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Off the Bluebush

Chapter 72: Your Level Best
By J. P. Bourke
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Poetry

About This Book

A collection of short, rugged poems that reflect life around mining camps, small towns, and the countryside, blending humor, earthy realism, and wistful sentiment. Many pieces evoke comradeship, drinking and rowdy social moments, personal longing, and reflections on loss and labor, while others dwell on landscape, seasons, and domestic recollection. Stylistically the verse favors direct, ballad-like rhythms and a colloquial voice, trading literary polish for immediacy and emotional truth. Accompanying illustrations and editorial notes frame the pieces as expressions of a regional poetic sensibility rooted in everyday experience.

[198]
YOUR LEVEL BEST.

When you stand within Life’s limelight to declaim your little piece—
        Let your hearers chip and chivvy as they may—
And you go on nigh despairing, ’neath your mummer-paint and grease,
        As you massacre the part you have to play:
                You may come before the curtain
                        And erect your ragged crest,
                If you’re absolutely certain
                        That you’ve done your level best!

If you’re put away like lumber, on the very topmost shelf,
        And the phalanx of Success’s pets condemn,
Just remember most approval worth a cent comes from yourself,
        And heave brick for brick, “Old Failure!” back at them:
                For no matter how they mutter,
                        You are worthy as the rest,
                When you’re lying in the gutter,
                        If the gutter is your best!
[199]
[Illustration: People being directed to their eternal destiny]
“Where no scallywag or sinner
May be counted as a guest.”
[200]
Mark the “pity for a failure!” as the motor-hog whisks by,
        And the derelict steps quickly from his path:
See the supercilious patronage that lights the preacher’s eye!
        As he maunders of a glowing aftermath,
                Where no scallywag or sinner
                        May be counted as a guest
                When the trumpet sounds for dinner—
                        Though he did his level best!

Never mind, old Rags and Tatters! when you reach the “golden stairs,”
        You may meet a Godlike cobber, who will say,
“Though you’ve hobnobbed with the Devil, and forgot your vesper prayers,
        You were only as I fashioned forth your clay—
                Whether scoffer who denied Me,
                        Or a saint who beat his breast,
                Only he may stand beside me
                        Who has done his level best!”

[Illustration: FINIS]

Morton’s Limited, Printers, 75 Ultimo Road, Sydney.

Transcriber’s Note

Inconsistent hyphenation (cocky patch/cocky-patch, fantods/fan-tod, flower-soul/flower soul, Glory rose/glory-rose, hobby-horse/hobby horse, inmost soul/inmost-soul, maiden hair/maidenhair, outback/out-back, rose-leaves/rose leaves/roseleaf, springtime/spring-time, taproom/tap-room, tempest tossed/tempest-tossed, window pane/window-pane) and non-standard spelling (smoothes, cris-crossed) retained.