Chapter I: Haven’t the Guts to Go

I want to be out where the battlers are,
Away from the tyrant pen,
Where the bell-bird sits on the morning star
To waken the mulga men;
I want to stand on the crazy brace,
Or hammer away below,
While Luck waits by with a shining face
So long as the “leader” pans a trace—
_But I haven’t the guts to go!_

I want to be fixed in the same old camp,
And sit by the sandal fire—
I can see it now in the flickering lamp:
It looks like a funeral pyre.
I want to be with the gods of graft,
The stars of an out-back sky,
Or follow on with a bushman’s craft,
With my bag and bundle before and aft—
_But I haven’t the guts to try!_

Oh, I know a place where the gold went down,
The spot where the “country” broke:
And the shaft is there near the ridge’s crown,
By the foot of an old bull-oak.
I know the metal is waiting still
For a lusty heart to buy,
For a trusty arm, and a tireless will,
Till the slug rolls out from the public mill—
_But I haven’t the guts to try!_

There’s a shanty, too, and a lodestone there—
A girl of the out-back type—
The midnight sleeps in her vagrant hair
And her lips are cherry-ripe:
The battlers vie at the kipsy bar,
And many a mulga beau;
And I want to be where the battlers are,
And bask in the light of my out-back star—
_But I haven’t the guts to go!_

There’s a fell disease in the touch of ink—
The shriek of a coastal train—
There’s a subtle curse in the draught we drink
That softens the bushman’s brain:
We weary fast of the gauds and guile,
Though strong are the bonds they weave,
And the glamour that circles the Golden Mile—
_But we haven’t the guts to leave!_

I want to up with my swag and hence,
Away from the tyrant pen,
Where the bell-bird calls from the morning’s fence
To waken the mulga men!
I want to stand on a crazy brace,
Or hammer away below,
While Luck looks on with a beaming face,
So long as the “leader” pans a trace—
_But I haven’t the guts to go!_

ANOTHER SONG OF THE STAMPS.

There’s another and brighter song to sing
That is caught on the writer’s quill,
Though ’tis told all day with a rhythmic swing
By the stamps of the ten-head mill:
They repeat no burden of cankered greed,
And they echo no anguished moan,
When they rattle the roofs
With their iron hoofs,
As they pound on your two-ounce stone!

There’s never a beat for the filching crew,
Not a chip from the workman’s crust;
There’s never a turn for the London Jew,
Nor a “weight” for the London “trust”;
There’s never a sigh for the wretched gnomes
Below in the seething stope,
And the walls resound,
As the cams go round,
With the clamour of new-born Hope!

There’s a battler seeing the parcel through;
And he stands in the lamplight dim,
And he bends his ear to the voice anew
For the message that comes to him:
And his bronzed cheek glows as the words grow clear.
For they quicken his pulse and thrill,
And memories stir
To the whizz and whir
Of the wheels of the ten-head mill.

There’s a king to-night in his dungarees,
And he’s quaffing an old, old wine—
Oh, he doffs no cap and he bends no knees
To the boss of the Bull-owned mine!
And he gives no thought to the fruitless quest
Where his years and his toil were cast,
While the stampers sing
The awakening
Of his Luck—that has come at last!

So the sky grows clear and the world grows wide,
And there’s melody in the air:
There’s a waiting ship for the Eastern side,
And a woman that’s waiting there:
There’s a proud disdain for the things that were,
And this planet is all his own—
And there’s good red blood
In the stamper’s thud
As it pounds on his two-ounce stone!

POINTING EAST

A WISH—FOR SYDNEY-SIDE.

I wish you a happy New Year,
O, faithful old mother of me!
May it come with a smile, not a tear,
Where Sydney looks out on the sea—
On the wings of some wind, blowing free,
Where the heads of Port Jackson rise sheer—
From the heart in my breast
And the heart of the West
I wish you a happy New Year!

While the hands of Luck’s jenny-wheel spin
And Fortune is ever a-fret,
From the voices of homeland and kin,
Come the clearest of messages yet:
And the nose of my dinghy is set
For the time the gods give me a win!
And I waft you a line,
Dear old mother of mine!
While the hands of Luck’s jenny-wheel spin.

But, though Fortune be good or be ill!
Though the guerdon be ashes or gold!
When the crushing has gone to the mill
And the tale of life’s effort is told,
Though the world be grown never so cold
There’s a heart that will beat for me still!
And a prayer to fend,
And a trust without end,
And an old hand to cancel the bill.

So I wish you a happy New Year,
O, well-loved old mother of me!
May it come with no trace of a tear
When it trips from Eternity’s sea!
Oh, for mine! and for thine! and for thee!
With a love that is deep and sincere,
From the heart in my breast,
In the heart of the West,
I wish you “A Happy New Year!”

AMONGST THE RICKS OF HAY.

When Western roads are rough and long,
and days are hot and dry:
When mulga branches cast no shade
against the brazen sky:
I throw “Matilda” by the pad
and let my fancy play—
A-skipping o’er the fields once more,
amongst the ricks of hay.

Oh, here they come! there’s Joe and Dan!
and May, and Kate, and Min.!
The old swing gate flies open wide
to let the rompers in:
For I am friends with all the lot,
and trusty chums are they,
And all a-troop for hide-a-hoop
amongst the ricks of hay.

We mashers dress in father’s pants—
our sweethearts’ trilbies bare—
For we are jolly farmer’s kids
with hayseeds in our hair!
And Joe Tresize takes after Kate,
and I takes after May,
And Dan and Min. like whirlies spin
amongst the ricks of hay.

And when the rush and romp are o’er
we go in twos and twos—
And oh! the undermining arts
we simple urchins use;
And oh, the saucy tricks and ways
of Kate, and Min., and May!
While life’s begun and hearts are won
amongst the ricks of hay.

Then safe behind the sheltering wing
these friendly ricks afford,
We swear we’re “deep as deep” in love!
we are “as true as Gord”!
And linked together Jack and Jill,
beneath the moonlight grey,
With hearts ablaze, we spoon our ways
amongst the ricks of hay.

Alas! just then a startling voice
through dream and mistland broke:
“A dozen weary mulga miles
to Jerry Hogan’s soak!”
A fig for that! The miles fly past
to spryer steps and gay—
I’ve spent a boyish hour or two
amongst the ricks of hay.

KILDEA’S FLOWER FARM.

I live where the shade is,
And rusted Life’s blade is—
The sand-drifts from Hades
Have tarnished each charm:
But, sober or shicker,
My heart-pulse beats quicker
Whenever I think of
Kildea’s flower farm!

’Twas not the green sward, or
The spangled disorder
Along the path border
That led to their gate;
Nor mazes and mazes
Of heartsease and daisies,
That blossomed so early
And lingered so late:

It was not the ringing
Of crimson bells swinging—
It was not the singing
Of elves in the corn—
Nor fairy beds, laden
With rose-wreaths from Aidenn,
That smiled like a child, in
The face of the morn!

Ah, the roses so bloomy
That held me and drew me—
The thrill that shot through me,
’Neath blue skies or grey—
The fear that oppressed me,
The hope that caressed me,
All dwelt ’neath the bonnet
Of Katy Kildea!

With callous years flying,
And Youth’s fountains drying,
One memory undying
Lives always attuned:
And, if plucked from its setting,
Forgot and forgetting,
The best of my being
Would flow through the wound!

I live where the shade is—
And rusted Life’s blade is—
The sand-drifts from Hades
Have tarnished its charm:
But, sober or shicker,
My heart-pulse beats quicker
Whenever I think of
Kildea’s flower farm.

HIS LETTER FROM W.A.

Dear Kitty, I’ve just read the letter you sent—
It was brought by the man from the store;
And I’m writin’ straight back, as I lay in my tent,
Sprawlin’ out at full length on the floor.
But the pen ’ll scarce write for the thinkin’ of you—
Oh, I’m sorry that ever I went!
And I have to knock off every minute or two,
Just to glance through the letter you sent.

It is scarcely six months since I left Cooranbean,
But seems longer than all of last year;
And 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 their mines, with the forchins they yield,
Just to hear the old ripple of Cooranbean crick,
And the rustle of corn in the field.

There isn’t no “skirts” like the Cooranbean “skirts”!
Or no boys like the Cooranbean boys!
And there isn’t no parties for fellers and flirts,
And there isn’t no dance at Mulroy’s!
And there isn’t no chance for a couple to spin
Like the wind acrost Cherrytree Plain!
Where the best of the prizes were kisses to win—
And ... there isn’t no Kitty M‘Lean.

I can’t find no nuggets, and can’t see no charm,
As I wander about in the street;
And I long to be back once again on the farm,
With the rabbits and rust in the wheat.
Oh, then life would want neither a whip or a spur—
With a “string,” and a trigger to pull,
And just you at my side, and the possums astir,
And the moon, our old moon! at the full ...

But if I am dull, and my letters are crook,
It is certain that you should know why:
For you’ll find Charley’s heart, if you’re carin’ to look,
At the gate where he kissed you “Good-bye!”
And say, if in a month, on the home-comin’ track,
There is anyone’s eyes charnster skim,
And they see a young chap with a “port” on his back—
That most likely, Dear Kit., ’ll be him.

ANSWER TO “HIS LETTER FROM W.A.”

Dear Charley, I dreamt of a letter last night
With the postmark of W.A.,
And it’s wonderful, reely, how soon it came right,
And I ought to feel happy to-day—
For your letter came home from that far-away shore,
But no matter however I try,
The difference, somehow, it always seems more
And I cannot do nothing but cry.

They’re all gone to Hogan’s to see their noo plough,
But I’m stayin’ behind from the rest,
For there doesn’t seem anything happenin’ now
Like before you cleared out to the West.
The voice from the crick’s like a human in pain
And a sigh seems ter come from the trees,
And there’s somethin’ I don’t understand on the plain
With the grass wavin’ up to your knees.

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 pr’aps it is silly, I have to confess
I am wearin’ my heart out for you.

All the country around is as green as a leaf
And there’s never no fires or no drought,
And they say it’s old weatherwise Riley’s belief
That the seasons is goin’ to hang out;
And they say that young fellers is fools to go West
When there’s whips of good land on the run—
And the stick-at-home policy’s always the best
When the summin’-up comes to be done.

Oh, Charley! come back to your sweetheart again!
She’s as dull as a girl in a trance:
And she hasn’t been out for a flutter since then
And she don’t care a dump for a dance;
And she’s watchin’ for someone who kissed her, and cried
“But a few little months for to wait!
When the time’ll pass by, and I’ll stand by your side
Where the roses twine over the gate.”

A-WHIZZING TOWARDS THE EAST.

Hurrah! at last
Ill luck is past;
My shammy weighs a ton!
A drink or two,
A shake for you,
A smile for everyone!
My number’s up—
A stirrup cup!
No Death’s head at the feast!
As off I go
With veins aglow,
A-whizzing towards the East!

Yet, wait a shake!
Put on the brake,
And shut the damper down!
A kiss for you
With eyes of blue!
And you with eyes of brown!
’Tis oft declared
A joy that’s shared
Is seven-fold increased—
Then jump aboard
And trust the Lord,
A-whizzing towards the East!

The breezes tell—
The stars as well—
The tales I love to hear:
Their voices seem
As in a dream,
Those missed for many a year.
Then here with you!
My cronies true!
The nearest and the least!
I’ll clink a glass,
Then skim the grass,
A-whizzing towards the East!

With love and loot,
And youth to boot,
I’ll plough the ocean blue—
They’re waiting me
Upon the quay,
And gaze the mistland through:
Then shout afar,
“Hurrah! Hurrah!”
Like prisoners released—
With sails outspread
And “Steam ahead,”
We’re whizzing towards the East!

[Decoration: Man with swag walking away]

THE OLD FARM GATE.

There’s an all-pervading glamour and a glitter in the West;
There’s a market here for muscle or for brain:
And Success stands ever near us, with a blossom at her breast,
And a galaxy of beauty in her train!
There are prizes worth the winning, for the daring hearts and bold,
There are gauds and gear for those who work and wait,
But I’m often drifting, drifting, from the palling gleam of gold
Till I stand beside the old farm gate.

How the roses bloomed that Summer! with their petals white and red:
How the honeysuckle clustered near the porch!
The soft warm glow of sympathy around the place was shed,
For the god of sweet Contentment held the torch!
There were mountains in the distance, and a river at their base,
And when Summer evening fancies re-create
Then I go a-drifting, drifting, with a smile upon my face
Till I stand beside the old farm gate!

Ere the mocking days that hover ’twixt the dreams of then and now:
Ere the fevered years, that withered with their touch:
There was Hope! that never ceased to wear a flush upon her brow,
And that Hope still struggles onward—with a crutch!
But the harvest days are over, and asleep their merry men,
And I glean the ears of fantasy or Fate,
As I go a-drifting, drifting, till I find Eileen again
As I left her by the old farm gate.

[Decoration: Man leading camel]

TO THOSE WHO LOVE US MOST.

Oh, fill the sparkling crystal up
A beaker to the brim!
We sing no lays of fulsome praise
Of white-lipped seraphim:
No universal hymn of peace—
No puling, puking toast—
But clink a glass to those we love!
And those who love us most.

A love for love! a hate for hate!
Good old Mohammed’s creed—
That sears and brands the hearts and hands
Of every human breed:
We join in greetings to our foes—
No false-tongued canting host;
But drink a health to those we love!
And those who love us most!

To him whose hand would bear us down—
Whose fluent lie would mar—
We bear no hate inveterate,
No gall-tipped scimitar;
And little care, though glory crown,
Or hottest hell may roast—
But drain a glass to those we love
And those who love us most!

A white-haired woman o’er the sea—
A group within her gate,
Who bend to read the halting screed,
But half articulate—
Yet bearing on its blotted page,
From Austral coast to coast,
A word of love to those we love
And those who love us most.

To-night! oh, let no follies sway!
No gas-lit, luring eyes
Glint through the clear God’s atmosphere
That links eternities!
Wave back each wizened witch of care!
Wave back each peering ghost!
And breathe a heathen prayer for them—
“_The hearts that love us most!_”

NOR’WEST CORNER

BEER IS ENOUGH.

Beer is enough. Let us be satisfied,
Nor fret our hearts with longing after gin,
And bob saloons, and vanities beside,
That lead one to the shelving edge of sin ...
For wights who sit a-row along the pave,
With crackling skins, and drooping lives to save,
Beer is enough.

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.

Beer is enough. Though dreamers sigh and sigh
Of melting love, did love e’er quench a thirst?
Did ever Cupid, ’neath a brazen sky,
Hand out a pint to taper off a burst?
Can Daphne’s lips allay the wild desire
To wade in hops, when coppers are afire?
Beer is enough.

Beer is enough. The brightest and the best
Of all the gifts the gods have handed down!
A Nautch girl she! who graces all the West,
Dressed in her picture hat, and amber gown ...
There is no canker in her love—no lees
To weight one’s ghost through dim eternities.
Beer is enough.

[Decoration: Mining equipment]

A BUNCH OF VIOLETS.

The loungers eyed the Wreck askance,
—A seedy bloke was he,
Who bore upon his countenance
A boozer’s historee—
He wore a small pea-dodger hat
Upon his massive brow,
And everywhere
His sandy hair
Spread round the rim like tow.

“Oh! Charles Adolphus,” Hebe chipped
(The belle of Bung’s saloon)
“Old chap! you’re got me fairly hipped—
I’m dying for a spoon!”
“Stand off! Stand off!” the boozer yelled,
And dashed his pewter down:
“_Her_ eyes of grey,
Though dimmed to-day,
Glow warm from Sydney town!”

“Cheer up!” the barmaid cried, “Cheer up!
You’ll be a long time dead.”
“Ah! we have drained the bitter cup,
My girl and I,” he said;
“For she is ’neath the morning sun,
And I am where it sets—
On Sydney quay
She waits for me,
My bunch of vio-lets!”

“Girl! we were raised together, where
The Namoi winds along—
Corn tassels were not like her hair!
Or magpies like her song!”
—And so he waxed poetic, while
The barmaid bent her ear
(As women do
To listen to
The eloquence of beer.)

“Oh! shut your head, and do a get!”
The irate loungers cried:
“Last month I saw your Violet
Upon the Sydney side.
She wore a pretty rakish hat;
A Chow on either fin;
And loaded thus,
She wanted us
To fill her up with gin.”

He heard the insult where he stood:
A gleam lit up his eye:
“A lie!” he howled; “that calls for blood!
A damned and heartless lie!
But for my mother’s son, and her
Who lives across the sea,
If God is white
Himself, to-night
He’ll lend a hand with me!”

As willy-willies rush and tear
Their way through mulga scrubs—
As old-time pirates used to dare,
Aboard their wooden tubs—
As men still fight for those they love,
While weaklings dodge and spar—
With flying blows
And steel-shod toes
He cleared that private bar!

* * * * *

But one stood there with drooping head,
And sandy hair like tow—
“I reckon, Miss,” the Object said,
“I’ll try a pewter now.”
And when he sank upon the floor
Where Bacchus spreads his nets,
A flower spray
Fell where he lay—
’Twas Hebe’s vio-lets.

BEHIND M‘WHALAN’S BAR.

No theme for poet’s ecstasies,
No Phyllis fond and fair,
With sprouting wings and soulful eyes,
And sunglints in her hair;
No wood-nymph, clad in gossamer,
A-treading daisied meads,
No saintly nun, from sun to sun
A-telling of her beads:

She’s not the girl who wept upon
Our shirt-front on the quay!
She is no Frenchified Mignonne!
No Scotch lass frae the Dee!
No leaf culled from Romance’s page,
No scintillating star,
Is charming Luce—who jerks the juice
Behind M‘Whalan’s bar.

And yet the lads for miles and miles
From mulga camp and mine
Come in to bid for Lucy’s smiles
And worship at her shrine:
They dream of nectar from her lips,
But drain the whisky jar,
And leave their hearts’ own counterparts
Upon M‘Whalan’s bar.

She is no dreamy, droopy frond,
No white rose of regret;
But, oh! we leap in Lethe’s pond
From Virtue’s minaret
When deftly, with a flashing toe!
She tips our panama,
And in a whirl of clothes and girl
Vaults back across the bar.

She holds us with a silken thread,
This hypnotising flirt:
A wink that whispers, “Hope ahead!”
The frou-frou of her skirt;
But, Lord, it fairly breaks us up,
Our eyes grow large as moons,
When with despatch she strikes a match
Upon her pantaloons.

Then all the world may bow to-night
To Beauty’s peerless queen,
And all the world may fight its fight
For “God and Gwendoline”;
But we will lilt our serenade
To bright eyes flashing far,
And drink to Luce who jerks the juice
Behind M‘Whalan’s bar!

WILL YOU LOVE ME THEN?

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.

Ah! I try to think, as I feel your breath,
Like a perfume thrown from a Glory rose,
That our path will lead (as the poet saith)
In a pleasant field, where the wild thyme blows——
But, wife of mine!
Will your star still shine
When he’s loaded down to the Plimsoll line?

Oh, I like you thus, with your nut-brown hair
In a wilderness, as I saw you first;
And I love you much as a man may dare
Who is torn asunder ’twixt love and thirst——
Pray tell me, dear!
Will the wind-vane veer
When I hang my pants on the chandelier?

And will Passion’s flower still bloom as red,—
Will you shrink right over against the wall,—
When I tumble into the nuptial bed
With my harness on, and my boots and all?
Will you have resource
To a plain divorce
When I smell of hops like a brewer’s horse?

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 that you wore last year?
Girl, keep your vow!
Things will shape somehow—
And we’ll take our toll from the lap of Now!

[Decoration: Gold mining camp]

DIFFERENCES.

Different men have different ways,
Different crooks have different lays,
Different girls wear different stays.

It’s just according to how you’re built
Whether you sing a dirge, or lilt,
Laugh, or cry, when the milk is spilt.

Different dogs have different yaps,
Different tarts have different chaps,
Different bees fill different caps.

The bloke who missed is a carper—hence
We find him sitting astride a fence,
Cursing like hell as a recompense.

Different hounds have different bays,
Different nags have different neighs,
Different priests have different prays.

Who’d have a world that was uniform
Timing its pulse to a damning norm?
Give me the varying calm and storm.

Different hooks have different eyes,
Different cooks make different pies,
Different stamps have different dies.

Little it matters, my friend! to you,
Though arms are clinging, or hearts are true,
Or gold be clotted around the shoe.

Different grocers use different sand—
That is the game that you understand!
Here is a genuine, good right hand.

Bring me a tangle of fairish dope
To widen a rhymer’s mental scope,
And I’ll write an ode to a bar of soap!

[Decoration: Black swan]

THE DRUNK’S RUBÁIYÁT

Awake! the Dawn is breaking rosy red;
The Flies their matin Hymns sing round your Head—
And here you’ve roosted on the Kerb all night,
And never paid a Stiver for your Bed.

Last Eve, no doubt, when primed with Beer and Wine,
The World at large was all your Ruby Mine;
But if you had to face the Beak to-day,
It’s odds you couldn’t pay a Dollar Fine.

Ah, then Life wore an amber-tinted Hue,
To dizzy Heights your hop-fed Fancy flew;
But now, alas! to damp a Soul of Clay
You’ll have, perforce, to try a weaker Brew.

Search well again! Perhaps some vagrant Sprat
Lies hid within the Lining of your Hat;
Or if a Thrummer, you’ve an even chance—
A hungry Bung will often come at that.

And, ah! see yonder open tap-room Door—
If Fate be kind, old chap! maybe you’ll score;
And if a foaming Pot materialise,
Soak up the Juice, and boldly ask for more.

Myself, when young, did eagerly frequent
Shanty and Pub, on gratis Beer intent;
But I (unlucky wayfarer) was oft
Shot out by the same Door that in I went.

And that perverted soul we call the Bung,
Whose Moods, in turn, are praised or cursed or sung—
I’ve often wondered in my Heart, why he
Remains uncanonised—or else unhung.

From some, indeed, the Milk of Kindness flows:
Another Churl the pointed Insult throws—
But when He cops a Oner on the Beak,
He knows about it all—He Knows—HE KNOWS!

But come! Let’s tap this caravanserai!
I hold a Bob, in case the Kite won’t fly;
But ask not how it haps—like Life and Death
I know not How, nor When, nor Whence, nor Why.

A BLOKE FROM MULLINGAR.

I met him nearly farthest out—
No matter when or where.
He carried in his ragged clothes
A kind of city air.
I said, “I’ve just been wondering
The devil who you are?”
And he replied, in broken tones,
“I’m all that’s left of Billy Jones,
The beau of Mullingar!”

“Brush up! brash up! my friend,” I cried,
“And bear it like a man.
Why, look at me, I’ve battled through
From Beersheba to Dan;
And yet may do the ‘buffer’ trick
When Fortune’s bogies jar,
And shade the truth
From callow youth
Who hail from Mullingar!

“Come, trot inside this shanty door!
This out-back mulga hell!
Where all our finer thoughts are damned,
And e’en our worst rebel.
But still when deathly monotone
Spreads over land and star,
Here, broken men
Oft dream again
Of some old Mullingar!”

He sighed, and took my hand in his—
The kind of flaccid clasp
That rankles through one’s very soul
And tears it like a rasp—
“Ah, yes, that talk is right enough
Beside a shanty bar;
But I’ve,” he said,
And bowed his head,
“A girl in Mullingar!”

“Remember this,” I laughed, “my lad!
The brave alone may win—
To her we’ll chink, where’er she be,
One foaming pannikin,
For Cupid’s cunning shafts, my lad,
They carry fast and far;
And girls are true
To me and you,
In hell—or Mullingar!

“Come, sink another pot to her!
A wizened soul and white
Would falter in its tracks by day,
And in its core by night.
For I, too, twenty years ago,
Beneath a luckless star,
Left, in a rage,
Life’s heritage
Behind at Mullingar!”

“Oh, yes,” he chortled with a sneer,
“I know, I know your kind
Of out-back bloke who babbles of
The girl he left behind—
Her face was quite a beauty show,
Her voice like a guitar.
I guess,” he grinned,
“The kind of wind
Blew you from Mullingar!

“For city men, like me, may read
The lying lines between,
Of blokes who bruise with hob-nailed feet
Love’s field of evergreen—
The car wherein _your_ goddess drives
May be Aspasia’s car!”
I hit him solid, fair and square,
And left the wastrel lying there—
That bloke from Mullingar.

ONLY A KISS.

“I shan’t,” cried the maiden, “I shan’t!”
With a dear little petulant cry;
But the Moon, the old Moon, looked aslant,
With a comical twist in her eye;
And the mulga bush, lingering near,
Caught up the defiant refrain,
And “I shan’t! Oh, I shan’t!”
In a musical chant,
Was re-echoed again and again.

“But Lucretia, my dearest, you will!”
Our Superbus persisted—and soon
His soft accents came back from the hill,
In the mellowing light of the moon;
And the salmon-gums, clustering round,
Sent the melody dancing along,
And “You will! Oh, you will!”
Was repeated, until
They were all out of breath with their song.

But the maiden was adamant still,
Though her lips were an edible red;
And when Tarquin insisted, “You will!”
“Oh, I shan’t! you deceiver!” she said.
And the mulga and salmon-gums all,
In this star-gazing argument caught,
Sang, “You will!” “Oh, I shan’t!”
In a soul-wrecking chant—
But they thought in their hearts that she ought.

[Decoration: Mining with a windsail]

A BENDER AND SOME OF THE MOODS THAT LEAD UP TO IT.

When days are long and nights are dull,
And life seems deathly still,
And wretched insects buzz and buzz
Against the window sill,
One balances the force of “Won’t”
Against the force of Will.

I live upon the outer edge,
And on the desert’s rim,
And sometimes query, in a tone
Quite humourless and grim,
Is life, indeed, a mere burlesque?
Some Potent Joker’s whim?

I give the Desert stare for stare,
We never fraternise;
For me the siren has no voice,
For her I have no eyes,
And whipcord couldn’t link us twain
In peaceful marriage ties.

She’s clothed in desolation’s garb,
And visaged like the Sphinx;
Too close communion oft begets
Those tortured mental kinks
That populate the upper end
Of men who mix their drinks.

She brings no help to sling a rhyme
That sniggers as it goes ...
Sometimes a thought comes limping in
With sand between its toes,
A well-developed polypus
Somewhere within its nose.

But when its wares are spread upon
The operating sheet
I mostly find them shadow hash,
With very little meat,
And so I shoot them out the door
To give the dog a treat.

There’s something in the very air
Of torture, finely spun;
The weight of care that bears me down
Weighs mighty near a ton;
The breakfast steak tastes like a brick,
The spuds are underdone.

The whole world’s badly out of joint,
And shaky at the knees;
And that old trouble with my back
It hints of Bright’s disease,
And barley-water in a ward,
And thumping doctors’ fees.

The touch of ’flu I caught last month
Grows daily worse and worse:
’Tis sure my plan to keep afloat
Till time and tide reverse,
Is, Take a load of beer aboard,
And jettison my purse!

For one must never count the cost
When health is in the scales
And dull-eyed devils roost upon
One’s mental boundary rails,
Nor bend an over-fearful ear
To timid travellers’ tales.

The same old wild and woolly whirl
Along the same old track,
Outpacing sundry ills I have,
To garner those I lack!
—And so, I slither down to hell
(But have to hoof it back).

Then Reason riots wild awhile,
With bells upon her cap,
Until the last resource is sped
Of coin, or kid, or strap;
And then—I come back smiling, a
Rejuvenated chap!

WILD CATS AND HOURIS.

My worthy friend, if you’d list to me,
I’d teach you the way of a millionaire:
Advice costs nothing; the class is free;
And the road is smooth and the game is fair
Where dame Fortune smiles
With a woman’s wiles,
And a golden comb in the jade’s back hair.

Pray listen to me as you love your life;
The old world trips to the Oof-bird’s song:
’Tis poverty cuts like a butcher’s knife,
And the stabs of the butcher rankle long—
Say are you, at most,
Like a chap on toast,
Held over the fire on the toaster’s prong?

The prizes are not for the swift alone:
There’s small demand on your brawn or brain:
Just a cast-steel chiv, and a hunk of stone,
And a thirst that can cut and come again—
A trifle of salt,
A barrel of malt,
And four good stout pegs in a mulga plain.

My worldly friend! if you’d list to me,
You’d cease to worry of duns and bills,
And practice the one philanthropy
That works the ranch that your ego fills—
For the mugs await
At your outer gate,
And the world is crying for gilded pills.

’Tis thus the prizes are lost or won,
And thus the guerdon is bought or sold;
For the game is fair when the coins are spun,
And the “heads” show up in the aureate mould—
And where is the sin,
When the flats chip in,
In flying a “nob” for their good red gold?

Well, that is the lore that I wish to teach,
And such is the way that I want to show,
For Daphne lies on the sanded beach
’Way down by the ocean at Cottesloe,
With a barrel of “fat”
And a tall silk hat,
And a tip-top time where the houris grow.

THE LAST SPRAT.

I’ve nursed it all a sultry summer night
This buffer ’twixt a rocky shore and me:
I elbow through the crowd upon my right
Of solvency.

Life still holds some potentialities!
I feel myself a unit amongst men!
But know, should thirst prevail, there wilts and dies
A citizen.

The clink of glasses floats upon the air—
Thirst’s fingers gripe me round the neck and choke—
One beerward step: and then a voice, “_Beware!
Dead broke! Dead broke!_”

Shallows to windward, breakers on the lee,
I weigh and weigh the question, cons and pros,
Till (wracked by indecision’s pangs) I see
The last pub close.

[Decoration: Horse-powered mining]

SAY, WHAT DO YOU THINK OF IT NOW?

Ye comrades in shicker and cobbers in sin,
Ye wrecks from the ranks of life’s crew,
Who’ve tickled each barmaid under the chin
And frivolled with nymphs in the Rue;
Who’ve painted the town a magnificent red
(All impressionist artists, I trow),
Look here, in the light of the aftermath shed,
Say, what do you think of it now?

Oh, you’ve had a gay and a festive debauch
In regions where sanity reels,
With Bacchus, wine-laden, ahead with his torch,
And Nemesis close at your heels.
And little you recked, as the glamour of wine
Smoothed the lines of Life’s puckering brow—
But own up and tell me, old cobbers of mine,
Say, what do you think of it now?

You’ve made the pace willing in numberless bars,
You have sung, and recited, and yapped;
You have slept a drunk’s sleep ’neath the pitying stars,
You have squandered and borrowed and strapped—
You have struck every note, the sublime to the lewd,
But, alas, from Despondency’s slough,
May I ask in a friendly and brotherly mood,
Say, what do you think of it now?

You have played the pied piper and danced the fool’s dance
’Mid the smiles of well-ballasted men
(By-and-by, when the devil is better perchance
You will cut the same caper again.)
But now, as you bare your scant locks to the blast,
And re-register vow upon vow,
May I ask, as a brother—the month that is past—
Say, what do you think of it now?

[Decoration: Gold miner with dolly pot]

ODD LEAVES

THE WESTERN WRITER TO HIS MUSE.

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 maidenhair, 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.

No, she will never set the Thames a-flame,
Nor even churn a Western willy-willy,
My Muse! now growing greasy-heeled and lame:
She never was too sprightly as a filly;
But now, God bless my stars! her fires are tame—
They wouldn’t even boil a blanky billy,
Or grill a steak, or mull a glass of stout,
Garnished around with oysters—or without.

Get up, old girl! and give yourself a try—
A snort, a cough, a whistle, or a whinny—
Some folk are waiting now outside to buy,
If you’d display the spirit of a jenny!—
Prick up your ears! Just look a trifle spry,
And we may catch the nimble half-a-guinea.

* * * * *

What! No? Well, dash my eyes, you are a cow,
To jib incontinently, here, and now!

THE MAN WHO “CAN TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT ALONE.”

“Now, you see,” said my friend, as we breasted a bar,
And he mentioned to Popsy, “A go of Three Star”—
“Now, you see, I am built on a different plan,
And avoid all extremes, like a moderate man—
But you! you can never touch liquor at all
Without kicking prudence right over the wall.

“You’ve a bad moral balance, a weakness somewhere,
A mental deficiency under your hair,
And large woolly rats get right into your ‘think’
The moment you open your gills for a drink—
Why not be like me? Have a will of your own,
And the firmness to take it or leave it alone.”

So we filled them again, and again, and some more,
While he started to probe the thing into the core;
Oh, he analysed drunkenness, torso and limb,
Till his phrases grew thick and his vision grew dim,
And he fully, but mildly, condemned as “a muff”
Any chap who said “Yes,” when he’d lowered enough.

“W’y the dickens,” he groaned and deplored, “cansh yer be
A (hic) moderate, senshible drinker, like me?
For”—he said as he sank to the floor with a groan—
“I’m a mansh (hic) can take it, or leave it alone.”

WHEN SUSY MAKES THE DUFF.

My Susy is a bird of Spring,
A home-bird sweet and shy,
With rainbow colours on her wing
And laughter in her eye:
My hopes in life flit round beneath
Her coronet of fluff:
One hidden thorn within the wreath—
She makes the Sunday duff!
_When Susy makes the duff,
If man were sterner stuff,
He’d kneel and plead at Mercy’s seat
When Susy makes the duff._

It is not that she loves me less—
That rare hymeneal sin!
It is not that her morning dress
Cuts out the nimble “fin.”
It is not that her eyes of blue
Convey the cold rebuff—
(Oh, let me, friend! confide in you)
She makes the Sunday duff!
_When Susy makes the duff!
Love’s motor waxes rough,
And all the world gets out of joint
When Susy makes the duff!_

I’ve tried all subtle arts and wiles
To lure her from her bent;
I’ve even said, ’twixt frowns and smiles,
That cooks are Devil-sent.
But “Oh,” she’ll say—and never show
The shadow of a huff—
“My dearest Jim, I know, I know—
_I’ll_ make your Sunday duff!”
_When Susy makes the duff
I groan “Enough, enough!”
A stricken dear, in frozen truth,
When Susy makes the duff!_

Oh, shall I sigh and suffer still
To act the martyr’s part?
Or shall I brave dyspepsia’s ill
And indigestion’s smart?
No need recurring dates to con,
Or write them on my cuff,
While Susy pins her apron on
To make the Sunday duff!
_Ah, when she makes the duff,
No grump be I, or gruff;
But put the white man’s burden down
When Susy makes the duff!_

A DRUNK’S DEFIANCE.

I would like to offer this word or two
In a straight and a manly way,
From the deadhead’s room, where a light shines through
With a dimmed and a sickly ray:
There are some folk born with a lucky caul,
And a hobby to ride at will,
While for others—it isn’t the Lord at all,
But the Devil, who drives the mill.

And though you may laugh on the mountain’s crown,
And though I may toil at the base,
It is neither he who is up nor down
Has himself to thank for his place;
But whether ’tis Fate, if you choose to say,
Or say, if you choose, ’tis chance—
No matter—the tune that their fingers play
Is exactly the step we dance.

Yet if all the tales that are told be wrong,
And though reason be topmost yet,
There’s a broken chord in the tempting song
And a “something” of cheap regret;
But a fig for the tones of the broken chord!
And a fig for the tempting voice!
For a man must fight with a wooden sword
Where he only has Hobson’s choice.

And so, with his hand to the pewter pot,
And a smile on his frothy lip,
He follows the way of the drunken sot
Like a dog to his master’s whip;
And at last, with a curse on the hopeless strife,
He will knock at the Border Gate
As he slings his hat in the face of Life,
And his boots in the teeth of Fate.

[Decoration: Man with swag walking away]

BETWEEN TWO GATES.

“Good-day! Good-day, my ancient friend!”
We threw our swags beside the track—
For twenty solid years on end,
Spent as Life’s spendthrifts only spend,
I’d not met Jack!

A battered wreck, and tempest tossed,
This friend and brother tramp of mine,
With tangled, matted beard of frost—
As rough as seas that he had crossed
Since Auld Lang Syne!

I watched him for an answering glance—
Some sprig of memory, fresh and green,
Of days when through our merry dance
We wove a rough and rare romance
At Ballandean!

“Old Jack!” I said; “Old Jack McQuade!”
And grasped his lean and palsied hand—
“However wide our lives have strayed,
You surely recognise the shade
Of Charlie Brand?”

But still he munched his blackened clay;
I felt no warmth within his palm;
He shook his matted head of grey,
And clutched his prisoned hand away
In half alarm.

“Ah, no!” he answered; “Stranger, no!
No other life than this I’ve known.
For forty years of sun and snow,
As seasons come, and seasons go,
I’ve been alone!”

“But hark you back, McQuade!” I said—
“The days, the happy days, old mate!
We plucked the gums for roseleaf beds,
And rung, we two, the Southern sheds
To Delegate!

“You never thought that hearts could break,
You never thought that love could mar,
When, Jack! a jolly roving rake,
You kissed Good-bye to Mary Blake
At Freney’s bar!

“Come, come, old boy! chase back the cold,
And warm your heart at Friendship’s fire—
Be still the self-same Jack of old—
As true as steel, as good as gold,
As tough as wire!”

A phantom smile a moment played
Around his visage, worn and wan—
“Ah, friend! you’ve dreamt a dream,” he said:
“I’ve had no mate! I’ve loved no maid!”
And wandered on.

“Oh, stay!” I cried; “a thousand themes
Come thronging back at Memory’s call—
The gum-fringed plains, the oak-girt streams—
A wondrous sunlight glows and gleams
Above them all!”

He faded through the twilight grey.
A chill shot through my very spine—
A deadly chill, that seemed to say,
“And even like to him, are they—
All dreams of thine!

“They flit above some fancied sphere,
Those eyes that smile, those lips that pray.
The silent winds that blew last year
Along the banks of Windermere
Are more than they.”

“Then why,” I shrieked, “do gods create?”
As nightfall near and nearer drew,
On either side, a closèd gate ...
I stood, an old man, desolate,
Between the two.

A LASS, A LOAF, AND A GOOD CIGAR.

Ye, who are caught in the bonds of debt!
Ye, who are whipt with the thongs of scorn!
Feeding the ghost of some old regret
Born in a world that was tempest torn!
List to the words of a creed benign
Preached through the ages by old Omar:
Content ye, then, with a flask of Wine,
A girl, a song—and a good cigar!

The years that vanish leave no redress;
Last evening never a bridge has spanned;
So loll we here in the wilderness
That Love has sown in the arid sand:
The bush-birds sing of a world divine
As Pomp rolls by in its gilded car;
And I sit just so—with your hand in mine,
A bottle of wine—and a good cigar.

Heed not the pestilent kill-joys’ screech
That dulls your ears to the voice of Sue!
Disdain the gospel that dour men preach
To hide the light of her eyes from you!
Why should we sorrow, and sit supine
Or clutch the rays of some mystic star
While Love hangs near, on its drooping vine—
And smoke-wreaths curl from a good cigar?

This is the moment of all the year,
Casting a rose as it passes by—
Catch it quick! ere the leaves grow sere,
Blushing now ’neath an Austral sky;
For its petals whisper of His design,
Its heart is bursting with Life’s attar:
“A shady nook, with a flask of wine,
A lass, a loaf—and a good cigar!”

[Decoration: Man leading camel]