Whose Wife
‘HARRY! what, that yourself, back to old Vic., man,
Down from the Never Land? Now, what’s your game?
Ugly as ever. Not dropped the old trick, man?
Say, what’ll you take with me? Give it a name.
‘Here long? Well, rather, lad; five years and over,
Settled for good, and supporting a wife.
Slipped from the saddle, and living in clover,
Swore off a heap, and I’ve slung the old life.
‘What’s come of Taffy, and Brum, and the rest of them?
Long since you broke with the Poverty push?’
‘Bill, you’re on top, you’ve the best of the best of them.
Poor Brum’s a dummy, Taff died in the bush;
‘Bob’s cook for Chows on an absentee’s station,
Sam’s tout for spielers, Pete’s lumbered for life;
I’m on a tramp through the whole of creation,
Tracking a woman, my runaway wife.
[...] Read more
poem by Edward George Dyson
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Girl I Left Behind Me
I said: “I leave my bit of land-
In khaki they've entwined me,
I go abroad to lend a hand.”
Said she: “My love, I understand.
I will be true, and though we part
A thousand years you hold my heart'-
The girl I left behind me.
I went away to fight the Huns-
No coward thought could bind me,
I sizzled n the tropic suns,
I faced the bayonets and the guns.
And when in daring deeds I shone
One little woman spurred me on-
The girl I left behind me.
Out there, in grim Gallipoli.
Hard going they assigned me,
I pricked the Turk up from the sea;
I riddled him, he punctured me;
[...] Read more
poem by Edward George Dyson
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Simple Sister Goes To Sydney
When Flo resolved to go to town from brothers three a yell went up,
Predicting ruin and distress. Bill in his horror dropped a cup.
“Gorstruth!” he said, “in Sydney there what is a simple girl to do?
They took me down. I lost me watch and seven quid. What ‘ope for you?”
Ben turned on her in pale dismay. “Look here, me girl, ain’t you bin told
How one iv them there spieler blokes done me for twenty pound in gold?
He was as nice a gentleman as any in the blessed shops:
He got away with all I had, and took a luner at the cops.”
“Me, too,” said Dave, “that time I went to Sydney town to see the Show
One trimmed me for me bran’ new suit. You stay where we can watch you, Flo.”
Flo packed. “If spieler comes at me his finish will be sharp,” she said;
And when the boys next heard of her she’d got a bloke, and then was wed.
She wrote: “He’s rather nice, I think, and I am putting him to work.
Next Chrissmiss we are comin’ up to see yous people back o’ Bourke.”
And when he came he brought for Bill a silver watch and seven quid,
For Dave a bran’ new suit of check, a ruby tie-pin and a lid.
[...] Read more
poem by Edward George Dyson
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
BillJim
Down to it is Plugger Bill,
Lyin' crumpled, white 'n' still.
Me 'n' him
Chips in when the scrap begins,
Carin' nothin' for our skins,
Chi-iked as the 'Eavenly Twins-
Bill 'n' Jim.
They 'ave outed Bill at last,
Slugged me cobber hard 'n' fast.
It's a kill.
See the purple of his lip
'N' the red 'n' oozy drip!
Ends our great ole partnership-
Jim 'n' Bill
Mates we was when we was kids;
Camp, 'n' ship, 'n' Pyramids,
Him 'n' me
Hung together, 'n' we tore
[...] Read more
poem by Edward George Dyson
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
When Tommy Came Marching Home
Devine came back the other day.
We'd planned a great home-comin'.
No long trombone we had to play,
No fine, heroic drummin'.
With two sticks and a milk-can Borne
Put up a martial clatter,
While Carter blew a bullock-horn
Says Tom Devine, with healthy scorn;
“Gorstruth! what is the matter?”
We set three colored petticoats
From Baker's chimneys blowin'
('Tis not the bravest flag that floats,
Yet 'twas the finest goin');
We cheered our hero all we knew,
No song of praise neglectin',
To show our pride as he limped through
He merely spat and snorted, “Who
“The deuce are yous expectin'?”
[...] Read more
poem by Edward George Dyson
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Splitter
IN THE MORN when the keen blade bites the tree,
And the chips on the dead leaves dance,
And the bush echoes back right merrily
Blow for blow as the sunbeams glance
From the axe when it sweeps in circles true,
Then the splitter at heart is gay;
He exults in the work he’s set to do,
And he feels like a boy at play.
Swinging free with a stroke that’s straight and strong
To the heart of the messmate sent,
He is cheered by the magpie’s morning song
With the ring of the metal blent,
But the birds in their terror scatter high
When she falls with a rush and bound,
And the quivering saplings split and fly,
And the ranges all roar around.
Who is lord when the axeman mounts his spar,
And the breeze on his brown breast blows,
[...] Read more
poem by Edward George Dyson
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Young Lieutenant
The young lieutenant's face was grey.
As came the day.
The watchers saw it lifting white
And ghostlike from the pool of night.
His eyes were wide and strangely lit.
Each thought in that unhallowed pit:
“I, too, may seem like one who dies
With wide, set eyes.”
He stood so still we thought it death,
For through the breath
Of reeking shell we came, and fire,
To hell, unlit, of blood and mire.
Tianced in a chill delirium
We wondered, though our lips were dumb
What precious thing his fingers pressed
Against his breast.
His left hand clutched so lovingly
What none might see.
[...] Read more
poem by Edward George Dyson
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Happy Flatite
We were living in a flat; it was number eighty-three.
At eighty-four the Barleys lived, a fearsome man was he.
He had a wife and numerous kids. We heard then rip and cuss,
Some three feet and a quarter off, across the hall from us.
And when the Barley boys broke out, and ended up in fight,
Or when the Barley baby read the Riot Act at night,
And on their balcony their cat put up an eerie moan,
The fearful Barley family might as well have been our own.
When Barley after parting with some others of the ilk
Came panting up the narrow stairs, and drank our jug of milk,
Then broke out at his missus, and as fiercely answered she –
Where was the great advantage of our marked sobriety?
When Barley bedded early he would shake the common floor
And fill the gulf of night with an intolerable snore,
And people in the other wing at us their bluchers threw –
What good if we slept soft as snow and silent as the dew?
[...] Read more
poem by Edward George Dyson
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Common Men
The great men framed the fierce decrees
Embroiling State with State;
They bit their thumbs across the seas
In diplomatic hate;
They lit the pyre whose glare and heat
Make Hell itself seem cold;
The flames bloomed red above the wheat,
Their wild profusion wreathed the street-
Then in the smoke and fiery sleet
The common men took hold.
Where Babel was with Bedlam freed,
And wide the gates were flung;
To chaos, while the anarch breed
In all the world gave tongue,
The common men in close array,
By mountain, plain and sea,
Went outward girded for the fray,
On one dear quest, whate'er they pay
In blood and pain—the open way
[...] Read more
poem by Edward George Dyson
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Fossicker
A STRAIGHT old fossicker was Lanky Mann,
Who clung to that in spite of friends’ advising:
A grim and grizzled worshipper of ‘pan,’
All other arts and industries despising.
Bare-boned and hard, with thin long hair and beard,
With horny hands that gripped like iron pliers;
A clear, quick eye, a heart that nothing feared,
A soul full simple in its few desires.
No hot, impatient amateur was Jo,
Sweating to turn the slides up every minute—
He knew beforehand how his stuff would go,
Could tell by instinct almost what was in it.
I’ve known him stand for hours, and rock, and rock,
A-swinging now the shovel, now the ladle,
So sphinx-like that at Time he seemed to mock,
Resolved to run creation through his cradle.
[...] Read more
poem by Edward George Dyson
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!