Chapter I: Haven’t the Guts to Go 107

I PROMISED SUE 179

KILDEA’S FLOWER FARM 119

LASS, A, A LOAF, AND A GOOD CIGAR 177
LAST SPRAT, THE 160
LEADEN HOOF, THE 49

[Decoration: Gold mining camp]

[Decoration: Man leading camel]

MAN WHO CAN TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT ALONE, THE 169
MY SWAG AND I 60

NEARLY A PESSIMIST 72
NO MORE VERSES IN PRAISE OF WINE 194

OLD BILL BATES 83
OLD FARM GATE, THE 129
ONLY A KISS 153
OUR GOLDFIELDS SPRING 69
OUR LIMITATIONS 196

PAY WASH 65
PILGRIMAGE, THE 51

RHYMES AND RHYMERS 186

SAY, WHAT DO YOU THINK OF IT NOW 162
SCRATCHING FOR A CRUST 77
SHATTERED ILLUSION, A 191
SONG OF COMPROMISE, A 189
SOAKER SMITH 63
STAR-GAZING 184

TILL DAY IS DONE 33
TOO OLD 92
TO THOSE WHO LOVE US MOST 131
TO YOU 36

UNDER THE HEEL OF FATE 39

VERSEMAKERS, THE 29

WAITING FOR THE CALL 59
WE TOOK THE PLEDGE TILL MAY 87
WESTERN WRITER TO HIS MUSE, THE 167
WHEN SUSY MAKES THE DUFF 170
WILD CATS AND HOURIS 158
WILL YOU LOVE ME THEN? 143
WISH FOR SYDNEY-SIDE, A 115

YOUR LEVEL BEST 198

_When I am dead_ 7
_With head erect I fought the fight_ 16

[Decoration: Gold miner with dolly pot]

With head erect I fought the fight
Or mingled with the dance,
And now I merge into the night
With utter nonchalance.

JOHN PHILIP BOURKE.

We singers standing on the outer rim,
Who touch the fringe of poesy at times
With half-formed thoughts, rough-set in halting rhymes,
Through which no airy flights of fancy skim—
We write “just so,” an hour to while away,
And turn the well-thumbed stock still o’er and o’er,
As men have done a thousand times before,
And will again, just as we do to-day ...

If I could take that rosebud from its stem,
And weave its petals in a simple rhyme,
So you could hear the bells of springtime chime
And you could see the flower soul in them—
Or else, we’ll say, a magpie on the limb,
Greeting the sunrise with its matin song—
To catch the music as it floats along,
And link its spirit to a bush-child’s hymn.

Or, if—but then the limitations rise,
Like barriers across the mental plain,
And mists and things obscure the rhymer’s brain,
And dull his ears, and cloud his blinking eyes.
And so we write as Nature sets her gauge—
No worse than most, and better, p’raps, than some;
—But should a man remain for ever dumb
When only rhyming fills his aimless page?

J. P. BOURKE.

* * * * *

They say that, when Abraham Lincoln had seen Walt Whitman, he summed his impression in the emphatic “This is a _man_.” That is what one feels in reading the verses of Western Australian writers—“This is a _man_.” The work of the tribe of pseudonymous writers in Western newspapers—especially _Kalgoorlie Sun_ and _Perth Sunday Times_—the work of “Bluebush” and “Dryblower,” “Crosscut,” “Prospect Good,” and the rest—is the most virile and the most original poetry that has been made in Australia since the Commonwealth began. “Here’s manhood,” I say, and “Here’s Australian manhood.” For vigour and versatility the East at the moment has few writers to rival this little Western comradeship.

The East has more refined writers, more cultivated and more artistic writers; but not more manly writers.

Poetry is a man’s work if it performs a man’s deeds. When, on the night of 24th April, 1792, Rouget de l’Isle tramped his lodging-house room “with a head of ice and fire” to compose “The Marseillaise,” how many deeds were his exultant verses worth! How vainly he himself would have fought to achieve the feats of swelling valour to which his art inspired others. In a literary aspect the words are little more than a rant:—

“Aux armes, citoyens!
Formez vos bataillons!”

But this rant, as Carlyle says, when added to the stirring tune, “will make the blood tingle in men’s veins; and whole armies and assemblages will sing it with eyes weeping and burning, with hearts defiant of death, despot, and devil.”

The vigorous Western Australian verses that I praise are of that kind and approximate to that standard. They are written in peace, and cannot gain the hottest of mortal ardours, the exultation of war. But if there were Australian war, here are the men to write our marching songs.

There is a literature of art, and there is a literature of humanity. The one kind does not exclude the other; the best poetry is human in impulse, artistic in expression. Yet inevitably, as verse is written, there are found writers with a languid pulse whose finest effects are gained by a decorative use of language, and opposed to these are the writers who use the oldest rhymes, the oldest rhythms, to give impetus to the messages of emotion that fly hot from their hearts.

This Western Australian poetry is often inartistic; it is often a poor thing considered as literature; but how broadly and strongly it appeals to our humanity! how graphic it is! how humorous or tragic! and how natural! It is written, for the greater part, not from a head to a head, but from a heart to a heart; and in its most effective passages it has the same force of sincerity, the same truth of vision, the same sympathy, that make the old ballads a precious possession, and that have captivated thirty centuries with the stories and descriptions of Homer.

There must be allowed, also, to the little school of Western Australian writers, besides their vigour and vivacity, a real singing talent, and no slight mastery of striking phraseology. Often enough their subjects are commonplace, yet it is rarely that their treatment of a subject is entirely commonplace. Almost always there is found a personal touch that in its way and to its extent is a true style, and a style effective to move the readers to whom it is addressed. It is said that the Arabs are careful not to tread on any scrap of written paper lest it should contain the sacred name of Allah. In the same manner I think that every lover of poetry is careful not to contemn the rudest rhyme that may contain a heartbeat. That is to say that every lover of poetry is a faithful Catholic. He may like some kinds of poetry better than others, yet he finds every kind a good kind—however stiffly or crudely it succeeds in transferring its content of emotion. If it does not hold and convey emotion, then it is not poetry, no matter how fine its form or how famous the name of its author. I value this little wild garden of verses the more because it grows in Australia. Doubtless, its Australian appeal detracts from its quality considered as universal literature; yet that detraction is balanced by the additional attraction it has for readers here and now. I am not concerned to measure out comparative credit, but only to emphasise the point that we have here something that is worthy our credit.

The opinion offered, the attitude taken, follow after reading some hundreds of representative Western verses. The merit of those verses is to be found in the impression one receives from the whole—an impression gained from many patches of gold that shine in the quartz. An artist may touch everything with mastery. These writers are not artists, but men who utter the measures and rhymes that come to them often unsought; they are poetical interpreters of life and manhood. Accept them in that guise, and they need no justification from another’s hand: they justify themselves.

John Philip Bourke, who wrote for _The Sun_, Kalgoorlie, scores of stanzas that ring harshly or melodiously, but that ring true, has set down his page of Western history over the signature of “Bluebush.” Between East and West his honours are easy; for he springs from the East, but it is the West that has inspired him. He was born in August, 1860, on the Peel River Diggings, New South Wales; he was born with the wandering blood. At the age of seventeen he sold his first reef to Clarke, of Gullandaddy station, for £600; then for seventeen years he settled down as a school teacher. In 1894 he went West and roughed it on the mining track.

He was pretty consistently lucky in making small “rises” of from £200 to £1000 (with a “record” of £1,250), but he never handled a wingless coin. His old Hunter River stock was mostly of Irish blood: does that account for a free hand and a blessing on a generous heart? Yet until his death he faced the world with a roguish eye and with bright and dark years of experience to write about. He died at Boulder, W.A., on 13th January, 1914.

_The Sun_ praised him justly. “He was a writer of verse that appealed to everyone by its rugged force, its fertility of ideas, its truth and the spirit of human sympathy and true mateship which permeated every line. Straight as a gunbarrel and unfaltering in his denunciation of all that savoured of the mean, the paltry, or the unjust, Bourke was the whitest and the most lovable of men. Gifted with a keen insight into human nature and unlimited power of happy expression, he was a staunch friend and a true mate, and no man on the fields was more personally popular.”

What did Bourke write? The verse that appeals to wanderers, to reckless men, to men who have fought and lost, fought and won, fought and wasted their winnings in all the ways of all the earth. Wasted? Not all wasted; not most, it may be.

What is a purse? A thing to scatter free.
What is a talent but a gift for joy?
What is life’s lesson? To live heartily
To man’s utmost, like a happy boy.

It is a doctrine that must be preached cautiously; yet it is the best doctrine of all. So many people miss life by not grasping it; in saving other things they spend life itself: and at the end there is pity for those who cannot say “_Vixi_!” Let Bourke express himself:

I have no wild desire to sing and sing
Or kneel at Nature’s feet, and be her mummer.
Poetic fancies are not rioting
For liberty, like prisoned birds in summer.
No thoughts, like maiden hair, climb round and cling
To rhyming roosters writing on a thrummer;
But frowsy devils, round the camp to-night,
Suggest alone the commonplace and trite.

There is no bubbling spring within my clay;
I hold no lyrics straining at the tether;
My bones would drift right into blanket hay
If it were not such rough financial weather.
I’d never pen a par, or lay a lay,
Or deck ambition’s cady with a feather
If I could clutch a whisky piping hot,
A plate of hash, a pension and a pot.

But Bourke does himself injustice. His is a strain of toiling life once again made vocal—the real truth of real toil, as it may happen, as it has happened to thousands who have struggled “to gain from the West her glorious golden prize”—and who have gained and have squandered, or have died struggling, or have “gone out on flukes,” as Bayley did, “with the new life just begun.”

Got no time to ruminate! Got no time to read!
Got no time to foller on! Got no time to lead!
Got no time to stoop and pluck the daisies by the pad!
Got no time for triflin’, for hobby-horse or fad!
Got no time to pass remarks! Got no time to write!
Got no time to sky the wipe—only time to fight!
Only time for graft and grind, dog and dough and dust!
That’s the tune the music plays—scratchin’ for a crust.

From such a life as that stanza depicts, almost inevitably men turn to intoxicating liquor for consolation or for oblivion. Any reader of Western verses must see first how large a part liquor plays in life, and secondly, how large a part of that life, that life in the desert, in the sand, in the wilderness, can only be assuaged by liquor. Bourke writes:

What’s the use of sittin’
Dry as blessed chips?
What’s the use of spittin’
Through our corn-beef lips?
What’s the use of drinkin’?
Well, that ain’t so clear
To my way of thinkin’—
Let us have a beer.

“A Drunk’s Defiance” is a human plea. But Bourke urges the other side still more strongly—“No more verses in praise of wine!”

Shirking the fight that a man should fight,
Dodging the joys that a man should know,
Scorning the breath of a plumed thought’s flight—
Down with the swine and the husks below!
’Tis thus we reap from the seeds we sow—
Hearts grow withered and locks grow white,
Dodging the joys that a man should know,
Shirking the fight that a man should fight.

There are keen sight and shrewd sense underlying Bourke’s verses. There is sentiment, too, intermingled with pathos, in many places—as in “His Letter from W.A.”

It’s scarcely six months since I left Cooranbean,
But seems longer than all of last year;
The moon ain’t so bright and the grass ain’t so green,
And the sky, somehow, isn’t so clear.
Oh! I’d give all their towns to the very last brick,
And the mines with the forchins they yield,
Just to hear the old ripple of Cooranbean crick,
And the rustle of corn in the field.

And “Her Letter” came back:

You mind the moss rose that grew over our gate,
Our old gate where we whispered “Good-bye”?
Oh, how often I go there and wonder if Fate
Has one blessing a girl’s wish could buy—
I am wearin’ a bunch in your favourite dress,
With the flounces and streamers of blue,
And though p’r’aps it is silly, I have to confess
I am wearin’ my heart out for you.

Is that not a sympathetic expression of honest feeling, of true affection, that has gone out thousands of times to “the boys in the West”? In pieces like “Old Bill Bates” the note of mateship is struck; the note that has been the keynote of so many Western lives linked in the hearty give-and-take comradeship of two men—two bound closer, almost, than husband and wife, by long-shared years of effort together. “At Bummer’s Creek” warrants all that has been said of the manly virtue of Western poetry—and is there anyone who has worked with men who has not found Dave’s mate?

We two were fitted, j’int for j’int,
And toiled and starved and spreed,
But one’d watch around the stump
When t’other one was treed,
The same when Luck was in full bloom
As when she run ter seed.

That is not refined poetry; but it is essentially poetry; and let us never forget that all the refinements of life spring from precisely such realities as are illustrated by this humble “battler.” That a lady from whose body and mind every speck and thought of defilement are kept, may walk sedately down the shady side of St. George’s Terrace, some such man as Bill’s mate must have sweated crudely in the region of Kalgoorlie. The fancy is far-fetched, but it has a real basis; a large part of the burden of civilization is borne by “humble battlers;” and it is to the breed of these “battlers” that we look for civilization’s defence in the day of challenge. Let not the flower despise its roots.

The lines for “Our Goldfields Spring” are outspoken:

For here you are thus early soiled and tanned
A sorry subject for a verse creator,
A damned inverted pewter in your hand,
Some draggled immortelles around your crater.
They speak, somehow, of drought, and dust, and sand,
And summer’s hell that’s waiting for us later,
And flies innumerable and small black ants,
And several thousand other irritants.

“Beer is Enough” is another piece full of racy virtue, expressed with perverse ingenuity:

Beer is enough. Let Love roost on his perch,
And coo and coo his breath away at will—
The bride in orange blooms—the ivied church—
The two-roomed kipsy sheltered by the hill—
Sweep them aside and fetch the frothing bowl
To warm the cockles of one’s inmost soul.
Beer is enough.

Or take this sardonic expression of the doubt of Love:

There’s a new chap born in the world to-day,
And an axe laid close to the root of doubt.
When I hear you speak in that soulful way
Of a love to last till the stars go out—
But Mignonette!
Will you love me yet
When the duns come in? ... ’Tis an even bet.

Will your faith still shine when the world grows grey?
When the Autumn comes, will your heart grow sere?
Will you wear the smile that you wear to-day
When you wear the hat you wore last year?

Many such stanzas may deserve to be called coarse. A man can defend them and enjoy them, because they are not vulgar; they are not affected or insincere; they express the primitive man as he is found—under more or fewer layers of veneer—in every other man who is worth a woman’s salt. The work of John Philip Bourke must be taken now and then with a good deal of salt; but it holds the meat and mettle of manhood.

TOP BRANCH

THE VERSEMAKERS.

Just now and then when evenings creep
With languid feet to meet the sea,
The days go by to sleep their sleep
With all the past eternity—
When earth takes on the wondrous hue
Far shed from arcs beyond our ken,
We weave a vagrant verse or two,
Just now and then.

Just now and then, ere shadows fall
Across the threshold of the door,
And restless hands upon the wall
Retrace Ambition’s creed no more—
Apart from cankered strife and stress
That urge the stumbling feet of men,
We scrawl a verselet purposeless,
Just now and then.

Just now and then, though time glides on
From scene to scene, from year to year,
Till every “Cloth of Gold” is gone,
Till every leaf is brown and sere,
Life’s picture holds no glinting sheen,
We seek the inky shrine again
To paint our landscape gold and green,
Just now and then.

Just now and then a lilting thought
May break the reign of monotone
That claims our camp to hold its court,
That claims our chair to hold its throne.
Thrice welcome, then! on silent wing,
The friends who come from hill or glen
To overthrow life’s tyrant king,
Just now and then.

Just now and then, when skies are clear,
And winter evenings wilt and wane,
Beside the glowing hearth we hear
The echo of some old refrain—
Some half-remembered distant dream
That calls the rhymer’s halting pen
To mend a broken rhythmic theme
Just now and then.

[Decoration: Black swan]

DREAMS.

Away! Away!
Let sluggards stay
The sluggish ruck within,
While Beauty stands
With outstretched hands
To welcome those who win!
And gems divine
And wealth and wine
Are strewn upon the board,
Where life and love
Go hand and glove,
Like slaves before their lord!

The motors fly,
The ships go by,
The tram-cars whizz and whirr—
I see them pass
As in a glass,
Where dim-limned shadows stir:
I long to hail
Some friendly sail
Ere _all_ the throng be past—
Then failure’s sense
And indolence
Reach down and hold me fast.

Away! Away!
To act to-day!
The victor’s creed is _Now_—
A cloudless brain,
An easy rein,
A firm hand on the plough!
Aside is flung
The pall that hung
From damned Inaction’s mast ...
Then half-thought themes
And dreamer’s dreams
Reach down ... and hold me fast.

TILL DAY IS DONE.

What does it matter
Though wealth pass by,
Where follies flatter
And red lips lie—
Though cloud shades darken
The spring-time sheen,
And dull threads mingle
Life’s woof between—
Which winds blow whither
O’er land and sea—
What does it matter
To you and me?

Here at the door of
Our Peace-thatched cot
Cosmea nods, and
Forget-me-not
Seems to say from
Its eyes of blue,
“Life is fairest
Where hearts are true!”

And far beyond, where
The world is wide,
Where wrecked lives drift on
An ebbing tide,
There is a garland
A queen may wear,
Of sweet boronia
And maidenhair.
Never grey thyme, or
A spray of rue
Tarnish the garland
I’ve twined for you!
Let love-fires light, in
Each fragrant gem
A setting fair for
Your diadem!

What though its petals
May, one by one,
Pale grow and pass with
The mid-day’s sun—
Though velvet fingers
At midnight’s hush
Shall paint your tresses
With silvered brush—
Though shadows creep, and
The earth grows wan,
Our love will last
As the years roll on!

With hand in hand, with
Our hearts that beat
Time to the music
Of twinkling feet—
Wrapped in a dream that
Will live and last
Into the night
When the day is past—
Though sails be set for
The shoreless sea—
What will it matter
To you and me?

[Decoration: Man with swag walking away]

TO YOU.

I love you, Sweetheart! better far than all;
And still will love, with love that makes or mars,
When round my head eternal curtains fall,
And sleep shall close the eyelids of the stars:
Though all the houris of celestial bars
Should lure me on with eyes of liquid light,
Joined to the wondrous music of guitars,
Without _you_ there, my blood were cold and white!

Beyond that phase of something some call death
I want to love you always, just as now—
To feel my cheek fanned by your clover breath,
And feel your hand press sometimes on my brow:
I would not turn one instant from the plough,
But follow on from starry fence to fence,
And question not the whither, whence, or how,
With _you_ as earnest of God’s providence!

And when at last my evening glooms and greys,
And when, at last, my last sun westward dips,
And I go out upon dim, unknown ways
Where men are borne on heavenly spirit-ships,
I’ll watch and wait their oft-returning trips,
Hoping for you to step upon the quay,
That I may clasp you heart to heart with me,
And kiss you ... _thus_ ... upon your rose-red lips!

THE GOSPEL OF SHIRK.

The strenuous rhymer appals me to-night
With the pitch of his strenuous song
That shrieks for the god or the goddess of Right!
Or that lashes the legions of Wrong
With a vicious and venomous thong—
By Crumbs!
With a knotted and merciless thong!

He points, with the pointer of arrogant rhyme,
To the pathway of Wealth and Renown,
Where weary fools falter and fall, as they climb
To their Goal, that so grimly looks down
From its gloomy and sinister crown—
Ah me!
From its blasted and desolate crown!

And still, on the stretch of the moon-silvered sand,
With the ripple of waves on the bar
There comes, from a point jutting down from the land,
A discordant Voice, echoing far:
“Steer your boat, steer your boat for a star!”
There you are!
And the Voice is quite sure of the star!

And to-night, dear Eileen! in our cockle-shell ship,
To our star that is constant and true,
We will float on the stream where the willow-boughs dip
’Neath a sky that is wondrously blue,
And a myriad eyes twinkle through—
All for you!
And for me, while I live loving you!

Let earnest men answer the crack of the whip,
With their shibbolethed banners aflap—
On the fur-covered planks of our cockle-shell ship,
As I lie with my head on your lap,
I do not care one Commonwealth rap
What may hap!
Not — one — blooming — young — Commonwealth — rap!

Let other hands delve ’mid the garbage and grime,
And let other lips puff till they blaze—
Oh! ’tis weary work marching when fools beat the time—
But ’tis easy to drift and to laze
All our nights and our jubilant days,
Sweet Eileen!
All our nights, starry nights, and our days!

UNDER THE HEEL OF FATE.

Stay we here as the crowd goes by,
Twining along the street—
Listless steps and a half-breathed sigh;
Laughter and twinkling feet:
Care-worn faces where Time has set
Pathos in every line:
Budding Hope with a dead Regret—
Rue and roses and mignonette
Bunched in a queer design!

One is clad in a purple gown;
One in a skirt of grey;
Brushing past where the lights beat down,
Following each her way:
One is marked by a barefoot son;
One by a florid beau,
Tangled still was the skein she spun—
She who slept when the day was done ...
Say—was it ordered so?

See who comes with the drunkard’s gait
Out from the taproom door!
He was born to a man’s estate,
White to his inmost core:
Few were turned from the Master’s hand
Fit to compare with Jim ...
Now by the world despised and banned,
Clear as day shows the damning brand
Destiny placed on him!

Fools may prate of a will that’s free,
Else of their strength and brain:
Know they not that the jarrah tree
Only splits with the grain?
Think they not that a man denies,
Or takes his faith on trust—
Not from the words of the foolish wise,
Not from the vision of sightless eyes—
But just because he _must_!

So pass they, while the music plays,
Tramping to God knows where:
Some goal His in the outer haze
Waiting the pilgrims there;
But if, as preachers aver, it be
Part of some changeless plan
Typed in the shop of Eternity,
Never a sentence, my friends, did we
Write for the play of “_Man_”!

DREAMING THE DREAM OF LIFE.

A fig for the world and its carping cares,
Its worry and wear and fret—
A fig for the poppies that passion wears,
Fast followed by dull regret:
A fig for the glitter, and gilt, and gaud
That’s won in a tawdry strife,
Filling the world with the clash of swords—
Marring the sweetest of human chords
Born in the valleys where dreamers wait,
Dreaming the dream of Life.

If I own no love for the arts that mould
The minds and the souls of men,
There lurks no charm in the miser’s gold,
Or the heft of the writer’s pen.
I wear no frown for the clod below,
No cringe for the clown above;
For I tread but the path where the roses blow,
And I pin one bud to her breast of snow,
And I weave a glorious wreath to crown
My goddess of Peace and Love.

Her liquid eyes are a hazel grey
And her lips are ruby red,
And the dusk of the night and the light of day
In the depths of her glance are wed.
The old world hustles on eager feet,
And its songs are the songs of strife,
But we stand aside from the glare and heat
And we draw the curtain of Love’s retreat—
This dainty spirit of youth and I
Dreaming the dream of Life.

A fig for the warrior’s crown of fame!
For the faithless world’s caress!
A fig for the poet’s or painter’s name
Whose haven is nothingness!
A fig for the transient light divine
That halos some godlike head!
For the Spring-time breaks and the stars all shine,
And the world goes round for this wife of mine ...
Oh, the spirit of languorous love will live
When the spirit of strife is dead!

[Decoration: Man leading camel]

A GLIMPSE OF SUMMER.

While the world’s a-bustle
On the upward grade—
Straining brain and muscle,
Plying pen and spade—
Let us go a-dreaming,
With your hair a-streaming ...
Cupid lies a-scheming
’Neath the mulga shade.

How the rabble clatters
As it hurries by!
Chasing Passion’s tatters,
Sighing Passion’s sigh.
Soft airs, sandal-scented,
Fan us: golden-tinted,
Like a landscape minted,
Plain and hill-top lie.

Willy-willies whirling
Play for me and you,
Curling up, and curling,
Till they reach the blue:
Like a giant sweeping,
Creeping on, and creeping
’Mongst the trees, a-sleeping
Mid-day’s languor through.

Bell-bird notes are swelling
Upward from the glade;
Lovelorn swains are telling
Love-tales worn and frayed:
Let them strain their tether!
You and I together
Never wilt a feather,
Lolling in the shade.

Earnest souls, or sighing,
Death has ever paid!
See pale Effort lying
Rue- and wreath-arrayed!
Come then, Jean, a-dreaming,
With your hair a-streaming ...
Cupid lies a-scheming
’Neath the mulga shade.

[Decoration: Mining equipment]

THE END OF THE EPISODE.

There is no need to say Good-bye,
And weep;
There is no call on us for tear or sigh.
Men say: “Just as ye sow, so shall ye reap.”
Is that, think you, a lie?

Now fate points out our different ways,
And so
We leave the spot where glamour clothed the days—
Leave for those duller worlds that lie below,
With something like amaze.

No use to curse: whatever crossed
Our way:
No need for words: when hearts are tempest-tossed—
But those alone may know the cost, who pay,
And bankrupt, pay the cost.

THE GOLDEN AGE.

Then life was young
And roses hung
In gay festoons from star to star,
And o’er the farm
A silvered charm,
The moonlight, flooded full and far—
The moonlight, telling wondrous tales
Of things that are not, and that are.

How strange the thrall
Around it all!
The subtle flapping of a wing!
You plainly hear
Each wheaten spear
Unto its neighbour whispering,
And almost catch their secrets, too—
Those kindred children of the Spring!

And, watching so,
The branches throw
Fantastic shadows on the grass:
How quaint and clear
Their lines appear!
A woven way where fancies pass—
Those secret bairns, that come to most,
And live and breathe—but die—alas!

No longer chimes
The gold of rhymes
That would make music, ay or nay!
I number still
The month, at will,
Clare gave to me a lilac spray ...
’Tis dead and withered now—how long?
An age, a year, or yesterday.

Thus rhyme and spray
Have turned to clay,
While Discord plays on life’s guitar ...
’Twere wise and meet
To book a seat,
A cushioned seat, in Daphne’s car,
While bright eyes shine, and roses twine
In gay festoons from star to star!

[Decoration: Gold mining camp]

AT PARTING.

I sit beside you, this last afternoon,
And watch the sunset’s change from gold to grey,
That mirrors well my life of yesterday
Where shadows, born of twilight, fell so soon.

And yet, you seemed so womanly and true—
I never guessed “’Twas but to kill the time!”
For I, who dwelt in Passion’s summer clime,
Played for a life that centred all in you.

I’ve spun no webs, as money-spiders spin,
Nor stacked the shining shekels row on row;
And yet I have one plea—I love you so!
And fatuously dreamed that love might win.

For me this old world smiled when you were by;
Life’s circles spread their limits wider yet;
There came no grey train-bearers of regret
To grace the triumph of hypocrisy.

My heart throbbed to the rustle of your dress;
My soul drank in each message of your eyes;
For Love, they say, is all our paradise,
And wanting Love, this life were nothingness.

But ere we part—O girl grown worldly-wise!—
I place one glory-rose amid your hair,
And kiss your lips, with something of despair:
For, Dear, I love you yet—and yet despise.

THE LEADEN HOOF.

What use to puff a blackened fire
Grown emberless within the grate?
What use to twang a damaged lyre
That’s only half articulate?
What use for dumb
Desire to thumb
The leaves of a curriculum
When other men matriculate?

’Tis vain to plan a fabric gay
With tangled warp and broken woof—
Just listen for a moment, pray,
—A magpie singing on the roof—
Just hear, and then
Throw down the pen:
The songs and wings of common men
Are anchored to a leaden hoof.

And yet, are other days, that bear
No weight of pessimistic sin—
A laurel leaf for me to wear,
A thought to stir, a smile to win;
And o’er the sea
There comes to me
The echo of a symphony
That sets the smiling world a-spin.

Now carmine-hued are Renée’s lips,
A thousand gleams light life’s old wine—
I tremble to the finger tips
To breathe devotion at her shrine;
But while I write,
Some blasting light
Reveals my rose an ashen white
That crumbles in these hands of mine.

What use to fret a halting brain
While inspiration holds aloof?
And hark! the voice bursts forth again,
—A magpie singing on the roof—
Just hear, and then
Throw down the pen:
The songs and wings of common men
Are tethered to a leaden hoof.

[Decoration: Mining with a windsail]

THE PILGRIMAGE.

For many a year we wandered
over hill and dale and mountain,
For ever pressing onward
till we’re nearly worn and old:
Searching for some spot Elysian
where the poets’ crystal fountain
Sings its songs of calm contentment
in a valley draped with gold:

Where the flowers bloom for ever
’neath the sun’s life-giving kisses,
But never droop ’neath thirsty skies
or feel the winter’s chill:
Where roses wreath an arbour
where no fatal adder hisses,
And the promise of our youthful dreams
our later days fulfil.

Then the purple flush of morning
thrilled our careless hearts with pleasure,
And the sunbeams shooting downward
with our spirit shared their glow:
Once every bell and buttercup
that blossomed was a treasure—
In those days that we have dreamed of,
in the misty long-ago.

But the joys of life would pall upon
the heart that they for ever,
Unbroken by a shadow,
lit with one eternal glare;
And the bonds of love are strengthened
by the thought that they may sever,
And are hallowed in the memory
of lives and loves that were.

The ropes of sand that bound us
then appeared so deftly woven
That we noticed not each single grain
the breezes swept away,
Nor underneath the robe of Beauty,
silken-cased, the cloven
Hoof of Time, that swept the garlands
into ruin and decay.

[Decoration: Horse-powered mining]

MIDDLE TWIGS

THE DIAMOND WEDDING.

To-day is our diamond wedding, old wife!
Some seventy summers and more
Since first we paired off in this battle of life
On thirty a year, and the run of a knife ...
What! You say I’m a blessed old bore!

Oh, yes, now we are, I admit, pretty right;
But still to that hard-grafting time
My mind often wanders in quiet delight
’Way down from the tree of prosperity’s height
That our industry’s helped us to climb.

And I picture the day to the station we tramped
With our characters safe in the swags—
A long weary walk, and, by George! you were camped;
And don’t you remember the lads had me stamped
As one of Glint’s runaway lags?

Well! well! now I wonder is _he_ living still—
The super that then bossed the run,
You know he was “Captain,” and I “Bo’s’n Bill”
In those pleasant old days when we lived on the hill,
And I scarcely knew life had begun.

A fine lot of fellows now, wife! were they not?
And genuine, too, to the core;
And, if they weren’t quite on to the spot
In their speech—there’s one thing they never forgot:
To leave the latch key in the door!

But then one ne’er dreamed as one worked straight ahead
What the future held for us in store;
Nor that thrift would build up from this stringy-bark shed
A right little, tight little cottage instead,
With enough in the stocking—and more.

We hadn’t much then in the furniture line—
That’s not to call gorgeous, you know—
But still round it all there’s a glow of sunshine
That makes the blood dance in this old frame of mine
In a stream that naught else can make flow.

Some magic hangs round the old iron-hooped tongs
And the splutter the tallow-lamp made ...
All seem to my memory like beautiful songs
As they float on before me in numberless throngs
From the depths of a fifty years shade.

But you must remember how proudly you’d bring
Home the cheque at the end of the year:
Then you were a queen, lass! and I was a king;
Though we usedn’t to lunch off a butterfly’s wing
Or any of that kind of cheer.

Have those pleasures all vanished, old girl! did you say?
What! Tears in those precious old eyes!
No, lass! for you’re dearest and fairest to-day
When the golden-haired girl has grown wrinkled and grey ...
We’re together, and shall be for ever and aye
In our home up above in the skies.

[Decoration: Gold miner with dolly pot]

A GARLAND OF SIGHS.

What is the use of a sheaf of regrets?
What is the use of a garland of sighs?
Ever is Destiny trailing her nets,
A smile on her lips, and with hate in her eyes.
Heedless the spirit, beseeching, that cries!
Helpless the mortal who sorrows and frets!
What is the use of a garland of sighs?
What is the use of a sheaf of regrets?

Cast in the midst of the limitless skies,
Lost in the æons that e’en God forgets.
Merely a life-light that flashes and dies,
Merely a soul-spark that glimmers and sets—
These are the glories that “being” begets,
Granted alike to the foolish and wise—
What is the use of a sheaf of regrets?
What is the use of a garland of sighs?

Ah! but philosophy always forgets—
Writ though the sentence, and cast though the dies—
Love may fly downward from God’s parapets,
Fanning Eternity’s breath as she flies!
Groundlings awake from their squalor and rise,
Destiny then may well gather her debts—
What is the use of a garland of sighs?
What is the use of a sheaf of regrets?

WAITING FOR THE CALL.

Though to-day may groan ’neath its weight of care,
and the sun be a raven’s wing
That darkens the faces of children fair
and saddens the songs they sing;
I know it will change at the faintest touch
from the hand of a God-sent Spring!

And I know, though the desert be grim and grey,
and its life be a Lethe’s pond
Whose waters of indolence hold alway
the spirits of men in bond,
Full well there is room for a strenuous life
in the Land that is Just Beyond.

Thus we wait for the touch of a magic string
and a glance of a love-lit eye:
For a breath from some spirit awakening
that passes us clearly by:
—We legion of dreamers that drift and live,
and dabble and drink—and die.

My Swag and I

When I tramp forth attended by
A retinue of “blues,”
And all the world and all its wife
Are clothed in sombre hues,
Then life holds nothing much to win,
And nothing much to lose.

’Tis little use to preach and pray,
And none to fume and fret—
No solace dwells within the days
Of love and lush and debt—
’Tis then I throw the bundle off
And light a cigarette.

And seeking, so, some mental perch
Upon some mental crag,
I straightway run the colours up
Of self-assertion’s flag,
Assume a tragic air, and thus
Apostrophise the swag:

“You’ve tarried closer far than friends,
And closer too than foes;
You’re with me when the autumn falls,
And with the first spring rose;
Though whence such fond affection comes
The Devil only knows.

“You’ve driven me along the track
Like mankind’s primal curse;
You’ve driven me—behold the proof!—
To scrawling slipshod verse;
And every wrinkle in your face
Denotes an empty purse.

“I know you well from stem to stern,
From centrepiece to rim;
For many, many years ago
You cost a modest ‘jim’—
Those years, those sun-tipped years! that now
Live with the seraphim.

“Since then I’ve marched the dusty way
That better feet have trod,
But always found, my bride! in you,
An unresponsive clod;
Until we two have grown alike
As peas within a pod.

“And yet to flirt with you I left
A woman passing fair
(A pleasant girl who had for me
A smile or two to spare),
A half-a-dozen quid a week,
A couch and easy chair.

“I left——” But, ah! a wintry wind
Awakes Matilda’s charms:
I calmly spread the old girl out
And snuggle in her arms—
Untouched by sighs or sentiment,
Unscathed by love’s alarms.

SOAKER SMITH.

_He died of thirst._

They tell no tale lugubrious
Or horror finely spun,
Of martyr’s groans and human bones
A-bleaching in the sun;
But those who cut beneath the bark
May find the very pith
Of pathos, in the yarn they spin,
Concerning Soaker Smith.

He never dogged on Bayley’s tracks,
Nor battled through with Frost,
In wild times, when the souls of men
Were torn and tempest-tossed,
Nor bore the brunt, nor claimed the rank
Of fearless pioneer—
He was, in point of fact, a joint
Who played his life for beer.

Smith sat upon the shanty floor
With blazing eyes and brain,
While, from the sand, the impish band
Of fantods sprang again:
They mocked him with a phantom pot,
They laughed and lured and lied—
“A pint! or I,” he howled, “must die
Of thirst!”—and so he died.

Then all the tribe of whiskered wits
That nourishes up North,
From rub-a-dubs and frowsy pubs
Like one gay ghoul came forth;
And Blastus painted on a slab
A dead marine, reversed,
And wrote, the knave, beside his grave,
“Hic! jacet. Died of thirst.”

And still, around the shanty bar,
When wit and humour fly,
They greet the tale that ne’er grows stale
With wild hilarity;
But those who probe it to the core
May find the very pith
Of pathos, in the yarn they spin
Concerning Soaker Smith.

Pay Wash

Did you ever drive on pay-wash in this land of boom and bust?
Did you ever see gold glitter in the dull light of the glim,
Where the face is specked and sprinkled with the best of sovereign-dust,
And you calkerlate your income at a pick-blow to the jim?

_Hello, on top! Hello!
Hook on, and let her go!
Or we’ll never make our tucker in a five-ounce show!_

Oh, the days go by like drinkin’—for it’s entertainin’ graft,
And you hear your mate discoursin’ to the crowd around the brace,
As he tugs away the hide, and it goes skimmin’ up the shaft,
While a smile ’ud trip a bullock jest illumernates his face—

_Hello, on top! Hello!
Ease off, and have a blow!
We’ve a crushin’ in the paddock, and there’s more below!_

Then you don’t dine any more on sodden flapjacks in the pan;
And you don’t back under cover when you see a bit of skirt;
For there’s something in the atmosphere that bulges out a man
When he’s drivin’ on the gutter, and there’s pay-gold in the dirt—

_Hello, on top! Hello!
Jest rosin up your bow!
For we’ve got no time for sleepin’ when there’s corn to hoe!_

But I’ll bet old Bill is dreamin’, and he’s driftin’ on the tide,
Where his wife and kids is waitin’ for a dozen lengthy years
On their cocky-patch, and hopin’ till the last hope nearly died—
And it’s safe to lay a dollar as his eyes is dim with tears—

_Hello, on top! Hello!
This is boshter sile to grow,
F’r I guess our plotch ’ll answer mor’n a ’tater to the row!_

But a man ain’t got no time to dream with plenty work in sight,
When he’s got the cream of all the lead right through from pay to pay;
For you can’t get rich on dreamin’, and you can’t shift dirt with skite,
And the gold stream only dribbles in a keg-o’-treacle way—

_Hello, on top! Hello!
Is’t frost up there or snow?
I’d back you ’gainst a fun’ral any day for goin’ slow!_

Some day when we’ve her bones picked bare, and got her gutted clean,
We’ll travel over East, and see what yaller dust can buy;
And old Bill and me, I reckon, will be right and all serene,
If we only keep our thirst at bay, and keep our powder dry—

_Hello, on top! Hello!
Let down the rope, and throw
The sling; you’d keep a man all night ’thout singin’ out “Yo, ho!”_

[Decoration: Man with swag walking away]

OUR GOLDFIELDS SPRING.

You come not with the dainty air and grace,
And wreathing smiles, that clothe the Eastern season—
A maiden lithe of form, and fair of face,
To wheedle lovers from the ranks of reason:
You do not come in riots of pink lace,
For Western bards to perpetrate a wheeze on,
And cover, in a frenzy, page on page
With all the rhymer’s threadbare persiflage.

We seek in vain the fern-wreaths on your gown,
The dew-drop jewels in your carpet spreading—
Those pæans from the bush-land and the town,
Suggestive, quaintly, of a fairy wedding:
We wait expectantly—then truckle down
To sleep on bags—no rose leaves for our bedding!
And wring our hands, and weep like anything ...
There is no copy in a Western Spring.

For here you are, thus early soiled and tanned,
A sorry subject for a verse creator;
A damned inverted pewter in your hand,
Some draggled immortelles around your crater:
They speak, somehow, of drought, and dust, and sand,
And summer’s hell, that’s waiting for us later,
And flies innumerable, and small black ants,
And several thousand other irritants.

I do not like your rude, precocious stare;
Your torrid temperature is disconcerting;
And, Lord! the frowsy draperies you wear
Might well be made of gunnybags, or shirting;
And one could bet you never learned the rare
And subtle art of scientific flirting—
To set the tune, and lead the boys a dance,
Through many a labyrinth of sweet romance.

Yet still our own! though scoffers mock and mar;
And at your feet I lay this sapless jingle,
That, if too dry, may moisten at the bar
Where sundry goddesses and groundlings mingle—
Where modest Martha’s conduct grows bizarre,
And Virtue’s self is often short a shingle:
And soaked, thus, in the dregs of beer and wine,
Once more I shy the garland at your shrine!

Yet, after all, the joyous feet of Spring
Trip to the tune the pipes of Pan are playing
In every clime where Youth may have its fling,
And Love, unweighted by life’s cares, goes straying.
Look not where last year’s rose lies withering!
Heed not the pessimistic asses braying!
But fetch your gauds, and place them on Her brow—
Life’s best delusion is beside you now.

[Decoration: Man leading camel]

NEARLY A PESSIMIST.

What’s the use o’ laughter,
What’s the use o’ strife,
To a gloomy shafter
In this team of Life?
Hear the whips a-crackin’
Through the atmosphere,
When the traces slacken—
Let us have a beer.

What’s the use o’ flayin’
Loathsome gads and drills?
What’s the use o’ payin’
Other people’s bills?
Let the missus hustle,
Let the kinchins clear;
I’m not goin’ to bustle—
Let us have a beer.

What’s the use o’ prayin’?
’Taint no use to curse;
What’s the use o’ layin’
’Gainst the winning hearse?
Man at best’s a rotter,
Fried and frizzled here;
Hell can’t be no hotter—
Let us have a beer.

What’s the use o’ sittin’
Dry as blessed chips?
What’s the use o’ spittin’
Through our corn-beef lips?
What’s the use o’ drinkin’?
Well, that ain’t so clear
To my way of thinkin’—
Let us have a beer.

What’s the use o’ frettin’
Cos you missed the pot?
What’s the use o’ gettin’
In a tied-up knot
Bet you can’t unravel
If you tried a year?
No, that cop don’t travel—
Let us have a beer.

What’s the——? Oh, _I’m_ toilin’
Down the Boulder way—
Only just been spoilin’
Arf a quid a day.
Now you bet I’m chargin’
Homewards at my top.

* * * * *

What’s the use o’ bargin’
With a white-eyed slop?

HELL FOR LEATHER

What though the day
Be dull and grey,
The earth bestrewn with ashes—
Hope’s magic lamp
Lights up his camp
With rainbow-tinted flashes!
His eyes, with some unwonted beam,
Grow soft as any feather,
Since Luck slid through
The kipsy flue,
To smile on “Hell for Leather”!

The jade and he,
Since ’Ninety-three,
Had not so much as spoken:
The goods she sold
Were gilt—not gold—
And promises were broken;
But “Hell for Leather” scratched along
As desperation scratches,
A harlequin,
Beclobbered in
A rig of shreds and patches!

When Hunger grim
Shaped up to him,
He’d scorn to take it sitting;
But answered back,
With crack for crack,
Nor ever thought of quitting;
And oft he’d say, though buckled belt
And backbone came together,
“Some day, I’ll bet,
Will Fortune yet
Chum in with ‘Hell for Leather’!”

His frame was lean:
His eyes shone keen
Beneath their shaggy awning:
Somewhere ahead,
He always said,
A brighter day was dawning!
And oft, around the hatter’s camp,
Would fact with fancy scamper,
What time he’d munch
His frugal lunch
Of potted dog and damper.

But years, at last,
Must win the cast,
And locks grow white and whiter;
For Time is tough
To belt and cuff,
Though sturdy be the fighter:
Yet so it happed, ere Winter fell,
Like frost on Highland heather,
Good luck slid through
His chimney flue,
To smile on “Hell for Leather”!

And so the tale
With cakes and ale
Is garnished, ere ’tis ended;
And so the stress
And bitterness
With soothing oil are blended;
And far away, by out-back pads,
Where battlers stretch the tether,
And starve or roast,
They’ll drink the toast
Of “Good old ‘Hell for Leather’!”

SCRATCHIN’ FOR A CRUST.

Got no time to ruminate! Got no time to read!
Got no time to foller on! Got no time to lead!
Got no time to stoop and pluck daisies by the pad!
Got no time for triflin’ with hobby horse or fad!
Got no time to pass remarks! Got no time to write!
Got no time to sky the wipe!—only time to fight—
Only time for graft and grind, dog and dough and dust;
That’s the toon the music plays: scratchin’ for a crust.

Got no time to whine and pray! Got no time to curse!
Got no time for trickin’ thoughts out in shreds of verse!
Got no time to wear a smile—no, nor raise a laugh!
Got no time for siftin’ grains out of tons of chaff!
Got no time to touch the Muse on the funny bone!
(Got no chance indeed, at all, catchin’ her alone!)
Got no time to reason why—takin’ things on trust—
That’s the way we whistle it: scratchin’ for a crust.

Got no time to do a smoodge! Got no time to wed!
(Anyway it wouldn’t do—not on soda bread!)
Got no coin to treat a pal! Got no face to hum!
Nigh forgettin’ how they taste—tanglefoot and rum!
Got no time for feelin’ bad! Got no time to peg!
Got no time to shake a paw—let alone a leg!
Stoo-pan’s fallin’ out of use! brain-pan’s gone to rust!
That is how our programme reads: scratchin’ for a crust.

Got no time to argify! Politics is dead—
Happy Jack and Texas Green sittin’ on its head!
Got no time for livin’, scarce!—eatin’ dog and dirt;
Feel’s if ants was in my block, buzz-flies in my shirt!
(Got no time to shake ’em out! Got no time to scratch!)
Got no blanky oof to board! Got no guts to batch!
Guess there’ll have to be a change, else somethin’s bound to bust—
Sinkin’, drivin’, beltin’, blastin’, battlin’ for a crust.

[Decoration: Mining equipment]

A BEER BOOST.

Well, as you’re so pressing, don’t mind if I do—
What, a pint? Yes, a pint! I should smile at your query—
There’s a wonderful balm in the cream of a brew
For a soul that is fagged in a case that is weary.

It beats all your juggling illusions a mile,
Whilst it clear overshadows the magic of Moses,
And it clothes the grey plains of existence awhile
With the sunshine of spring and an odour of roses.

A pint! I should guess—we’ll increase it to two—
I will ne’er be a bigot where beer is in question,
For if merely you take a sound practical view,
It enhances the health and improves the digestion.

It smoothes the deep lines from the forehead of care,
Till your enemy looms in the light of a brother,
And there’s peace—that strange peace that is lisped in the prayer
Of the sleepy-eyed brat at the knee of his mother.

The old world chips in, in the guise of a friend,
As the solvent of hops humanises and mellows,
And the limits of brotherhood stretch and extend
Till the Devil himself seems the best of good fellows.

Then bring me a glass, or a tankard, or tank—
And the last, if permitted a voice in the choosing:
For, in all the crimes’ calendar, none is so rank
As the sin, the nigh obsolete sin, of refusing.

[Decoration: Gold mining camp]

THE CURSE OF THE LAUNDRIED SHIRT.

I came down here from the ’Back, last year,
For a spell and a high-toned drunk,
But I back and fill with a palsied will
As I lounge on a kapok bunk.
I laze and laze where a man’s life pays
For a kiss and a pint of squirt,
Like a weak-kneed slop in a draper’s shop—
’Neath the curse of a laundried shirt!

I tire to death of the town’s close breath—
Of the pave, and the lighted street:
Its silken tiles, and its threadbare smiles—
Of the patter of kid-shod feet;
And thoughts tramp back where I lost the track
Of a “leader” of five-ounce dirt,
Before I knelt with a “Scheme”-cleansed pelt
At the shrine of a laundried shirt!

I came down here for a spell, last year,
And a brush with the town-bred folk—
For a bit of a change from my “moated grange”
(A camp by an outback soak):
But drift I still with a flagging will
And a spirit that grows inert—
A sagging jaw and a bleaching paw—
’Neath the curse of a laundried shirt!

I’ve lit my camp with the moon’s soft lamp
And the light of the outback stars,
And drunk my fill of the Out-Back swill,
As I breasted the shanty bars:
I’ve made my bit, and have squandered it
In an island of dreams, rum-girt—
To fall at last with my flag half-mast,
’Neath the curse of a laundried shirt!

The stampers roar to the tune no more
Of “Aboard for the Sydney-side!”
The merry hum of the windlass drum
’S like the song of the swan—that died:
My mulga maid, in whose eyes hope played—
With jewels adown her skirt,
She’s sailed a trip on some desert ship
From the chap in a laundried shirt!

OLD BILL BATES.

No, Mister, I’ve no messages ter send along the track
But I thank y’ fer enquiring, jest the same;
Fer it’s mighty near an age agone I wandered from Out-back,
And I dessay they’re forgettin’ this old frame:
But you’ll find a hearty welcome at the far end o’ the pad,
Where the rank and file is nothin’—only mates;
And I wish yer luck ... but stay!
If yer chance along his way,
Jest remember me to Old Bill Bates.

We both battled on together since the year o’ ’Ninety-two,
And we mostly hung around the outer rim,
And we drank, and fought, and made-up friends, as good as gold, and true,
Till the camp took us for brothers—me and him:
You will find him crush to sample, if you try him by the bulk,
And you’ll find the ’malgam ribbed along the plates;
Fer he’s pretty high-grade rock
From his flannel to his sock,
Is that sun-dried salamander, Old Bill Bates!

But in case yer fail ter reckernise his features at the pub,
(Fer he might be outer luck, or off the spree)
Yer can fossick through the workin’s till y’ find his rub-a-dub,
And then all yer got to do, is mention me:
And yer won’t want any witness to identerfy yer phiz.
Nor yer won’t need to projoos no days or dates,
If he doesn’t claim yer straight
F’r a white man and a mate,
Then that party isn’t Old Bill Bates!

Y’ might guess him fer a chap what wears a pretty stiffish lip,
And he user ter own a one-eyed spotted bitch,
And he’s mostly rags and air-holes—jest the picter of his kip—
So it’s hard ter tell (fer strangers) which is which;
But he’s grit right to the bottom, and the mate what’s tried his sand,
He ’ud swag it back from them ’ere Pearly Gates
With a longish stride, I’ll swear,
If they kep’ no lodger there
By the monniker of “Old Bill Bates.”

No, thanks, Mister, I’ve no message—since I’ve opened out my drum,
Where a suit o’ tailor’s clobber pulls the strings;
But (I wouldn’t say it public) I am feelin’ pretty glum
When I start a-cogitatin’ about things:
But you’ll find a hearty welcome where the sky begins ter dip,
Out where mates is mostly men, and men is mates,
And I wish yer luck ... and say!
If yer chance upon his way,
Jest remember me to Old Bill Bates.

[Decoration: Black swan]

WE TOOK THE PLEDGE TILL MAY.

Dave Barker is a mate of mine,
A solid mate and chum,
And when we’re out upon the wine
I guess we make things hum:

We go the pace all fair and square,
But rapid, I’ll allow;
And start from—well, just anywhere,
And wind up—anyhow.

When Dave and me’s out on the loose
We follers close and keen,
And samples every kind of juice
From rum to kerosene.

It’s all good fish comes to our net,
To Barker’s net and mine,
And our intentions are, you bet!
Most strictly genu_wine_.

We beats about upon the ramp,
And does up all our tin;
Then Dave—well, Dave strikes out for camp,
And I—well, I jines in.

And then the panoramy starts—
The queerest kind of fakes—
Fat little blokes and smaller tarts,
And funny bob-tailed snakes.

And presently, a big galoot
Drops down the chimbly flue,
And takin’ up Dave’s blucher boot,
Sez, “Lads! Here’s luck to you!”

But all the time it’s bilin’ hot,
And, spare me (crimson) days!
You never heerd such blanky rot
As what them fantods says.

Well, comin’ on this last old year,
I sez to David B.,
“Old chap, we pays a lot too dear
These fan-tod fakes ter see.

“We grafts and grinds and stints our grub,
But if we socked our rent
We soon could _buy_ a blanky pub,
Or stand for Parlyment.

“What say to puttin’ in the peg?
Swear off, old man!—what say?”
Sez Dave, “I’m on—we’ll spike the keg
Fer good and all, till May.”

And then our two right hands we clasps
The ’greement fer to bind;
And felt like them there “Army” chaps
Wot’s left all sin behind.

If any tries to pull our leg
This coming Hogmanay
We’ll shout, “No, no! we’ve driv’ the peg
Home flush and fast till May.”

Well, Dave and me, we saunters down
Along the bloomin’ street,
And every ’quaintance in the town
’Ud want to stand us treat.

They’d pull and press, and chaff and beg,
Till ’t last we’d break away,
A-shoutin’ “No! we’ve spiked the keg—
No booze for us, till May!”

Well, Dave, he comes from Aberdeen,
And Sandy Mac. was tight:
Sez Mac., “Old Scotland’s hills are green!
One drink on Scotia’s night!”

Then Dave he looks acrost at me,
And I looks ’crost at Dave—
It allus after seemed to be
A kind of mootual “cave.”

For Barker sidles to’rds the bar:
“A whisky from the bin,”
Sez he, “my gay young Lochinvar!”
And I—well, I chimes in.

That _was_ a night—we drank and stept,
And joined the Scotchy’s lilt,
Till all the rest were drunk or slept,
And all the casks a-tilt.

Then, as we staggered home at four,
It was a sight ter see
A-troopin’ from our “rubby” door
Our fan-tod familee!

They tended on us jest like kings,
And darnced around the bunk,
And seemed, the ’fectionate little things,
So glad to see us drunk!

One smilin’ dwarf with flowin’ beard,
He sang (as sure as sin)
The sweetest song you ever heerd—
“Our dad’s kem home agin!”

And you may all take this from me,
For gorspel truth to-day—
_The best way to injy a spree
Is, Take the pledge till May._

[Decoration: Mining with a windsail]

TOO OLD.

It is durned hard lines, when a man grows sere
And his whiskers are flecked with grey,
And he wears the boots that he wore last year
When he worked for a miner’s pay,
To be brushed aside, with a callous word,
By the arms of sturdier men,
As they rush and crush, with a hope deferred,
For the coveted three-pound-ten!

Oh! he sold his strength, and he sold his health,
And he bartered his manhood’s prime
As he toiled and moiled, in the stores of wealth—
Where they banter the whole crib-time;
And they sweat, and sweat, and they crack their jokes
To the tune that the “banjos” play;
For the world wags fine with the bow-yanged blokes
While they work for a miner’s pay!

And To-morrow’s left for To-morrow’s self
To provide for as best it can;
For there comes no dream of a workless shelf
To the brain of the miner man—
Not a whining call from the voice of Thrift!
Not a cramp in the open hand!
As they play and pay—and they drift and drift
To the ranks where the grey-heads stand.

But his kids are cold, and their feet are bare,
And the prospect is bleak and brown,
And the missus has never a hat to wear
That’s fit to be seen in the town;
And the spectres flock—that were held last year,
With the rattle of coin, at bay:
When the old man smiled at his old wife’s fear
While he worked for a miner’s pay.

There are none to heckle; there’s nought to blame
But the curse of a gambler’s quest!
And the men pass out, as they lose the game
That we play in the Golden West:
But their thoughts must turn as the days grow late.
In a dream, to some “cocky” patch
Where the old folk stand at their homestead gate,
And they laugh ’neath their whitening thatch.

DAN THE HATTER.

An Old North Country Identity.

I tramped again ’neath a blazing sky,
In a Western land where the deserts lie:
But the rush and roar, and the life we knew,
When the ’Nineties echoed the whole world through,
Were silent, or uttered their speech alone
With a drab and dreary monotone.

I sought a field where a thousand men,
Stout-limbed, strong-hearted, toiled madly then;
But the hessian flapped on the rotting camps,
And the rust was eating the silent stamps;
And of all the throng of that mildewed past
There was only one who stuck to the last.
Just one old man, and his beard of grey
Kept time with his chatter the live-long day.

“What luck, old friend?”—and he turned around,
Where his hopperings fell in a cone-shaped mound;
And he rested his arm on the shaker’s side,
With the air of a man when the world was wide—
And his tongue ran off with a ceaseless flow,
For the hermits talk of their cronies so.

He spoke, with a digger’s quenchless zest,
Of the early days of the Golden West:
Of a surging wave, of a seething tide,
That rolled to the fields from the Eastern side;
Of the wondrous slugs and the mighty men
Who answer not to the call again.
“And I was right in their midst,” said he,
“For I followed Bayley in ’Ninety-three.”

Then he led the way, and he led me far
With the changing trend of each dip and bar,
And he pointed out with a palsied hand
All the work he’d done, all the plans he’d planned;
“For there’s gold,” he yelled, “that would pave a street,
At the spot where the slate and granite meet.”

I chanced that track on my way once more,
And I sought my friend of a year before;
But his shaker cracked in the midday sun,
And the old man’s search for the joint was done,
For he’d stacked his tools, and had drawn his stake.
And had followed the army in Bayley’s wake.

Oh, I trust he’s gone—as the priests insist—
Where the streets are paved with the gold he missed;
And they’ll weave his crown, and they’ll string his lyre,
From the trusty strands of his shaker wire;
And they’ll let him fossick for dip and bar
In the likely places ’twixt star and star.
It will please old Dan, for a man was he
Not planned for an angel minstrelsy.

BY A KOPI HILL

He rests at the foot of a kopi hill
By the old Coolgardie track;
But whether his name was Claude, or Bill,
Or Clarence, or “Hell-fire Jack,”
There isn’t a legend at all to say—
And what does it signify, anyway?

There’s nought of funereal pomp or show—
Just a rough-hewn slab that states,
The leisurely chap that lies below
Had honestly paid his rates
Somewhere in the summer of ’Ninety-four;
And then he came hither—to pay no more.

So he wearied soon of the storm and strife,
And he cast his swag aside,
When men were strong with the lust of life
And the world seemed opened wide.
Were the castles fair, that he built that day,
Ere the Fever came in its cloak of grey?

Does he rest well there, by his kopi hill,
Now the tale of his life is told?
Does a fear disturb his dreaming still,
Or a sigh strike through the mould?
Does a mother weep, or a sweetheart wait,
Where they said “Good-bye,” at the old farm gate?

However it be, by the wind-swept hills
Of leisure he nothing lacks;
And he laughs, perchance, at the dust that fills
For ever his earthly tracks.
—Peace, Peace, old chap! It is half a prayer
In the name of a friend—Someone—Somewhere.

AT BUMMER’S CREEK.

I planted Dave at Bummer’s Creek
Somewhere in ’Ninety-five,
When all the country round about
Was like a busy hive—
And good blokes pegged like rotten sheep,
And wasters stopped alive.

And here, to-day, I’m t’ilin’ still
Beside the same old soak
Where we pitched camp twelve years agone,
Played out and stony broke;
And after work I think right back,
And smoke, and smoke, and smoke.

We two were fitted, j’int fer j’int,
And toiled and starved and spreed;
But one ’ud watch around the stump
When t’other one was treed;
The same when Luck was in full bloom,
As when she run to seed.

But now I’m getting old and hipped,
And kick against the ruts,
I often think I’ll have a pray,
But can’t sit down fer nuts—
And Dave ’ud say, “A prayin’ pea,
He’s never got no guts!”

D’ye think it’s true, this ’ere report
That parson blokes kin tell
As who is bound fer parrydise,
And who is booked fer ’ell?
Fer I’ve got dust enough to pay
If they’ve the noos to sell.

Y’ see, us partners never ’ad
Religion much in mind,
And didn’t think to make no plan
Fer ’im who stopped behind—
But ’course you tumble to my graft:
I’ve got an axe to grind.

D’ye think now if I went to town,
Got up all smart and sleek,
A short-necked shammy, just like that,
’Ud make them pilots speak
And say which track the battlers took
Who pegged on Bummer’s Creek!

Fer Dave an’ me, we never knoo
The rights of any sect,
Or ’ow these different pads cris-crossed,
And things in that respect;
Or, if we’d heer’d it years afore,
We didn’t ricollect.

I don’t say as I’d lift my ’at,
And cringe, and beg, and crave,
Nor don’t want them to speechify
About no soul ter save;
But there’s the dust! if they’ll pint out
Which track was took by Dave.

[Decoration: Horse-powered mining]

AT PENNYWEIGHT FLAT.

“Do you have any luck at the diggins?” I said
To a dryblower grizzled and grey—
“Does the nebulous fossicker’s star ever shed
On your shaker, one flickering ray?
Does Dame Fortune e’er toddle your way?”

But he deigned not a look nor an answer—not then—
And I felt most decidedly hurt,
And I marked, as he leaned o’er the hopper again,
To examine the rubble and dirt,
He had sugar-bag sleeves to his shirt.

Oh, his boot soles were tied to the uppers with string,
And his beard swept his chest like a mat,
And I noted his eyes were as clear as the Spring—
(That is, Springtime at Pennyweight Flat)—
He had corks, also, strung to his hat.

But I flushed to the hair, as he tossed in his hand
A large slug, from the gravel he mined,
And a midwinter smile I did not understand
Lit his weatherworn dial and lined,
As he carelessly toyed with his find.

Then I hurried across to congratulate Dad,
(Oh the slug! and its wondrous gold-red!)
And I spoke of the marvellous fortune he had,
When he wakened that sprite from its bed—
“Pshaw! A fly-speck—a fly-speck!”—he said.

And he sighed as he spoke, and his eyes gathered damp
(Ah, the depth of the pathos they wore!)
“I have plenty like that sowed away in the camp,
And because you’re true grit to the core
You may have the durned thing for a ‘score’!”

Quick I dived for my purse, and I counted the coin,
Ere I greedily gathered my prize—
Then our hands were as hands of old friends, when they join
And our eyes met as brotherly eyes—
Oh, we wept, as we mingled good-byes!

“What’s it worth? What’s it worth?” to the banker I cried,
As I came through the door at a run,
And I brushed seven customers waiting aside,
And the banker chap calmly begun,
“I should say about nine pounds a ton.”

I will swear that my hair turned a peony red,
And my visage an emerald green,
As he scraped off the gilt from a pound weight of lead;
And a sadness fell over the scene
That but late wore a holiday sheen.

Then I rushed like a mad thing, on homicide bent;
And with anger that cut to the bone
I demolished the shaker, and ravaged the tent,
—But the hardened old sinner had flown;
And I sank to the earth with a groan.

Oh, his boot soles were tied to the uppers with string,
And his beard swept his chest like a mat—
I remarked that his eyes were as clear as the Spring,
(That is, Springtime at Pennyweight Flat)
He had corks, also, strung to his hat.

[Decoration: Gold miner with dolly pot]