[140]
He heard the insult where he stood:
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.
[141]
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.
[142]
She is no dreamy, droopy frond,
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!
[143]
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?
[144]
And will Passion’s flower still bloom as red,—
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]
[145]
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.
[146]
Different hooks have different eyes,
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.
[Illustration: hand, index finger pointing down]
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]
[147]
[Illustration: 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.
[148]
Search well again! Perhaps some vagrant Sprat
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.
[149]
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!
[150]
“Come, trot inside this shanty door!
“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!