_He died of thirst._
They tell no tale lugubrious
Or horror finely spun,
Of martyr’s groans and human bones
A-bleaching in the sun;
But those who cut beneath the bark
May find the very pith
Of pathos, in the yarn they spin,
Concerning Soaker Smith.
He never dogged on Bayley’s tracks,
Nor battled through with Frost,
In wild times, when the souls of men
Were torn and tempest-tossed,
Nor bore the brunt, nor claimed the rank
Of fearless pioneer—
He was, in point of fact, a joint
Who played his life for beer.
Smith sat upon the shanty floor
With blazing eyes and brain,
While, from the sand, the impish band
Of fantods sprang again:
They mocked him with a phantom pot,
They laughed and lured and lied—
“A pint! or I,” he howled, “must die
Of thirst!”—and so he died.
Then all the tribe of whiskered wits
That nourishes up North,
From rub-a-dubs and frowsy pubs
Like one gay ghoul came forth;
And Blastus painted on a slab
A dead marine, reversed,
And wrote, the knave, beside his grave,
“Hic! jacet. Died of thirst.”
And still, around the shanty bar,
When wit and humour fly,
They greet the tale that ne’er grows stale
With wild hilarity;
But those who probe it to the core
May find the very pith
Of pathos, in the yarn they spin
Concerning Soaker Smith.