60 Classic Australian Poems for Children (3 page)

On the outer Barcoo where the churches are few,

And men of religion are scanty,

On a road never cross'd 'cept by folk that are lost,

One Michael Magee had a shanty.

Now this Mike was the dad of a ten-year-old lad,

Plump, healthy, and stoutly conditioned;

He was strong as the best, but poor Mike had no rest,

For the youngster had never been christened.

And his wife used to cry, ‘if the darlin' should die

Saint Peter would not recognise him.'

But by luck he survived till a preacher arrived,

Who agreed straightaway to baptise him.

Now the artful young rogue, while they held their collogue,

With his ear to the keyhole was listenin',

And he muttered in fright, while his features turned white

‘What the divil and all is this christenin'?'

He was none of your dolts, he had seen them brand colts

And it seemed to his small understanding

If the man in the frock made him ‘one of the flock'

It must mean something very like branding.

So away with a rush he set off for the brush

While the tears in his eyelids they glistened—

‘'Tis outrageous,' says he, ‘to brand youngsters like me,

I'll be dashed if I'll stop to be christened!'

Like a young native dog he ran into a log

And his father with language uncivil,

Never heeding the ‘praste' cried aloud in his haste

‘Come out and be christened, you divil!'

But he lay there as snug as a bug in a rug

And his parents in vain might reprove him,

Till His Reverence spoke (he was fond of a joke)

‘I've a notion,' says he, ‘that'll move him!'

‘Poke a stick up the log, give the spalpeen a prog—

Poke him aisy,—don't hurt him or maim him,

'Tis not long that he'll stand, I've the wather at hand,

As he rushes out this end I'll name him!

Here he comes, and for shame! ye've forgotten the name—

Is it Patsey or Michael or Dinnis?'

Here the youngster ran out, and the priest gave a shout—

‘Take your chance, anyhow, wid Maginnis!'

As the howling young cub ran away to the scrub

Where he knew that pursuit would be risky,

The priest, as he fled flung a flask at his head

That was labelled ‘MAGINNIS'S WHISKY!'

And Maginnis Magee has been made a J.P.

And the one thing he hates more than sin is

To be asked by the folk, who have heard of the joke,

How he came to be christened ‘Maginnis'!

The Bulletin
, 1893

The sun burns hotly thro' the gums

As down the road old Rogan comes—

The hatter from the lonely hut

Beside the track to Woollybutt,

He likes to spend his Christmas with us here.

He says a man gets sort of strange

Livin' alone without a change,

Gets sort of settled in his way;

And so he comes each Christmas day

To share a bite of tucker and a beer.

Dad and the boys have nought to do,

Except a stray odd job or two.

Along the fence or in the yard,

‘It ain't a day for workin' hard.'

Says Dad: ‘One day a year don't matter much.'

And then dishevelled, hot and red,

Mum, thro' the doorway puts her head

And says, ‘This Christmas cooking! My!

The sun's near fit for cooking by.'

Upon her word she never did see such.

‘Your fault,' says Dad, ‘you know it is.

Plum puddin'! On a day like this,

And roasted turkeys! Spare me days!

I can't get over women's ways.

In climates such as this the thing's all wrong.

A bit of cold corn-beef an' bread

Would do us very well instead.'

Then Rogan says, ‘You're right; it's hot.

It makes a feller drink a lot.'

And Dad gets up and says, ‘Well, come along.'

The dinner's served—full bite and sup.

‘Come on,' says Mum, ‘Now all sit up.'

The meal takes on a festive air;

And even father eats his share

And passes up his plate to have some more.

He laughs and says it's Christmas time,

‘That's cookin', Mum. The stuffin's prime.'

But Rogan pauses once to praise,

Then eats as tho' he'd starved for days.

And pitches turkey bones outside the door.

The sun burns hotly thro' the gums,

The chirping of the locusts comes

Across the paddocks, parched and grey.

‘Whew!' wheezes Father. ‘What a day!'

And sheds his vest. For coats no man had need.

Then Rogan shoves his plate aside

And sighs, as sated men have sighed,

At many boards in many climes

On many other Christmas times.

‘By gum!' he says, ‘That was a slap-up feed!'

Then, with his black pipe well alight,

Old Rogan brings the kids delight

By telling o'er again his yarns

Of Christmas tide 'mid English barns

When he was, long ago, a farmer's boy.

His old eyes glisten as he sees

Half glimpses of old memories,

Of whitened fields and winter snows,

And yuletide logs and mistletoes,

And all that half-forgotten, hallowed joy.

The children listen, mouths agape,

And see a land with no escape

For biting cold and snow and frost—

A land to all earth's brightness lost,

A strange and freakish Christmas land to them.

But Rogan, with his dim old eyes

Grown far away and strangely wise

Talks on; and pauses but to ask

‘Ain't there a drop more in that cask?'

And father nods; but Mother says ‘Ahem!'

The sun slants redly thro' the gums

As quietly the evening comes,

And Rogan gets his old grey mare,

That matches well his own grey hair,

And rides away into the setting sun.

‘Ah, well,' says Dad. ‘I got to say

I never spent a lazier day.

We ought to get that top fence wired.'

‘My!' sighs poor Mum. ‘But I am tired!

An' all that washing up still to be done.'

The Herald
, 1931

Hey, there! Hoop-la! the circus is in town!

Have you seen the elephant? Have you seen the clown?

Have you seen the dappled horse gallop round the ring?

Have you seen the acrobats on the dizzy swing?

Have you seen the tumbling men tumble up and down?

Hoop-la! Hoop-la! the circus is in town!

Hey, there! Hoop-la! Here's the circus troupe!

Here's the educated dog jumping through the hoop.

See the lady Blondin with the parasol and fan,

The lad upon the ladder and the india-rubber man.

See the joyful juggler and the boy who loops the loop.

Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Here's the circus troupe!

A Book for Kids
, 1921

I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better

Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan, years ago,

He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him,

Just ‘on spec,' addressed as follows, ‘Clancy, of “The Overflow.”'

And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected,

(Which I think the same was written with a thumb-nail dipped in tar)

'Twas his shearing mate who wrote it, and
verbatim
I will quote it:

‘Clancy's gone to Queensland droving, and we don't know where he are.'

In my wild erratic fancy visions come to me of Clancy

Gone a-droving ‘down the Cooper' where the Western drovers go;

As the stock are slowly stringing, Clancy rides behind them singing,

For the drover's life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know.

And the bush hath friends to meet him and their kindly voices greet him

In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars,

And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended,

And at night the wond'rous glory of the everlasting stars.

I am sitting in my dingy little office, where a stingy

Ray of sunlight struggles feebly down between the houses tall,

And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty city

Through the open window floating, spreads its foulness over all.

And in place of lowing cattle, I can hear the fiendish rattle

Of the tramways and the 'busses making hurry down the street,

And the language uninviting of the gutter children fighting,

Comes fitfully and faintly through the ceaseless tramp of feet.

And the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt me

As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste,

With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy,

For townsfolk have no time to grow, they have no time to waste.

And I somehow rather fancy that I'd like to change with Clancy,

Like to take a turn at droving where the seasons come and go,

While he faced the round eternal of the cash-book and the journal—

But I doubt he'd suit the office, Clancy, of ‘The Overflow.'

The Bulletin
(Christmas edition), 1889