Part 5
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!”