Henry Kendall: Verses about Book

I purposed once to take my pen and write,
   Not songs, like some, tormented and awry
   With passion, but a cunning harmony
Of words and music caught from glen and height,
And lucid colours born of woodland light
   And shining places where the sea-streams lie.
But this was when the heat of youth glowed white,
   And since I've put the faded purpose by.
I have no faultless fruits to offer you
   Who read this book; but certain syllables
   Herein are borrowed from unfooted dells
And secret hollows dear to noontide dew;
And these at least, though far between and few,
   May catch the sense like subtle forest spells.

So take these kindly, even though there be
   Some notes that unto other lyres belong,
   Stray echoes from the elder sons of song;
And think how from its neighbouring native sea
The pensive shell doth borrow melody.
   I would not do the lordly masters wrong
   By filching fair words from the shining throng
Whose music haunts me as the wind a tree!
   Lo, when a stranger in soft Syrian glooms
Shot through with sunset treads the cedar dells,
And hears the breezy ring of elfin bells
   Far down by where the white-haired cataract booms,
He, faint with sweetness caught from forest smells,
   Bears thence, unwitting, plunder of perfumes.

No song is this of leaf and bird,
And gracious waters flowing;
I'm sick at heart, for I have heard
Big Billy Vickers "blowing".
He'd never take a leading place
In chambers legislative:
This booby with the vacant face --
This hoddy-doddy native!

Indeed, I'm forced to say aside,
To you, O reader, solely,
He only wants the horns and hide
To be a bullock wholly.

But, like all noodles, he is vain;
And when his tongue is wagging,
I feel inclined to copy Cain,
And "drop" him for his bragging.

He, being Bush-bred, stands, of course,
Six feet his dirty socks in;
His lingo is confined to horse
And plough, and pig and oxen.

Two years ago he'd less to say
Within his little circuit;
But now he has, besides a dray,
A team of twelve to work it.

No wonder is it that he feels
Inclined to clack and rattle
About his bullocks and his wheels --
He owns a dozen cattle.

In short, to be exact and blunt,
In his own estimation
He's "out and out" the head and front
Top-sawyer of creation!

For, mark me, he can "sit a buck"
For hours and hours together;
And never horse has had the luck
To pitch him from the leather.

If ever he should have a "spill"
Upon the grass or gravel,
Be sure of this, the saddle will
With Billy Vickers travel.

At punching oxen you may guess
There's nothing out can "camp" him:
He has, in fact, the slouch and dress
Which bullock-driver stamp him.

I do not mean to give offence,
But I have vainly striven
To ferret out the difference
'Twixt driver and the driven.

Of course, the statements herein made
In every other stanza
Are Billy's own; and I'm afraid
They're stark extravaganza.
I feel constrained to treat as trash
His noisy fiddle-faddle
About his doings with the lash,
His feats upon the saddle.
But grant he "knows his way about",
Or grant that he is silly,
There cannot be the slightest doubt
Of Billy's faith in Billy.

Of all the doings of the day
His ignorance is utter;
But he can quote the price of hay,
The current rate of butter.

His notions of our leading men
Are mixed and misty very:
He knows a cochin-china hen --
He never speaks of Berry.

As you'll assume, he hasn't heard
Of Madame Patti's singing;
But I will stake my solemn word
He knows what maize is bringing.

Surrounded by majestic peaks,
By lordly mountain ranges,
Where highest voice of thunder speaks
His aspect never changes.

The grand Pacific there beyond
His dirty hut is glowing:
He only sees a big salt pond,
O'er which his grain is going.

The sea that covers half the sphere,
With all its stately speeches,
Is held by Bill to be a mere
Broad highway for his peaches.

Through Nature's splendid temples he
Plods, under mountains hoary;
But he has not the eyes to see
Their grandeur and their glory.

A bullock in a biped's boot,
I iterate, is Billy!
He crushes with a careless foot
The touching water-lily.

I've said enough -- I'll let him go!
If he could read these verses,
He'd pepper me for hours, I know,
With his peculiar curses.

But this is sure, he'll never change
His manners loud and flashy,
Nor learn with neatness to arrange
His clothing, cheap and trashy.

Like other louts, he'll jog along,
And swig at shanty liquors,
And chew and spit. Here ends the song
Of Mr. Billy Vickers.

The bard who is singing of Wollombi Jim
Is hardly just now in the requisite trim
To sit on his Pegasus fairly;
Besides, he is bluntly informed by the Muse
That Jim is a subject no singer should choose;
For Jim is poetical rarely.

But being full up of the myths that are Greek -
Of the classic, and noble, and nude, and antique,
Which means not a rag but the pelt on;
This poet intends to give Daphne the slip,
For the sake of a hero in moleskin and kip,
With a jumper and snake-buckle belt on.

No party is Jim of the Pericles type:
He is modern right up from the toe to the pipe;
And being no reader or roamer,
He hasn't Euripides much in the head;
And let it be carefully, tenderly said,
He never has analysed Homer.

He can roar out a song of the twopenny kind;
But, knowing the beggar so well, I'm inclined
To believe that a 'par' about Kelly,
The rascal who skulked under shadow of curse,
Is more in his line than the happiest verse
On the glittering pages of Shelley.

You mustn't, however, adjudge him in haste,
Because a red robber is more to his taste
Than Ruskin, Rossetti, or Dante!
You see, he was bred in a bangalow wood,
And bangalow pith was the principal food
His mother served out in her shanty.

His knowledge is this - he can tell in the dark
What timber will split by the feel of the bark;
And rough as his manner of speech is,
His wits to the fore he can readily bring
In passing off ash as the genuine thing
When scarce in the forest the beech is.

In 'girthing' a tree that he sells 'in the round',
He assumes, as a rule, that the body is sound,
And measures, forgetting to bark it!
He may be a ninny, but still the old dog
Can plug to perfection the pipe of a log
And 'palm it' away on the market.

He splits a fair shingle, but holds to the rule
Of his father's, and, haply, his grandfather's school;
Which means that he never has blundered,
When tying his shingles, by slinging in more
Than the recognized number of ninety and four
To the bundle he sells for a hundred!

When asked by the market for ironbark red,
It always occurs to the Wollombi head
To do a 'mahogany' swindle.
In forests where never the ironbark grew,
When Jim is at work, it would flabbergast you
To see how the 'ironbarks' dwindle.

He can stick to the saddle, can Wollombi Jim,
And when a buckjumper dispenses with him,
The leather goes off with the rider.
And, as to a team, over gully and hill
He can travel with twelve on the breadth of a quill
And boss the unlucky 'offsider'.

He shines at his best at the tiller of saw,
On the top of the pit, where his whisper is law
To the gentleman working below him.
When the pair of them pause in a circle of dust,
Like a monarch he poses exalted, august -
There's nothing this planet can show him!

For a man is a man who can 'sharpen' and 'set',
And he is the only thing masculine yet
According to sawyer and splitter -
Or rather according to Wollombi Jim;
And nothing will tempt me to differ from him,
For Jim is a bit of a hitter.

But, being full up, we'll allow him to rip,
Along with his lingo, his saw, and his whip -
He isn't the classical 'notion'.
And, after a night in his 'humpy', you see,
A person of orthodox habits would be
Refreshed by a dip in the ocean.

To tot him right up from the heel to the head,
He isn't the Grecian of whom we have read -
His face is a trifle too shady.
The nymph in green valleys of Thessaly dim
Would never 'jack up' her old lover for him,
For she has the tastes of a lady.

So much for our hero! A statuesque foot
Would suffer by wearing that heavy-nailed boot:
Its owner is hardly Achilles.
However, he's happy! He cuts a great 'fig' -
In the land where a coat is no part of the 'rig' -
In the country of damper and 'billies'.

You may have heard of Proclus, sir,
If you have been a reader;
And you may know a bit of her
Who helped the Lycian leader.
I have my doubts -- the head you "sport"
(Now mark me, don't get crusty)
Is hardly of the classic sort --
Your lore, I think, is fusty.

Most likely you have stuck to tracts
Flushed through with flaming curses --
I judge you, neighbour, by your acts --
So don't you damn my verses.

But to my theme. The Asian sage,
Whose name above I mention,
Lived in the pitchy Pagan age,
A life without pretension.

He may have worshipped gods like Zeus,
And termed old Dis a master;
But then he had a strong excuse --
He never heard a pastor.

However, it occurs to me
That, had he cut Demeter
And followed you, or followed me,
He wouldn't have been sweeter.

No doubt with "shepherds" of this time
He's not the "clean potato",
Because -- excuse me for my rhyme --
He pinned his faith to Plato.

But these are facts you can't deny,
My pastor, smudged and sooty,
His mind was like a summer sky --
He lived a life of beauty --

To lift his brothers' thoughts above
This earth he used to labour:
His heart was luminous with love --
He didn't wound his neighbour.

To him all men were just the same --
He never foamed at altars,
Although he lived ere Moody came --
Ere Sankey dealt in psalters.

The Lycian sage, my "reverend" sir,
Had not your chances ample;
But, after all, I must prefer
His perfect, pure example.

You, having read the Holy Writ --
The Book the angels foster --
Say have you helped us on a bit,
You overfed impostor?

What have you done to edify,
You clammy chapel tinker?
What act like his of days gone by --
The grand old Asian thinker?

Is there no deed of yours at all
With beauty shining through it?
Ah, no! your heart reveals its gall
On every side I view it.
A blatant bigot with a big
Fat heavy fetid carcass,
You well become your greasy "rig" --
You're not a second Arcas.
What sort of "gospel" do you preach?
What "Bible" is your Bible?
There's worse than wormwood in your speech,
You livid, living libel!

How many lives are growing gray
Through your depraved behaviour!
I tell you plainly -- every day
You crucify the Saviour!

Some evil spirit curses you --
Your actions never vary:
You cannot point your finger to
One fact to the contrary.

You seem to have a wicked joy
In your malicious labour,
Endeavouring daily to destroy
The neighbour's love for neighbour.

The brutal curses you eject
Make strong men dread to hear you.
The world outside your petty sect
Feels sick when it is near you.

No man who shuns that little hole
You call your tabernacle
Can have, you shriek, a ransomed soul --
He wears the devil's shackle.

And, hence the "Papist" by your clan
Is dogged with words inhuman,
Because he loves that friend of man
The highest type of woman --

Because he has that faith which sees
Before the high Creator
A Virgin pleading on her knees --
A shining Mediator!

God help the souls who grope in night --
Who in your ways have trusted!
I've said enough! the more I write,
The more I feel disgusted.

The warm, soft air is tainted through
With your pernicious leaven.
I would not live ~one hour~ with you
In your peculiar heaven!

Now mount your musty pulpit -- thump,
And muddle flat clodhoppers;
And let some long-eared booby "hump"
The plate about for coppers.

At priest and parson spit and bark,
And shake your "church" with curses,
You bitter blackguard of the dark --
With this I close my verses.