[53]
[Illustration: Middle Twigs]
[Illustration: Middle Twigs]
[55]
[Illustration: Elderly wife and husband]
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?
[56]
Well! well! now I wonder is he living still—
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.
[57]
But you must remember how proudly you’d bring
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]
[58]
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?
[59]
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.
[60]
[Illustration: 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.
[61]
And seeking, so, some mental perch
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.
[62]
“Since then I’ve marched the dusty way
“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.
[63]
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:
[64]
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.
[65]
[Illustration: 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!
[66]
Oh, the days go by like drinkin’—for it’s entertainin’ graft,
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!
[67]
But I’ll bet old Bill is dreamin’, and he’s driftin’ on the tide,
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!
[68]
Some day when we’ve her bones picked bare, and got her gutted clean,
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]
[69]
[Illustration: Miners outside hotel]
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.
[70]
We seek in vain the fern-wreaths on your gown,
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.
[71]
Yet still our own! though scoffers mock and mar;
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]
[72]
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.
[73]
What’s the use o’ sittin’
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?
[74]
[Illustration: 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;
[75]
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.
[76]
But years, at last,
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’!”
[77]
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!
[78]
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]
[79]
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.
[80]
The old world chips in, in the guise of a friend,
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]
[81]
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!
[82]
I came down here for a spell, last year,
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!
[83]
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!
[84]
But in case yer fail ter reckernise his features at the pub,
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.”