When we went singing down the road,
In days when want was not a goad,
Dull care behind us flinging,
No step we stayed, no joy we missed,
To hearken to the pessimist,
But gaily went on singing.
We'd faith in this great country then;
We'd hope in her great, stalwart men,
Who built a worthy nation.
Hope? Hope was ever in our hearts,
For we seemed cast for Builders' parts
And there was our salvation.
But what has changed our outlook now?
With weary eyes and furrowed brow
The uphill road we're facing.
But why? This land is still aflame
With promise of great hope and fame.
Must age be youth disgracing?
Oh, let's go singing up the road,
Although we bear a heavy load.
What good is grieving bringing?
Still, just beneath this happy ground
Is wondrous fortune to be found.
So let us go on singing.
In Time
'In good time, when I am ready,
Wondrous schemes shall I unfold;
But we must be cautious, steady,
Cleaving to the safe and old.
Patience, prudence must prevail;
They who venture often fail.'
Thus the politician, weakly
Of the big things of the State;
While the patient public, meekly
Wait, and ever hopeful, wait;
While he slyly woos their vote
With shrewd turnings of his coat.
But, in time, when other people
Populate this troubled world,
Lo, from housetop and from steeple,
Futile curses will be hurled
Curses on the shiftless ones,
Feckless robbers of their sons.
When the last good tree has withered
In an arid, rainless clime,
Then the weary soul who blithered
Of the verdancy of Time
Will grow restless in his grave,
While his baulked descendants rave.
They will curse the generation
That has beggared them by stealth;
Curse the mad procrastination
That has robbed the land of wealth
Wealth their foolish fathers spent,
Reckless and improvident.
'What care we?' declare the spoilers.
'We have ample for to-day!
Other ages, other toilers
Let them suffer as they may.
Let the nation's hope be killed,
That our bellies may be filled!
'If to-day our wealth be doubled,
If to-day our trade be good,
Why should we be plagued and troubled
With vague dreams of nationhood?
For our selfish purpose we
Gaily rob prosperity.'
Robbers of coming race,
Glibly crying 'In good time.'
If one good ye had to face
Sons, and answer for your crime,
With that cry still in your throats,
How, then, would ye scheme for votes?
Hopeful Hawkins
Hawkins wasn't in the swim at all in Dingo Flat,
And to bait him was our chiefest form of bliss;
But, in justice, be it said that he had a business head.
(That's why I'm standing here and telling this.)
He was trav'ling for a company, insuring people's lives;
And stayed about a month in Dingo Flat;
But his biz was rather dull, and we took him for a gull,
An amazing simple-minded one at that.
He was mad, he was, on mining and around about the town
Prospected every reef. But worse than that
He'd talk for half a day, in a most annoying way,
On 'The mineral resources of the Flat.'
He swore that somewhere nigh us was a rich gold-bearing red,
If a fellow only had the luck to strike it;
And he only used to laugh when the boys began to chaff,
And seemed, in fact, to rather sort of like it.
Well, we stood him for a month until he well nigh drove us mad.
And as jeering couldn't penetrate his hide
We fixed a little scheme for to dissipate his dream,
And sicken him of mining till he died.
We got a likely-looking bit of quartz and faked it up
With dabs of golden paint; then called him in.
Oh, he went clean off his head; it was gold for sure, he said.
And if we'd sell our claim he'd raise the tin.
But we weren't taking any-not at least till later on;
For we reckoned that we'd string him on a while.
When he wanted information of the reef's exact location
We would meet him with a knowing sort of smile.
At last we dropped a hint that set him pegging out a claim,
And we saw that we were coming in for sport;
For the next account we heard was when Hawkins passed the word
He was fetching up an expert to report.
When we heard that expert's verdict we were blown clean out of time,
And absorbed the fact that we had fallen in.
The gold, he said, would run 'bout four ounces to the ton;
With traces, too, of copper, zinc and tin.
Old Hawkins he was jubilant, and up at Peter's store
A lovely lot of specimens was showing;
And we gazed at them and groaned, for the truth had to be owned:
We had put him on a pile without our knowing.
We couldn't let the thing slip through our fingers, so to speak.
There were thousands in the mine without a doubt.
So me and Baker Brothers, and half a dozen others,
We formed a syndicate to buy him out.
Well, he said he'd not the money to develop such a claim,
And he'd sell it if we made a decent bid.
So we made pretence at dealing, and it almost seemed like stealing
When he parted, for five hundred lovely quid.
We haven't seen the vendor in the Flat for nigh a week,
And we're wishing, on the whole, he'd never come.
The confounded mine's a duffer; for that simple-minded buffer
He had salted it. The 'expert' was a chum.
Hawkins wasn't reckoned much at all in Dingo Flat.
We'd a notion that his headpiece was amiss.
But we wish to have it stated, he was rather underrated.
(That's why I'm standing here and telling this.)
