``We've got no work to do!"=
All, all the many sounds and sights
``Come trooping through my brain
Of London streets, and winter nights,
``And pleasure mixed with pain.=
Be happy you who have a home,
``Be happy while you may,
For sorrow's ever quick to come,
``And slow to pass away.=
Your churches and your dwellings deck
``With ferns and flowers fair;
I would not breathe a word to check
``The mirth I cannot share.=
For, though my barque's a shattered hull,
``And I could be at best
But like the famed Egyptian skull,
``A mirth-destroying guest,=
I would not play the cynic's part,
``Nor at _thy_ pleasure sneer--
I wish thee, Reader, from my heart,
``A happy, glad New year.=
ECHO VERSES.
|Some years ago I chanced upon a magazine article containing a
dissertation upon a now almost obsolete kind of versification, much
affected by Ben Jonson and some of the last century poets, in which the
first two or three lines of each verse ask a question, and the echo of
the concluding words gives an answer more or less appropriate. An
amusing example was given in the article above mentioned, which was
equally rough on the great violinist of the past and his audience, thus:
``"What are they who pay six guineas
``To hear a string of Paganini's?"
```(Echo) "_Pack 'o ninnies!_"
I read this and a few other examples, and was straightway stricken with
a desire to emulate this eccentric and somewhat difficult species of
versification, and now with considerable diffidence, and a choking
prayer for mercy at the hands of the critic, I lay my attempt before the
reader. The following echo-verses are not on any account whatever to be
understood as reflecting on the present or any past Government of this
Colony. They are merely to be taken as shadowing forth a state of things
possible in the remote future.
WHAT AN ECHO TOLD THE AUTHOR.
Author, musing:
`Our land hath peace, prosperity, and rhino,
``And Legislators true, and staunch, and tried--
`What trait have they, that is not pure--divine oh?
```(Echo interposing) "_I know!_"
``What is it, if thus closely thou hast pried?
```"_Pride!_"
`If thus into their hearts thou hast been prying,
``Thy version of the matter prithee paint;
`Tell us, I pray, on what are they relying?
```"_Lying!_"
``I thought their honour was without a taint--
```"' _Taint!_"
`Have they forgotten all their former glories?
``Their virtue--what hath chanced its growth to stunt?
`Oh! wherefore should they change their ancient mores?
```"_More ease!_"
``What weapon makes the sword of Justice blunt?
```"_Blunt!_" *
```* Coin
Thou would'st not speak thus, wert thou now before 'em:
``Why do I heed, why listen to thy tale?
Can'st purchase, then, the honour of the Forum?
```_For Rum!_"
``And what would blind Dame Justice with her scale?
```"_Ale!"_
Beware! the fame of Senators thou'rt crushing!
``Too flippantly thou givest each retort.
What are they doing while for their shame I'm blushing?
```"_Lushing!_"
``And drinking?--pray continue thy report--
```_Port_
Curse on these seeds of death, and those who sow them
`But there's another thing I'd fain be told--
What of the masses, the canaille below them?
```"_B-low them!_"
`Thou flippant one! how is the mob consoled?
"_Sold!_"
Now, by stout Alexander's sword, or
`Rather by his Holiness the Pope!
``By what means keep they matters in this order?
```"_Sawder!_"
``With what do they sustain the people's hope?
```"_Soap!_"
Take they indeed no passing thought, no care or
`Heed of what for safety should be done?
What brought about this modern Reign of Terror?
```"_Error!_"
`Is there no hope for thee, my land, mine own?
```"_None!"_
Base love of liquor, ease, and lucre, this it
`Is which coileth round her, link on link;
Dark is her hope, e'en as the grave we visit!
```"`_Is it?_"
`Of what black illustration can I think?
```"_Ink!_"
Alas my country! shall I not undeceive her?
`Shall I not strike one patriotic blow?
I'd help her had I but the means, the lever--
```"_Leave her!_"
`May we not hope? speak Echo, thou must know--
```"_No!_"
Then shall be heard--when, round us slowly creeping,
`Shall come this adverse blast to fill our sails--
Instead of mirth, while hope aside 'tis sweeping--
```"_Weeping!_"
`Instead of songs of praise in New South Wales--
```"_Wails!_"
[Illustration: 102]
|THE following ballad suggested itself to the Author while in the remote
interior and suffering from a severe attack of indigestion, he having
rashly partaken of some damper made by a remorseless and inexperienced
new-chum. Those who do not know what ponderous fare this particular
species of bush-luxury is when ill-made may possibly think the
sub-joined incidents a little over-drawn. If a somewhat gloomy
atmosphere be found pervading the narrative, it is to be attributed to
the fact that all the horrors of dyspepsia shadowed the Author's soul at
the time it was written, and, if further extenuation be required, it may
be stated that he had previously been going through a course of gloomy
and marrow-freezing literature, commencing with Edgar Poe's "Raven," and
winding up with the crowning atrocity (or _alba_trossity) which saddened
the declining years of Coleridge's Ancient Mariner.
THE SHEPHERD'S VENGEANCE,
Fytte the First.
|The squatter kings of New South Wales--
``The squatter kings who reign
O'er rocky hill, and scrubby ridge,
O'er swamp, and salt-bush plain--
Fenced in their runs, and coves applied
For shepherding in vain.=
The squatters said that closed should be
``To tramps each station-store;
That parties on the "cadging suit"
``Should ne'er have succour more;
And when Bill the shepherd heard the same
``He bowed his neck and swore.=
Now, though that ancient shepherd felt
``So mad he couldn't speak,
No sighs escape his breast, no tears
``From out his eyelids leak,
But he swore upon the human race
``A black revenge to wreak.=
He brooded long, and a fiendish light
``Lit up the face of Bill;
He saw the way to work on men
``A dark and grievous ill,
And place them far beyond the aid
``Of senna, salts, or pill.=
He hied him to his lonely hut
``By a deep dark, lakelet's shore;
He passed beneath its lowly roof--
``He shut and locked the door;
And he emptied out his flour bag
``Upon the hard clay floor.=
Awhile he eyed the mighty mound
``With dark, malignant zeal,
And then, a shovel having found,
``"Their fates," said he, "I'll seal";
And he made a "damper" broad and round
``As a Roman chariot-wheel.=
He soddened it with water drawn
``From out that black lagoon,
And he smiled to think that those who ate
``A piece of it would soon
Be where they'd neither see the light
``Of sun, nor stars, nor moon.=
F or when that damper came to be
``Dug from its glowing bed,
Its fell specific gravity
``Was far o'er gold or lead,
And a look of satisfaction o'er
``That shepherd's features spread.=
Fytte the Second.
|The shepherd sat by the gloomy shore
``Of the black and dark lagoon;
His face was lit, and his elf-locks hoar
``By the rays of the rising moon.=
[Illustration: 106]
His hand was clenched, and his visage wore
``A deadly frown and black,
And his eye-balls glare, for a stranger fair
``Is wending down the track.=
The shepherd hath bidden the stranger halt
``With courtesy and zeal,
And hath welcomed him to his low roof-tree,
``And a share of his evening meal.=
As the fare he pressed on his hungry guest,
``And thought of its deadly weight,
With savage glee he smiled for he
``Imagined his after fate.=
The stranger hath eaten his fill I ween
``Of that fell and gruesome cake,
And hath hied him away in the moon-light's sheen
``For a stroll by the deep, dark lake;=
For he thought he'd lave each stalwart limb
``In the wavelet's curling crest,
And take a dive and a pleasant swim
``'Ere he laid him down to rest.=
The coat that covered his ample chest
``On the lakelet's marge he threw;
His hat, his boots, and his flannel-vest,
``And his moleskin trowsers too.=
He hummed a tune, and he paused awhile
``To hear the night-owl sing;
His ears were cocked, and his palms were locked,
``Prepared for the final spring.=
An unsuspecting look he cast
``At the objects on the shore--
A splash! a thud! and beneath the flood
``He sank to rise no more!=
The shepherd saw from his lonely hut
``The dread catastrophé;
A notch on a withered stick he cut--
``"That's number one," said he,=
"But, if I live 'till to-morrow's sun
``"Shall gild the blue-gum tree,
"With more, I'll stake my soul, that cake
``"Of mine will disagree."=
Then down he sat by his lonely hut
``That stood by the lonely track,
To the lakelet nigh, and a horse came by
``With a horse-man on his back.=
And lean and lank was the traveller's frame
``That sat on that horse's crup:
'Twas long I ween since the wight had seen
``The ghost of a bite or sup.=
"Oh! give me food!" to the shepherd old
``With plaintive cry he cried;
A mildewed crust or a pint o'dust *
``Or a mutton cutlet fried.=
"In sooth in evil case am I,
``Fatigue and hunger too
Have played the deuce with my gastric juice,
``It's 'got no work to do.'=
"I've come o'er ridges of burning sand
``That gasp for the cooling rain,
Where the orb of day with his blinding ray
``Glares down on the salt-bush plain=
* Flour.
"O'er steaming valley, lagoon, and marsh
``Where the Sun strikes down 'till, phew!
The very eels in the water feels
``A foretaste of a stew.=
"I hungered long 'till my wasting form
``Was a hideous sight to view;
But fit on a settler's fence to sit
``To scare the cockatoo.=
"My hair grew rank, and my eyeballs sank
``'Till--wasted, withered, and thin--
The ends and points of my jarring joints
``Stuck out through my parched up skin.=
"Shrunk limb and thew, 'till at length I grew
``As thin as a gum-tree rail;
At the horrid sight of my hideous plight
``Each settler's face turned pale:=
"And as I travelled the mulga scrubs,
``And forced a passage through
I scared the soul of the native black
``A gathering his 'nardoo.'=
"On snake or lizard I'd fain have fed,
``But piteous was my plight,
And the whole of the brute creation fled
``In horror at the sight.=
"Scrub turkeys, emus, I appall;
``Their eggs I longed to poach,
But they _collared their eggs, their nests and all,
``And fled at my approach!_
[Illustration: 111]
"And the possums 'streaked' it up the trees,
``And frightened the young gallârs,
And all the hairs on the native-bears
``Stood stiff as iron bars!"=
The shepherd came from his low roof-tree
``And gazed at the shrunken wight;
He gave him welcome courteously,
``And jested at his plight.=
He led the traveller 'neath his roof,
``And gazed in his wan, worn face,
Where want was writ, and he bid him sit
``On an empty 'three-star' case.=
And a smile of evil import played
``On the face of ancient Bill
As some of the damper down he laid,
``And bid him take his fill.=
With mute thanksgiving in his breast
``The food the stranger tore;
Piece after piece he closely pressed
``Down on the piece before.=
And then--his heart fresh buoyed with hope--
``Essayed to mount his steed,
But the horse shut flat as an opera-hat
``With the weight of his master's feed;=
And horse and man sunk through the sod
``Some sixty feet or less!
No crust, I swear, of the Earth could bear
``The weight of the gruesome mess!=
[Illustration: 113]
Then the shepherd grinned with a grizzly grin
``As he notched his stick again;
The night passed by and the sun rose high
``And glared on the salt-bush plain.=
Two "gins" set forth in a bark canoe
``To traverse the gloomy lake,
And he bid them take enough for two,
``For lunch, of the deadly cake.=
[Illustration: 114]
Enough for two! 'twas enough I ween
``To settle the hash of four,
For the barque o'er-flowed with the crushing load--
``They sank to rise no more.=
And ever his fiendish lust for blood--
``His thirst for vengeance grows;
In sport he threw a crumb or two
``To the hawks and carrion crows;=
And as they helpless, fluttering lay,
``His eldrich laughter rings;
One crumb to bear through the lambent air
``Was past the power of wings.=
Beside his door he sat 'till noon
``When a bullock-team came by;
The echoes 'round with the whips resound,
``And the drivers' cheery cry.=
Upon the dray a piece he threw
``No bigger than your hand,
Of the cursed thing, 'twas enough to bring
``The bullocks to a stand.=
And, though they bend their sinewy necks
``'Till red with their crimson gore,
And fiercely strain yoke, pole, and chain
``With savage, muttering roar,=
The wheels sank down to the axle-tree--
``Through the hard baked clay they tore,
And a single jot from out that spot
``They shifted never more.=
Then the shepherd called to the drivers, "Ho!
``My frugal meal partake."
And, though they ate but a crumb or two
``Of the fell, unholy cake,=
Down, down they sank on the scorching track,
``Immovable and prone,
And _steel blue ants crawled up their pants
``And ate them to the bone!_=
*****
For days by his lonely hut sat Bill,
``The hut to the lakelet nigh,
And he wrought his dark revengeful will
``On each traveller that came by.=
And he eats nor drinks meat, bread, nor gruel,
``Nor washes, nor combs, nor shaves,
But he yelled, and he danced a wild pas seul
``O'er each of his victims' graves.
[Illustration: 117]
Three weeks passed by, but his end was nigh--
``His day was near its close,
For rumour whispered his horrid deeds,
``And in arms the settlers rose.=
They came, hinds, shepherds, and shearers too,
``And squatters of high degree;
His hands they tied, and his case they tried
``'Neath the shade of a blue gum tree.=
They sentence passed, and they gripped him fast,
``Though to tear their flesh he tried;
His teeth he ground, but his limbs they bound
``With thongs of a wild bull's hide.=
They laid him down on a "bull-dog's" nest,
``For the bull-dog ants to sting;
On his withered chest they pile the rest
``Of the damnèd cursèd thing.=
They gather round and they stir the ground
``'Till the insects swarm again,
And the echoes wake by the gloomy lake
``With his cry of rage and pain.=
O'er his writhing form the insects swarm--
``O'er arm, o'er foot, and leg;
The damper pressed on his heaving chest,
``And he couldn't move a peg.=
'Till eve he lay in the scorching heat,
``And the rays of the blinding sun,
Then the black-ants came and they soon complete
``What the bull-dogs have begun.=
[Illustration: 119]
'Tis o'er at last, and his spirit passed
``With a yell of fiendish hate,
And down by the shore of that black lagoon,
``Where his victims met their fate--=
Where the "bunyip" glides, and the inky tides
``Lip, lap on the gloomy shore,
And the loathsome snake of the swamp abides,
``He wanders ever more.=
And when the shadows of darkness fall
``(As hinds and stock-men tell)
The plains around with his howls resound,
``And his fierce, blood-curdling yell.=
The kangaroos come forth at night
``To feed o'er his lonely grave,
And above his bones with disma' tones
``The dingos shriek and rave.=
And when drovers camp with a wild-mob there
``They shiver with affright,
And quake with dread if they hear his tread
``In the gloom of the ebon night!=
&SOCIAL EVILS.
|I feel that any reader who has been long-suffering enough to accompany
me thus far must be craving earnestly for a change of some sort, even
though it but take the form of an oasis of indifferent prose in a
monotonous Sahara of verse; I want it myself, and I know that the reader
must yearn for it, even as the bushman who has sojourned long among
the flesh-pots of remote sheep and cattle stations yearneth after the
pumpkins and cabbages of the Mongolian market gardener. I am, therefore,
going to write about social evils; not because I think I can say
anything particularly original or striking about them, but because I
must have a subject, and I know the craving of the Colonial mind after
practical ones. I commence diffidently, however; not on account of the
barrenness of the theme--oh! dear no--it is its very fruitfulness which
baffles me; its magnitude that appals me; its comprehensiveness which
gets over me; and my inability to deal with it in such limited space
which "knocks me into a cocked-hat".
Even as I write, things which may be legitimately called social evils
rise up before me in spectral array, like Banquo's issue, in sufficient
numbers to stretch not only to the "crack of doom,"--wherever that
mysterious fissure may be--but a considerable distance beyond it.
Unfortunately, too, each one, like the progeny of that philoprogenitive
Scotchman, "bears a glass which shows me many more," until I am as much
flabbergasted as Macbeth himself, and am compelled to take a glass of
something myself to soothe my disordered nerves.
If every one were permitted to give his notion of what constitutes
a social evil my difficulties would be still more augmented, and the
schedule swelled considerably. I know men who would put their wives down
in the list as a matter of course; and others, fathers of families, who
would include children. Few married men would omit mothers-in-law; most
domestics would include work and masters and mistresses; and hardly
anybody would exclude tax-gatherers. Fortunately, however, these
well-meaning, but mistaken reformers, will have to take back seats on
the present occasion, and leave me to touch on a few, at least, of what
are legitimate and undeniable social evils.
Look at them, as they drag their mis-shapen forms past us in hideous
review! Adulteration of food, political dishonesty, "larrikinism,"
barbarism on the part of the police, lemonade and gingerbeerism in the
stalls of theatres, peppermintlozengism in the dress circle, flunkeyism,
itinerant preacherism in the parks--what a subject this last is, by the
way, and how beautifully mixed up one's faith becomes after listening to
half a dozen park preachers, of different denominations, in succession!
After hearing the different views propounded by these self-constituted
apostles, an intelligent islander from the Pacific would receive
the impression that the white man worshipped about seventy or eighty
different and distinct gods (a theological complication with which his
simple mind would be unable to grapple), and he would probably retire to
enjoy the society of his graven image with an increased respect for that
bit of carving, and any half-formed inclinations to dissent from the
religion of his forefathers quenched for ever.
I have neither space, ability, nor desire to tackle such stupendous
subjects as political dishonesty or adulteration. They are so firmly
grafted on our social system that nothing short of a literary torpedo
could affect them in the slightest degree, but I _do_ feel equal to
crushing the boy who sells oranges and lemonade in the pit--who when, in
imagination, I am on the "blasted heath" enjoying the society of the
weird sisters, or at a Slave Auction in the Southern States,
sympathising with the sufferings of the Octoroon, ruthlessly drags me
back to nineteenth century common places with his thrice damnable war-
cry of "applesorangeslemonadeanabill!" a string of syllables which are
in themselves death to romance, and annihilation to sentiment,
irrespective of the tone and key in which they are uttered. If for one
happy moment I have forgotten that Hamlet is in very truth "a king of
shreds and patches," or that Ophelia is a complicated combination of
rouge, paste, springs, padding, and pectoral improvers, I maintain that
it is playing it particularly rough on me if I am to be recalled to a
remembrance of all this by the bloodcurdling shibboleth of these
soulless fruit merchants. Can lemonade compensate me for the destruction
of the airy castles I have been building? Can ginger-beer steep my
senses again in the elysium of romance and sentiment from which they
have been thus ruthlessly awakened? Or can an ocean of orange-juice wash
away or obliterate the disagreeable consciousness that I am a clerk in a
Government office, or a reporter on the staff of a weekly paper, and am
neither Claud Melnotte nor "a person of consequence in the 13th
century?"--unhesitatingly no! And if, in addition, there be wafted
towards me a whiff or two of a highly-flavoured peppermint lozenge from
some antique female--on whose head be shame! and on whose false front
rest eternal obliquy--my cup of sorrow is full, my enjoyment of the
drama is destroyed, the Recording angel has a lively time of it for an
hour or so registering execrations, and I am plunged in an abyss of
melancholy from which the arm of a Hennessy (the one that holds the
battle axe) or a Kinahan can alone rescue me. And here, reader, I must
conclude, for your patience is in all probability exhausted, and my
washerwoman has called: she is a social evil of the most malignant type.
JL.
MORAL PHILOSOPHY FOR LITTLE FOLKS.
|Little grains of rhubarb,
```Spatula'd with skill,
``Make the mighty bolus
```And the little pill.=
``Little pence and half-pence,
```Hoarded up by stealth,
``Make the mighty total
```Of the miser's wealth=
``Little trips to Randwick,
```Taking six to three,
``Make the out-at-elbows
```Seedy swells we see.=
``Little sprees on oysters,
```Bottled stout and ale,
``Lead but to the cloisters
```Of the gloomy gaol.=
``Little tracts and tractlets,
```Scattered here and there,
``Lead the sinner's footsteps
```To the house of prayer.=
``Little bits of paper,
```Headed I.O.U.,
``Ever draw the Christian
```Closer to the Jew.=
``Little chords and octaves,
```Little flats and sharps,
``Make the tunes the angels
```Play on golden harps.=
``Little bouts with broom-sticks,
```Carving forks and knives,
``Make the stirring drama
```Of our married lives.=
``Little flakes of soap-suds,
```Glenfield starch, and blue,
``Make the saint's white shirt-fronts
```And the sinner's too.=
``Little tiny insects,
```Smaller than a flea,
``Make the coral inlands
```In the southern sea.=
``Little social falsehoods,
```Such as "Not at home,"
``Lead to realms of darkness
```Where the wicked roam.=
``Likewise little cuss words
```Such as "blast," and "blow,"
``Quite as much as wuss words
```Fill the place below.=
[Illustration: 129]
AN AMBITIOUS DREAM.
`|I walked about in Wynyard Square
``At four one afternoon;
`I saw a stately peeler there,
``He softly hummed a tune.=
`The sun-rays lit his buttons bright;
``He stalked with stately stride;
`It was a fair and goodly sight--
``The peeler in his pride=
`And padded was his manly breast,
``Such kingly mien had he,
`And such a chest, I thought how blest
``That peeler's lot must be.=
`I noted well his martial air,
``And settled that of course
`He was the idol of the fair,
``The angel of the Force.=
`No cook or house-maid could resist,
``I felt, by any chance,
`That dark moustache with cork-screw twist,
``That marrow-searching glance.=
`And o'er each little news-boy's head
``He towered like a mast;
`His voice, to match that stately tread,
``Should shame a trumpet-blast!=
`I pondered on the matter much
``And thought I'd like to be
`Escorted to the "dock" by such
``A demi-god as he.=
`I gazed upon his form entranced--
``He never noticed me,
`For visions through his fancy danced
``Of mutton cold for tea.=
`He knew he hadn't long to stand
``'Till--Mary's labours o'er--
`She'd lead him gently by the hand
``Inside the kitchen door.=
`Ensconced in some snug vantage-coign
``At ease he'd stretch each limb,
`And feast on cutlet and sirloin,
``Purloined for love of him.=
[Illustration: 132]
`I leant against a scaffold-beam--
``I must have had a nap
`I think, because I had a dream--
``I dreamt I was a 'trap'!=
`I thought I had allegiance sworn
``And that there was for _me_
`The regulation tile that's worn
``By every trap you see;=
`The coat and thingumbobs as well,
``What joy could equal this?
`No Gillott's patent pens could tell
``My wild ecstatic bliss!=
`I thought they portioned out my beat--
``A foot I'm sure I grew,
`And as I walked up Hunter Street
``I felt a match for two.=
`I felt my bosom throb behind
``My coat of azure blue,
`And trembled for the peace of mind
``Of every girl I knew.=
`I saw myself in future fights
``The populace enthrall,
`While brightly blaze the city lights
``I cry "come one, come all!"=
`To grab their leader see me try
``(Though rent my lovely coat)
`The light of battle in my eye,