When The `Army' Prays For Watty

When the kindly hours of darkness, save for light of moon and star,
Hide the picture on the signboard over Doughty's Horse Bazaar;
When the last rose-tint is fading on the distant mulga scrub,
Then the Army prays for Watty at the entrance of his pub.


Now, I often sit at Watty's when the night is very near,
With a head that's full of jingles and the fumes of bottled beer,
For I always have a fancy that, if I am over there
When the Army prays for Watty, I'm included in the prayer.


Watty lounges in his arm-chair, in its old accustomed place,
With a fatherly expression on his round and passive face;
And his arms are clasped before him in a calm, contented way,
And he nods his head and dozes when he hears the Army pray.


And I wonder does he ponder on the distant years and dim,
Or his chances over yonder, when the Army prays for him?
Has he not a fear connected with the warm place down below,
Where, according to good Christians, all the publicans should go?


But his features give no token of a feeling in his breast,
Save of peace that is unbroken and a conscience well at rest;
And we guzzle as we guzzled long before the Army came,
And the loafers wait for `shouters' and -- they get there just the same.


It would take a lot of praying -- lots of thumping on the drum --
To prepare our sinful, straying, erring souls for Kingdom Come;
But I love my fellow-sinners, and I hope, upon the whole,
That the Army gets a hearing when it prays for Watty's soul.

When Hopes Ran High

When hopes ran high the world was young,
We thought that we would never die,
And glorious were the songs we sung
In those grand days when hopes ran high.


When hopes ran high the world was true
We thought that friends could never lie—
There have been bitter truths for you
And me, since days when hopes ran high.

Watching The Crows

A bushman got lost in a scrub in the North,
And all the long morning the searchers went forth.
They swore at the rain that had washed out the tracks
And left not a trace for the eyes of the blacks;
But, trusting the signs that the blackfellow knows,
A quiet old darkey stood watching the crows.


The solemn old blackman stood silently by;
He stood like a statue, his face to the sky.
Black Billy was out of the bearings—we thought—
If he looked above for the bushman we sought;
For we rather suspected the spirit would go
In—well, quite another direction, you know.


Most bushmen on solemn occasions will joke,
And unto Black Bill ’twas the super who spoke.
He asked, as he cocked his red nose in the air—
“You think it old Harrison sit down up there?”
“I’m watching the crows. Where the white man lies dead
The crows will fly over,” the blackfellow said.


The blackfellow died, and long years have gone round
Since the day when old Harrison’s body was found;
But still do I see, in my vision at night,
A faint figure come like a shadow in sight,
And nearer and nearer it comes till it grows
Like the form of that blackfellow—“watching the crows”.

Victory


The schools marched in procession in happiness and pride,
The city bands before them, the soldiers marched beside;
Oh, starched white frocks and sashes and suits that high schools wear,
The boy scout and the boy lout and all the rest were there,
And all flags save Australia's flag waved high in sun and air!


The Girls' High School, and Grammar School and colleges of stone
Flew all flags from their walls and towers – all flags except our own!
And down here in the alleys where Premiers never come,
Nor candidate, nor delegate, nor sound of fife and drum,
They packed them on the lorries, seared children of the slum.


Each face seemed soiled and faded, though scrubbed with household soap,
And older than a mother-face, but with less sign of hope:
The knowledge of things evil, of drunken wreck and hag,
Of sordid sounds and voices, the everlasting "nag" –
Oh, men without a battle-song! Oh, men without a flag!


They breed a nation's strength behind each shabby little door,
Where rent-collectors knock for aye, and Christ shall knock no more;
The sounds that hurt the mother's heart affright the children there –
Alarm-clocks on an empty tin, the tin tray on a chair;
For weary folk are hard to wake in hot and heavy air.


They sang in Pride's Procession that Mammon might endure –
Oh, wistful singing faces, the children of the poor!
Oh, hideous fiends of commerce! Oh, ghouls of business strife!
I wait the coming of the things to wake the land to life;
The flag without a cross or bar, the drum without a fife!

Up The Country

I am back from up the country -- very sorry that I went --
Seeking for the Southern poets' land whereon to pitch my tent;
I have lost a lot of idols, which were broken on the track,
Burnt a lot of fancy verses, and I'm glad that I am back.
Further out may be the pleasant scenes of which our poets boast,
But I think the country's rather more inviting round the coast.
Anyway, I'll stay at present at a boarding-house in town,
Drinking beer and lemon-squashes, taking baths and cooling down.


`Sunny plains'! Great Scott! -- those burning


wastes of barren soil and sand
With their everlasting fences stretching out across the land!
Desolation where the crow is! Desert where the eagle flies,
Paddocks where the luny bullock starts and stares with reddened eyes;
Where, in clouds of dust enveloped, roasted bullock-drivers creep
Slowly past the sun-dried shepherd dragged behind his crawling sheep.
Stunted peak of granite gleaming, glaring like a molten mass
Turned from some infernal furnace on a plain devoid of grass.

Miles and miles of thirsty gutters -- strings of muddy water-holes
In the place of `shining rivers' -- `walled by cliffs and forest boles.'
Barren ridges, gullies, ridges! where the ever-madd'ning flies --
Fiercer than the plagues of Egypt -- swarm about your blighted eyes!
Bush! where there is no horizon! where the buried bushman sees
Nothing -- Nothing! but the sameness of the ragged, stunted trees!
Lonely hut where drought's eternal, suffocating atmosphere
Where the God-forgotten hatter dreams of city life and beer.


Treacherous tracks that trap the stranger,


endless roads that gleam and glare,
Dark and evil-looking gullies, hiding secrets here and there!
Dull dumb flats and stony rises, where the toiling bullocks bake,
And the sinister `gohanna', and the lizard, and the snake.
Land of day and night -- no morning freshness, and no afternoon,
When the great white sun in rising bringeth summer heat in June.
Dismal country for the exile, when the shades begin to fall
From the sad heart-breaking sunset, to the new-chum worst of all.

Dreary land in rainy weather, with the endless clouds that drift
O'er the bushman like a blanket that the Lord will never lift --
Dismal land when it is raining -- growl of floods, and, oh! the woosh
Of the rain and wind together on the dark bed of the bush --
Ghastly fires in lonely humpies where the granite rocks are piled
In the rain-swept wildernesses that are wildest of the wild.


Land where gaunt and haggard women live alone and work like men,
Till their husbands, gone a-droving, will return to them again:
Homes of men! if home had ever such a God-forgotten place,
Where the wild selector's children fly before a stranger's face.
Home of tragedy applauded by the dingoes' dismal yell,
Heaven of the shanty-keeper -- fitting fiend for such a hell -



And the wallaroos and wombats, and, of course, the curlew's call --
And the lone sundowner tramping ever onward through it all!


I am back from up the country, up the country where I went
Seeking for the Southern poets' land whereon to pitch my tent;
I have shattered many idols out along the dusty track,
Burnt a lot of fancy verses -- and I'm glad that I am back.
I believe the Southern poets' dream will not be realised
Till the plains are irrigated and the land is humanised.
I intend to stay at present, as I said before, in town
Drinking beer and lemon-squashes, taking baths and cooling down.

Untitled


When his heart is growing bitter and his hair is growing grey,
And he hears the debt-collector knocking several times a day,
And the shrill voice of the Missus, blame, reiterate, accuse—
Then the poet who was famous feels inclined to damn the muse— .....


When he hears a sudden rapping—rapping at his chamber door,
Then he knows it's no good trying to write poems any more,
Then he bursts from out his chamber and he grabs his battered hat,
And he cadges Two Bob somewhere and gets beered up on his pat.

Trouble on the Selection

You lazy boy, you’re here at last,
You must be wooden-legged;
Now, are you sure the gate is fast
And all the sliprails pegged
And all the milkers at the yard,
The calves all in the pen?
We don’t want Poley’s calf to suck
His mother dry again.
And did you mend the broken rail
And make it firm and neat?
I s’pose you want that brindle steer
All night among the wheat.
And if he finds the lucerne patch,
He’ll stuff his belly full;
He’ll eat till he gets ‘blown’ on that
And busts like Ryan’s bull.


Old Spot is lost? You’ll drive me mad,
You will, upon my soul!
She might be in the boggy swamps
Or down a digger’s hole.
You needn’t talk, you never looked
You’d find her if you’d choose,
Instead of poking ’possum logs
And hunting kangaroos.


How came your boots as wet as muck?
You tried to drown the ants!
Why don’t you take your bluchers off,
Good Lord, he’s tore his pants!
Your father’s coming home to-night;
You’ll catch it hot, you’ll see.
Now go and wash your filthy face
And come and get your tea.

To-Morrow


When you’re suffering hard for your sins, old man,
When you wake to trouble and sleep ill—
Oh, this is the clack of the middle class,
‘Win back the respect of the people!’
You are weak, you’re a fool, or a drunken brute
When you’re deep in trouble and sorrow;
But walk down the street in a decent suit,
And their hats will be off to-morrow! Old Chap—
And their hats will be off to-morrow!
They cant and they cackle—‘Redeem the Past!’
Who never had past worth redeeming:
Your soul seems dead, but you’ll find at last
That somewhere your soul lay dreaming.
You may stagger down-hill in a beer-stained coat,
You may loaf, you may cadge and borrow—
But walk down the street with a ten-pound note
And their hats will be off to-morrow! Old Man—
Yes, their hats will be off to-morrow!


But stick to it, man! for your old self’s sake,
Though to brood on the past is human;
Hold up for the sake of the mate who was true,
And the sake of the Other Woman.
And as for the rest, you may take off your hat
And banish all signs of sorrow;
You may take their hands, but in spite of that,
Can they win your respect to-morrow? Old Man—
Can they win your respect to-morrow?

To Tom Bracken

O had you tracked where Kendall* trod
I think you would be kneelin’
Three times a week and thankin’ God
That you are of New Zealan’!
For this I’ll say, to make it short,
An’ keep my tongue from clacken—
The people are a kinder sort
You’re singin’ for, Tom Bracken.

To Show What a Man Can Do

There has been many a grander deed since man had life to give,
And thousands have gone to certain death, eyes open, that men might live;
And many have gone for their country’s sake, when their numbers were all too few,
And bravely died that their mates may die—to show what a man can do.


Now this is the song of La Bella wreck at the harbour of Warnambool,
And this is the song of a brave, brave man of the grand old simple school:
We all know the forces of circumstance, and we blame not the lifeboat crew—
But this is the song of a fisherman who showed what a man can do.


With a single scull in his strong young hands, and his brave young eyes aglow,
He shot his skill o’er the raging hell, where the lifeboat dared not go!
It was twice and thrice that he went again, and the lives they were only two—
But this is the song of The Man Who Knows, and can show what a man can do.


And we need such deeds in this world of ours, lest the hearts of men might fail—
Oh we need such deeds in this world of ours, and a man to tell the tale!
When the eloquent gestures come from the wreck, and never a word comes through—
Oh, we need such deeds in our land to-day to show what a man can do!


And this is the moral of all that is,
And it’s only known to two
Put out in your dinghy with confidence,
To show what a man can do.