me more than fifteen years ago!


Bear the olden banner still!
Let the nations fight who will!
'Tis the flag of generations – the flag that all the peoples know;
And they'll bear it, brave and red,
Over ancient rebel dead,
In the future to the finish as a thousand years ago!

When his heart is growing bitter and his hair is growing grey,
And he hears the debt-collector knocking several times a day,
And the shrill voice of the Missus, blame, reiterate, accuse—
Then the poet who was famous feels inclined to damn the muse— .....


When he hears a sudden rapping—rapping at his chamber door,
Then he knows it's no good trying to write poems any more,
Then he bursts from out his chamber and he grabs his battered hat,
And he cadges Two Bob somewhere and gets beered up on his pat.

Thus spoke to my lady the knight full of care,
'Let me have your advice in a weighty affair.
This Hamilton's bawn, while it sticks in my hand
I lose by the house what I get by the land;
But how to dispose of it to the best bidder,
For a barrack or malt-house, we now must consider.
'First, let me suppose I make it a malt-house,
Here I have computed the profit will fall t'us:
There's nine hundred pounds for labour and grain,
I increase it to twelve, so three hundred remain;
A handsome addition for wine and good cheer,
Three dishes a-day, and three hogsheads a-year;
With a dozen large vessels my vault shall be stored;
No little scrub joint shall come on my board;
And you and the Dean no more shall combine
To stint me at night to one bottle of wine;
Nor shall I, for his humour, permit you to purloin
A stone and a quarter of beef from my sir-loin.
If I make it a barrack, the crown is my tenant;
My dear, I have ponder'd again and again on't:
In poundage and drawbacks I lose half my rent,
Whatever they give me, I must be content,
Or join with the court in every debate;
And rather than that, I would lose my estate.'
Thus ended the knight; thus began his meek wife:
'It must, and it shall be a barrack, my life.
I'm grown a mere mopus; no company comes
But a rabble of tenants, and rusty dull rums.
With parsons what lady can keep herself clean?
I'm all over daub'd when I sit by the Dean.
But if you will give us a barrack, my dear,
The captain I'm sure will always come here;
I then shall not value his deanship a straw,
For the captain, I warrant, will keep him in awe;
Or, should he pretend to be brisk and alert,
Will tell him that chaplains should not be so pert;
That men of his coat should be minding their prayers,
And not among ladies to give themselves airs.'
Thus argued my lady, but argued in vain;
The knight his opinion resolved to maintain.
But Hannah, who listen'd to all that was past,
And could not endure so vulgar a taste,
As soon as her ladyship call'd to be dress'd,
Cried, 'Madam, why surely my master's possess'd,
Sir Arthur the maltster! how fine it will sound!
I'd rather the bawn were sunk under ground.
But, madam, I guess'd there would never come good,
When I saw him so often with Darby and Wood.
And now my dream's out; for I was a-dream'd
That I saw a huge rat—O dear, how I scream'd!
And after, methought, I had lost my new shoes;
And Molly, she said, I should hear some ill news.



'Dear Madam, had you but the spirit to tease,
You might have a barrack whenever you please:
And, madam, I always believed you so stout,
That for twenty denials you would not give out.
If I had a husband like him, I purtest,
Till he gave me my will, I would give him no rest;
And, rather than come in the same pair of sheets
With such a cross man, I would lie in the streets:
But, madam, I beg you, contrive and invent,
And worry him out, till he gives his consent.
Dear madam, whene'er of a barrack I think,
An I were to be hang'd, I can't sleep a wink:
For if a new crotchet comes into my brain,
I can't get it out, though I'd never so fain.
I fancy already a barrack contrived
At Hamilton's bawn, and the troop is arrived;
Of this to be sure, Sir Arthur has warning,
And waits on the captain betimes the next morning.
'Now see, when they meet, how their honours behave;
'Noble captain, your servant'—'Sir Arthur, your slave;
You honour me much'—'The honour is mine.'—
''Twas a sad rainy night'—'But the morning is fine.'—
'Pray, how does my lady?'—'My wife's at your service.'—
'I think I have seen her picture by Jervas.'—
'Good-morrow, good captain'—'I'll wait on you down'—
'You shan't stir a foot'—'You'll think me a clown.'—
'For all the world, captain, not half an inch farther'—
'You must be obey'd—Your servant, Sir Arthur!
My humble respects to my lady unknown.'—
'I hope you will use my house as your own.''
'Go bring me my smock, and leave off your prate,
Thou hast certainly gotten a cup in thy pate.'
'Pray, madam, be quiet: what was it I said?
You had like to have put it quite out of my head.
Next day to be sure, the captain will come,
At the head of his troop, with trumpet and drum.
Now, madam, observe how he marches in state:
The man with the kettle-drum enters the gate:
Dub, dub, adub, dub. The trumpeters follow.
Tantara, tantara; while all the boys holla.
See now comes the captain all daub'd with gold lace:
O la! the sweet gentleman! look in his face;
And see how he rides like a lord of the land,
With the fine flaming sword that he holds in his hand;
And his horse, the dear creter, it prances and rears;
With ribbons in knots at its tail and its ears:
At last comes the troop, by word of command,
Drawn up in our court; when the captain cries, STAND!
Your ladyship lifts up the sash to be seen,
For sure I had dizen'd you out like a queen.
The captain, to show he is proud of the favour,
Looks up to your window, and cocks up his beaver;



(His beaver is cock'd: pray, madam, mark that,
For a captain of horse never takes off his hat,
Because he has never a hand that is idle,
For the right holds the sword, and the left holds the bridle
Then flourishes thrice his sword in the air,
As a compliment due to a lady so fair;
(How I tremble to think of the blood it has spilt!)
Then he lowers down the point, and kisses the hilt.
Your ladyship smiles, and thus you begin:
'Pray, captain, be pleased to alight and walk in.'
The captain salutes you with congee profound,
And your ladyship curtseys half way to the ground.
'Kit, run to your master, and bid him come to us;
I'm sure he'll be proud of the honour you do us;
And, captain, you'll do us the favour to stay,
And take a short dinner here with us to-day:
You're heartily welcome; but as for good cheer,
You come in the very worst time of the year;
If I had expected so worthy a guest—'
'Lord, madam! your ladyship sure is in jest;
You banter me, madam; the kingdom must grant—'
'You officers, captain, are so complaisant!''—
'Hist, hussey, I think I hear somebody coming '—
'No madam: 'tis only Sir Arthur a-humming.
To shorten my tale, (for I hate a long story,)
The captain at dinner appears in his glory;
The dean and the doctor have humbled their pride,
For the captain's entreated to sit by your side;
And, because he's their betters, you carve for him first;
The parsons for envy are ready to burst.
The servants, amazed, are scarce ever able
To keep off their eyes, as they wait at the table;
And Molly and I have thrust in our nose,
To peep at the captain in all his fine clo'es.
Dear madam, be sure he's a fine spoken man,
Do but hear on the clergy how glib his tongue ran;
And, 'madam,' says he, 'if such dinners you give,
You'll ne'er want for parsons as long as you live.
I ne'er knew a parson without a good nose;
But the devil's as welcome, wherever he goes:
G—d d—n me! they bid us reform and repent,
But, z—s! by their looks, they never keep Lent:
Mister curate, for all your grave looks, I'm afraid
You cast a sheep's eye on her ladyship's maid:
I wish she would lend you her pretty white hand
In mending your cassock, and smoothing your band:
(For the Dean was so shabby, and look'd like a ninny,
That the captain supposed he was curate to Jinny.)
'Whenever you see a cassock and gown,
A hundred to one but it covers a clown.
Observe how a parson comes into a room;
G—d d—n me, he hobbles as bad as my groom;



A scholard, when just from his college broke loose,
Can hardly tell how to cry bo to a goose;
Your Noveds, and Bluturks, and Omurs, and stuff
By G—, they don't signify this pinch of snuff.
To give a young gentleman right education,
The army's the only good school in the nation:
My schoolmaster call'd me a dunce and a fool,
But at cuffs I was always the cock of the school;
I never could take to my book for the blood o' me,
And the puppy confess'd he expected no good o' me.
He caught me one morning coquetting his wife,
But he maul'd me, I ne'er was so maul'd in my life:
So I took to the road, and, what's very odd,
The first man I robb'd was a parson, by G—.
Now, madam, you'll think it a strange thing to say,
But the sight of a book makes me sick to this day.
'Never since I was born did I hear so much wit,
And, madam, I laugh'd till I thought I should split.
So then you look'd scornful, and snift at the Dean,
As who should say, 'Now, am I skinny and lean?'
But he durst not so much as once open his lips,
And the doctor was plaguily down in the hips.'
Thus merciless Hannah ran on in her talk,
Till she heard the Dean call, 'Will your ladyship walk?'
Her ladyship answers, 'I'm just coming down:'
Then, turning to Hannah, and forcing a frown,
Although it was plain in her heart she was glad,
Cried, 'Hussey, why sure the wench is gone mad!
How could these chimeras get into your brains!—
Come hither and take this old gown for your pains.
But the Dean, if this secret should come to his ears,
Will never have done with his gibes and his jeers:
For your life, not a word of the matter I charge ye:
Give me but a barrack, a fig for the clergy.'


We give the world to understand,
Our thriving Dean has purchased land;
A purchase which will bring him clear
Above his rent four pounds a-year;
Provided to improve the ground,
He will but add two hundred pound;
And from his endless hoarded store,
To build a house, five hundred more.
Sir Arthur, too, shall have his will,
And call the mansion Drapier's-Hill;
That, when a nation, long enslaved,
Forgets by whom it once was saved;
When none the Drapier's praise shall sing,
His signs aloft no longer swing,
His medals and his prints forgotten,
And all his handkerchiefs are rotten,
His famous letters made waste paper,



This hill may keep the name of Drapier;
In spite of envy, flourish still,
And Drapier's vie with Cooper's-Hill.

John McKeen, in his rusty dress,
His loosened collar, and swarthy throat,
His face unshaven, and none the less,
His hearty laugh and his wholesomeness,
And the wealth of a workman's vote!


Bring him, O Memory, here once more,
And tilt him back in his Windsor chair
By the kitchen stove, when the day is o'er
And the light of the hearth is across the floor,
And the crickets everywhere!


And let their voices be gladly blent
With a watery jingle of pans and spoons,
And a motherly chirrup of sweet content,
And neighborly gossip and merriment,
And old-time fiddle-tunes!


Tick the clock with a wooden sound,
And fill the hearing with childish glee
Of rhyming riddle, or story found
In the Robinson Crusoe, leather-bound
Old book of the Used-to-be!


John McKeen of the Past! Ah John,
To have grown ambitious in worldly ways--!
To have rolled your shirt-sleeves down, to don
A broadcloth suit, and forgetful, gone
Out on election days!


John ah, John! Did it prove your worth
To yield you the office you still maintain--?
To fill your pockets, but leave the dearth
Of all the happier things on earth
To the hunger of heart and brain?


Under the dusk of your villa trees,
Edging the drives where your blooded span
Paw the pebbles and wait your ease--,
Where are the children about your knees,
And the mirth, and the happy man?


The blinds of your mansion are battened to;
Your faded wife is a close recluse;
And your 'finished' daughters will doubtless do
Dutifully all that is willed of you,
And marry as you shall choose--!


But O for the old-home voices, blent
With the watery jingle of pans and spoons,
And the motherly chirrup of glad content,
And neighborly gossip and merriment,



And the old-time fiddle-tunes!

Turn the light down, nurse, and leave me, while I hold my last review,
For
the Bush
is slipping from me, and the town is going too:
Draw the blinds, the streets are lighted, and I hear the tramp of feet—
And I’m weary, very weary, of the
Faces in the Street
.


In the dens of Grind and Heartbreak, in the streets of Never-Rest,
I have lost the scent and colour and the music of the West:
And I would recall old faces with the memories they bring—
Where are Bill and Jim and Mary and the
Songs They used to Sing
?


They are coming! They are coming! they are passing through the room
With the smell of gum leaves burning, and the scent of
Wattle bloom!


And behind them in the timber, after dust and heat and toil,
Others sit beside the camp fire yarning while the billies boil.


In the Gap above the ridges there’s a flash and there’s a glow—
Swiftly down the scrub-clad siding come the
Lights of Cobb and Co
.:
Red face from the box-seat beaming—Oh, how plain those faces come!
From his ‘Golden-Hole’ ’tis Peter M’Intosh who’s going home.


Dusty patch in desolation, bare slab walls and earthen floor,
And a blinding drought is blazing from horizons to the door:
Milkless tea and ration sugar, damper junk and pumpkin mash—
And a
Day on our Selection
passes by me in a flash.


Rush of big wild-eyed store bullocks while the sheep crawl hopelessly,
And the loaded wool teams rolling, lurching on like ships at sea:
With his whip across his shoulder (and the wind just now abeam),
There goes
Jimmy Nowlett
ploughing through the dust beside his team!


Sunrise on the diggings! (Oh! what life and hearts and hopes are here)
From a hundred pointing forges comes a tinkle, tinkle clear—
Strings of drays with wash to puddle, clack of countless windlass boles,
Here and there
the red flag flying
, flying over golden holes.


Picturesque, unreal, romantic, chivalrous, and brave and free;



Clean in living, true in mateship—reckless generosity.
Mates are buried here as comrades who on fields of battle fall—
And—the dreams, the aching, hoping lover hearts beneath it all!


Rough-built theatres and stages where the world’s best actors trod—
Singers bringing reckless rovers nearer boyhood, home and God;
Paid in laughter, tears and nuggets in the play that fortune plays—
’Tis the palmy days of Gulgong—Gulgong in
the Roaring Days.


Pass the same old scenes before me—and again my heart can ache—
There the
Drover’s Wife
sits watching (not as Eve did) for a snake.
And I see the drear deserted goldfields when the night is late,
And the stony face of Mason watching by his
Father’s Mate.


And I see my
Haggard Women
plainly as they were in life,
’Tis the form of Mrs. Spicer and her friend,
Joe Wilson’s wife,


Sitting hand in hand
‘Past Carin
’,’ not a sigh and not a moan,
Staring steadily before her and the tears just trickle down.


It was
No Place for a Woman
—where the women worked like men—
From the Bush and Jones’ Alley come their haunting forms again.
And, let this thing be remembered when I’ve answered to the roll,
That I pitied haggard women—wrote for them with all my soul.


Narrow bed-room in the City in the hard days that are dead—
An alarm clock on the table, and a pale boy on the bed:
Arvie Aspinalls Alarm Clock with its harsh and startling call
Never more shall break his slumbers—I was Arvie Aspinall.


Maoriland
and
Steelman
, cynic, spieler, stiff-lipped, battler-through
(Kept a wife and child in comfort, but of course they never knew—
Thought he was an honest bagman)—Well, old man, you needn’t hug—
Sentimental; you of all men!—Steelman, Oh! I was a mug!



Ghostly lines of scrub at daybreak—dusty daybreak in the drought—
And a lonely swagman tramping on the track to
Further Out
:
Like a shade the form of Mitchell, nose-bag full and bluey up
And between the swag and shoulders lolls his foolish cattle-pup.


Kindly cynic, sad comedian! Mitchell! when you’ve left the Track,


And have shed your load of sorrow as we slipped our swags out back,


We shall have a yarn together in the land of


Rest Awhile


—


And across his ragged shoulder Mitchell smiles his quiet smile.


Shearing sheds and tracks and shanties—girls that wait at homestead gates—
Camps and stern-eyed Union leaders, and
Joe Wilson and his Mates


True and straight, and to my fancy, each one as he passes through
Deftly down upon the table slips a dusty ‘note’ or two.


So at last the end has found me—(end of all the human push)
And again in silence round me come my
Children of the Bush
!—
Listen, who are young, and let them—if I in late and bitter days
Wrote some reckless lines—forget them—there is little there to praise.


I was human, very human, and if in the days misspent
I have injured man or woman, it was done without intent.
If at times I blundered blindly—bitter heart and aching brow—
If I wrote a line unkindly—I am sorry for it now.


Days in London
like a nightmare—dreams of foreign lands and sea—
And
Australia
is the only land that seemeth real to me.
Tell the Bushmen to Australia and each other to be true—
‘Tell the boys to stick together!’ I have held my
Last Review.

FOOLS can parrot-cry the prophet when the proof is close at hand,
And the blind can see the danger when the foe is in the land!
Truth was never cynicism, death or ruin’s not a joke,
“Told-you-so” is not a warning—Patriotism not a croak.


Blame will aid no man nor country when the dark days come at last—
As with men so with a nation, and the warning time is past.
Our great sins were of omission, and the dogs of war are loosed—
And we all must stand together when those sins come home to roost.


Since the cities are the cities and shall stand for evermore,
Let us justify our being, be it peace or be it war.
For because we are the townsfolk, and have never ridden far
Shall we call the bush to aid us that has made us what we are?


Westward went our brothers, fighting distance, drought, and loneliness
While we lived in light and comfort knowing nothing of distress,
We who never shared the hardships when the sunset led them on,
Now’s our time, O street-bred people, with our faces to the dawn!


They have conquered with the cross-cut and the wedges and the maul,
With the spade and axe and mattock and the saddle-packs and all,
They have mighty work before them for the sake of you and me—
Let us stand up to our duty! We’re the Rearguard by the Sea.


Days of gibes at “street-bred people” by the street-bred bards are done—
Shall the man who lays the yard-stick never learn to lay the gun?
Shall the crouched type-writer toiling for his home in days like these
Touch the button the less firmly when we play on other keys?


We have seen in many countries what the street-bred men can do—
In the desert, scrub and jungle they were men who battled through!
Human weeds of grand endurance winning where the strong men quailed,
Pigeon-chested leaders leading on where beef-born courage failed.


Street-bred people down the ages—beggars, mobs and democrats—
Fought through many desperate sieges (fought on horseflesh, dogs and rats)
When their own cowed country failed them, then the city soul was proved—
“Street-bred people” died in thousands for the cities that they loved.


In the days when strength was needed—days of pike and axe and sword—
Daylight found the peaceful burghers ready, keeping watch and ward.
Clerks and tailors fought like heroes at the gates and in the trench—
(Even Falstaff brought his herrings with some slaughter through the French).


Every man should have a cottage and a garden to defend,
But the “should-be” is for ever—cities stand until the end,
Every farmer has a country that he loves when war-drums roll—
Every clerk may have a city that he loves with heart and soul.


Fat or lean, we all are sinners—lean or fat we all would be;
High or low or lean or fatted, ’tis for Nationality.



It will be till all is ended, as it was since all began—
’Tis the head and not the feathers! ’tis the heart and not the “man”!

On the Track of Grand Endeavour, on the long track out to Bourke,
Past the Turn-Back, and past Howlong, and the pub at Sudden Jerk,
Past old Bullock-Yoke and Bog Flat, and the “Pinch” at Stick-to-me,
Lies the camp that we have christened—christened “Broken Axletree.”
We were young and strong and fearless, we had not seen Mount Despair,
And the West was to be conquered, and we meant to do our share;
We were far away from cities, and were fairly off the spree
When we camped at Cart Wheel River with a broken axletree.


Oh, the pub at Devil’s Crossing! and the woman that he sent!
And the hell for which we bartered horse and trap and “traps” and tent!
And the black “Since Then”—the chances that we never more may see—
Ah! the two lives that were ruined for a broken axletree!


“Fate” is but a Cart Wheel River, placed to test us by the Lord,
And the Star of Live Forever shines beyond At Blacksmith’s Ford!
Shun all fatalists and “isms”—heed no talk of “destiny”!
Ride a race for life to Blacksmith’s with your broken axletree.