Henry Lawson: Verses about Steel Arms

By the bodies and minds and souls that rot in a common stye
In the city’s offal-holes, where the dregs of its horrors lie —
By the prayers that bubble out, but never ascend to God,
We swear the tyrants of earth to rout, with tongue and with pen and sword!
By the child that sees the light, where the pestilent air stagnates,
By the woman, worn and white, who under the street-lamp waits,
By the horror of vice that thrives in the dens of the wretched poor,
We swear to strike when the time arrives, for all that is good and pure!

By the rights that were always ours — the rights that we ne’er enjoyed,
And the gloomy cloud that lowers on the brow of the unemployed;
By the struggling mothers and wives — by girls in the streets of sin —
We swear to strike when the time arrives, for our kind and our kith and kin!

By our burning hate for men who rob us of ours by might,
And drive to the slum and den, the poor from the sun and light,
By the hell-born greed that drives our sons o’er the world to roam,
We swear to strike when the time arrives, and strike for our friends and home.

By the little of manhood left in a world of want and sin,
By the rift in the dark cloud’s brow where the light still struggles in,
By the love that scarce survives in a stream that is sluggish and thin,
We swear to work till the time arrives for ourselves and our kind and kin.

The little of love may dry in its stream that scarcely flows,
The little of manhood die and the rift in the dark clouds close,
And hope may vanish from earth and all that is pure and bright,
But we swear to strike eer that time has birth with the whole of our gathered might!

The Eagle screams at the beck of trade, so Spain, as the world goes round,
Must wrestle the right to live or die from the sons of the land she found;
For, as in the days when the buccaneer was abroad on the Spanish Main,
The national honour is one thing dear to the hearts of the Dons of Spain.

She has slaughtered thousands with fire and sword, as the Christian world might know;
We murder millions, but, thank the Lord! we only starve 'em slow.
The times have changed since the days of old, but the same old facts remain –
We fight for Freedom, and God, and Gold, and the Spaniards fight for Spain.

We fought with the strength of the moral right, and they, as their ships went down,
They only fought with the grit to fight and their armour to help 'em drown.
It mattered little what chance or hope, for ever their path was plain,
The Church was the Church, and the Pope the Pope – but the Spaniards fought for Spain.

If Providence struck for the honest thief at times in the battle's din –
If ever it struck at the hypocrite – well, that's where the Turks came in;
But this remains ere we leave the wise to argue it through in vain –
There's something great in the wrong that dies as the Spaniards die for Spain.

The foes of Spain may be kin to us who are English heart and soul,
And proud of our national righteousness and proud of the lands we stole;
But we yet might pause while those brave men die and the death-drink pledge again –
For the sake of the past, if you're doomed, say I, may your death be a grand one, Spain!

Then here's to the bravest of Freedom's foes who ever with death have stood –
For the sake of the courage to die on steel as their fathers died on wood;
And here's a cheer for the flag unfurled in a hopeless cause again,
For the sake of the days when the Christian world was saved by the Dons of Spain.

Sing the strong, proud song of Labour,
Toss the ringing music high;
Liberty’s a nearer neighbour
Than she was in days gone by.
Workmen’s weary wives and daughters
Sing the songs of liberty;
Men hail men across the waters,
Men reply across the sea.

We are marching on and onward
To the silver-streak of dawn,
To the dynasty of mankind
We are marching on.

Long the rich have been protected
By the walls that can’t endure;
By the walls that they erected
To divide them from the poor.
Crumbling now, they should not trust them,
For their end is drawing near;
Walls of Cant and walls of Custom,
Walls of Ignorance and Fear.

Tyrants, grip your weapons firmer,
Grip them firmly by the helves;
For the poor begin to murmur
Loudly now among themselves.
Hear us dare to say that Heaven
Gave us equal rights with you,
Dare to say the world was given
Unto all and not the few.

Tell us that the law has risen,
Make us bend beneath its sway,
Throw our leaders into prison,
Wrong us in the light of day.
Drive us to our dens, forgetting
All our woe as greed forgets,
While our weapons we are whetting
On your levelled bayonets.

Treat us like the beasts you’d make us,
Pen us close in wretched sties.
’Til our patience shall forsake us,
And like wolves we will arise.
Louder still for this shall rattle
Rifle shots, and sword blades ring
On the blood-wet fields of battle
In the days of reckoning.

We shall rise to prove us human,
Worthy of a human life,
When our starved and maddened women
Lead our armies on to strife.
When our war hymns wake the valleys,
And the rushing missiles shriek
From your barricaded alleys,
’Til your cannon cease to speak.

Then when Mammon Castle crashes
To the earth and trampled lies,
Then from out the blood and ashes
True Republics shall arise.
Then the world shall rest a season
(First since first the world began)
In the reign of right and reason
And the dynasty of man.

We must suffer, husband and father, we must suffer, daughter and son,
For the wrong we have taken part in and the wrong that we have seen done.
Let the bride of frivolous fashion, and of ease, be ashamed and dumb,
For I tell you the nations shall rule us who have let their children come!

How shall Australia escape it – we in the South and alone
Who have taken the sword for no right of England and none of our own?
(Can we bring back the husbands and fathers, can we bring the lovers and sons?
From the Dead to the homes we have ruined with the fire of our murdering guns?)

Who shall aid and protect us when the blood-streaked dawn we meet?
Will England, the hated of nations, whose existence depends on her fleet?
Who, because of the deer-parks and game-runs where her wheat-fields and pastures should be,
Must bring food for her herded thousands and shepherd it over the sea?

The beak of the British Octopus, or the Bosses within our reach
Who spend the hot days on the Mountains or summer at Manly Beach!
The thousands of paltry swindlers who are fathoms beneath our scorn –
Or the army of brave sons grown from the children who should have been born!

The wealth you have won has been wasted on trips to the English Rome,
On costly costumes from Paris, and titles and gewgaws from "home".
Shall a knighthood frighten Asia when she comes with the hate of hell?
Will the motor-launch race the torpedo, or the motor-car outspeed the shell?

Keep the wealth you have won from the cities, spend the wealth you have won on the land,
Save the floods that run into the ocean – save the floods that sink into the sand!
Make farms fit to live on, build workshops and technical schools for your sons;
Keep the wealth of the land in Australia – make your own cloth, machines, and guns!

Clear out the Calico Jimmy, the nigger, the Chow, and his pals;
Be your foreword for years: Irrigation. Make a network of lakes and canals!
See that your daughters have children, and see that Australia is home,
And so be prepared, a strong nation, for the storm that most surely must come.

FOOLS can parrot-cry the prophet when the proof is close at hand,
And the blind can see the danger when the foe is in the land!
Truth was never cynicism, death or ruin’s not a joke,
“Told-you-so” is not a warning—Patriotism not a croak.

Blame will aid no man nor country when the dark days come at last—
As with men so with a nation, and the warning time is past.
Our great sins were of omission, and the dogs of war are loosed—
And we all must stand together when those sins come home to roost.

Since the cities are the cities and shall stand for evermore,
Let us justify our being, be it peace or be it war.
For because we are the townsfolk, and have never ridden far
Shall we call the bush to aid us that has made us what we are?

Westward went our brothers, fighting distance, drought, and loneliness
While we lived in light and comfort knowing nothing of distress,
We who never shared the hardships when the sunset led them on,
Now’s our time, O street-bred people, with our faces to the dawn!

They have conquered with the cross-cut and the wedges and the maul,
With the spade and axe and mattock and the saddle-packs and all,
They have mighty work before them for the sake of you and me—
Let us stand up to our duty! We’re the Rearguard by the Sea.

Days of gibes at “street-bred people” by the street-bred bards are done—
Shall the man who lays the yard-stick never learn to lay the gun?
Shall the crouched type-writer toiling for his home in days like these
Touch the button the less firmly when we play on other keys?

We have seen in many countries what the street-bred men can do—
In the desert, scrub and jungle they were men who battled through!
Human weeds of grand endurance winning where the strong men quailed,
Pigeon-chested leaders leading on where beef-born courage failed.

Street-bred people down the ages—beggars, mobs and democrats—
Fought through many desperate sieges (fought on horseflesh, dogs and rats)
When their own cowed country failed them, then the city soul was proved—
“Street-bred people” died in thousands for the cities that they loved.

In the days when strength was needed—days of pike and axe and sword—
Daylight found the peaceful burghers ready, keeping watch and ward.
Clerks and tailors fought like heroes at the gates and in the trench—
(Even Falstaff brought his herrings with some slaughter through the French).

Every man should have a cottage and a garden to defend,
But the “should-be” is for ever—cities stand until the end,
Every farmer has a country that he loves when war-drums roll—
Every clerk may have a city that he loves with heart and soul.

Fat or lean, we all are sinners—lean or fat we all would be;
High or low or lean or fatted, ’tis for Nationality.
It will be till all is ended, as it was since all began—
’Tis the head and not the feathers! ’tis the heart and not the “man”!

When the wars of the world seemed ended, and silent the distant drum,
Ten years ago in Australia, I wrote of a war to come:
And I pictured Australians fighting as their fathers fought of old
For the old things, pride or country, for God or the Devil or gold.

And they lounged on the rim of Australia in the peace that had come to last,
And they laughed at my "cavalry charges" for such things belonged to the past;
Then our wise men smiled with indulgence – ere the swift years proved me right –
Saying: "What shall Australia fight for? And whom shall Australia fight?"

I wrote of the unlocked rivers in the days when my heart was full,
And I pleaded for irrigation where they sacrifice all for wool.
I pictured Australia fighting when the coast had been lost and won –
With arsenals west of the mountains and every spur its gun.

And what shall Australia fight for? The reason may yet be found,
When strange shells scatter the wickets and burst on the football ground.
And "Who shall invade Australia?" let the wisdom of ages say
"The friend of a further future – or the ally of yesterday!"

Aye! What must Australia fight for? In the strife that never shall cease,
She must fight for her work unfinished: she must fight for her life and peace,
For the sins of the older nations. She must fight for her own reward.
She has taken the sword in her blindness and shall live or die by the sword.

But the statesman, the churchman, the scholar still peer through their glasses dim
And they see no cloud on the future as they roost on Australia's rim:
Where the farmer works with the lumpers and the drover drives a dray,
And the shearer on Garden Island is shifting a hill to-day.

Had we used the wealth we have squandered and the land that we kept from the plough,
A prosperous Federal City would be over the mountains now,
With farms that sweep to horizons and gardens where plains lay bare,
And the bulk of the population and the Heart of Australia there.

Had we used the time we have wasted and the gold we have thrown away,
The pick of the world's mechanics would be over the range to-day –
In the Valley of Coal and Iron where the breeze from the bush comes down,
And where thousands of makers of all things should be happy in Factory Town.

They droned on the rim of Australia, the wise men who never could learn;
Our substance we sent to the nations, and their shoddy we bought in return.
In the end, shall our soldiers fight naked, no help for them under the sun –
And never a cartridge to stick in the breech of a Brummagem gun?

With the Wars of the World coming near us the wise men are waking to-day.
Hurry out ammunition from England! Mount guns on the cliffs while you may!
And God pardon our sins as a people if Invasion's unmerciful hand
Should strike at the heart of Australia drought-cramped on the verge of the land.

They took dead Cromwell from his grave,
And stuck his head on high;
The Merry Monarch and his men,
They laughed as they passed by
The common people cheered and jeered,
To England’s deep disgrace—
The crowds who’d ne’er have dared to look
Live Cromwell in the face.

He came in England’s direst need
With law and fire and sword,
He thrashed her enemies at home
And crushed her foes abroad;
He kept his word by sea and land,
His parliament he schooled,
He made the nations understand
A Man in England ruled!

Van Tromp, with twice the English ships,
And flushed by victory—
A great broom to his masthead bound—
Set sail to sweep the sea.
But England’s ruler was a man
Who needed lots of room—
So Blake soon lowered the Dutchman’s tone,
And smashed the Dutchman’s broom.

He sent a bill to Tuscany
For sixty thousand pounds,
For wrong done to his subjects there,
And merchants in her bounds.
He sent by Debt Collector Blake,
And—you need but be told
That, by the Duke of Tuscany
That bill was paid in gold.

To pirate ports in Africa
He sent a message grim
To have each captured Englishman
Delivered up to him;
And every ship and cargo’s worth,
And every boat and gun—
And this—all this, as Dickens says—
“Was gloriously done.”

They’d tortured English prisoners
Who’d sailed the Spanish Main;
So Cromwell sent a little bill
By Admiral Blake to Spain.
To keep his hand in, by the way.
He whipped the Portuguese;
And he made it safe for English ships
To sail the Spanish seas.

The Protestants in Southern lands
Had long been sore oppressed;
They sent their earnest prayers to Noll
To have their wrongs redressed.
He sent a message to the Powers,
In which he told them flat,
All men must praise God as they chose,
Or he would see to that.

And, when he’d hanged the fools at home
And settled foreign rows,
He found the time to potter round
Amongst his pigs and cows.
Of private rows he never spoke,
That grand old Ironsides.
They said a father’s strong heart broke
When Cromwell’s daughter died.

(They dragged his body from its grave,
His head stuck on a pole,
They threw his wife’s and daughter’s bones
Into a rubbish hole
To rot with those of two who’d lived
And fought for England’s sake,
And each one in his own brave way—
Great Pym, and Admiral Blake.)

From Charles to Charles, throughout the world
Old England’s name was high,
And that’s a thing no Royalist
Could ever yet deny.
Long shameful years have passed since then,
In spite of England’s boast—
But Englishmen were Englishmen,
While Cromwell carved the roast.

And, in my country’s hour of need—
For it shall surely come,
While run by fools who’ll never heed
The beating of the drum.
While baffled by the fools at home,
And threatened from the sea—
Lord! send a man like Oliver—
And let me live to see.

He never drew a sword to fight a dozen foes alone,
Nor gave a life to save a life no better than his own.
He lived because he had been born—the hero of my song—
And fought the battle with his fist whene’er he fought a wrong.
Yet there are many men who would do anything for him—
A simple chap as went by name of ‘Tambaroora Jim.’
He used to keep a shanty in the ‘Come-and-find-it Scrub,’
And there were few but knew the name of Tambaroora’s pub.
He wasn’t great in lambing down, as many landlords are,
And never was a man less fit to stand behind a bar—
Off-hand, as most bush natives are, and freckled, tall, and slim,
A careless native of the land was ‘Tambaroora Jim.’

When people said that loafers took the profit from his pub,
He’d ask them how they thought a chap could do without his grub;
He’d say, ‘I’ve gone for days myself without a bite or sup—
‘Oh! I’ve been through the mill and know what ’tis to be hard-up.’
He might have made his fortune, but he wasn’t in the swim,
For no one had a softer heart than ‘Tambaroora Jim.’

One dismal day I tramped across the Come-and-find-it Flats,
With ‘Ballarat Adolphus’ and a mate of ‘Ballarat’s’;
’Twas nearly night and raining fast, and all our things were damp,
We’d no tobacco, and our legs were aching with the cramp;
We couldn’t raise a cent, and so our lamp of hope was dim;
And thus we struck the shanty kept by ‘Tambaroora Jim.’

We dropped our swags beneath a tree, and squatted in despair,
But Jim came out to watch the rain, and saw us sitting there;
He came and muttered, ‘I suppose you haven’t half -a-crown,
‘But come and get some tucker, and a drink to wash it down.’
And so we took our blueys up and went along with him,
And then we knew why bushmen swore by ‘Tambaroora Jim.’

We sat beside his kitchen fire and nursed our tired knees,
And blessed him when we heard the rain go rushing through the trees.
He made us stay, although he knew we couldn’t raise a bob,
And tuckered us until we made some money on a job.
And many times since then we’ve filled our glasses to the brim,
And drunk in many pubs the health of ‘Tambaroora Jim.’

A man need never want a meal while Jim had ‘junk’ to carve,
For ‘Tambaroora’ always said a fellow couldn’t starve.
And this went on until he got a bailiff in his pub,
Through helping chaps as couldn’t raise the money for their grub.
And so, one rainy evening, as the distant range grew dim,
He humped his bluey from the Flats—did ‘Tambaroora Jim.’

I miss the fun in Jim’s old bar—the laughter and the noise,
The jolly hours I used to spend on pay-nights with the boys.
But that’s all past, and vain regrets are useless, I’ll allow;
They say the Come-and-find-it Flats are all deserted now.
Poor ‘Tambaroora’s’ dead, perhaps, but that’s all right with him,
Saint Peter cottons on to chaps like ‘Tambaroora Jim.’

I trust that he and I may meet where starry fields are grand,
And liquor up together in the pubs in spirit-land.
But if you chance to drop on Jim while in the West, my lad,
You won’t forget to tell him that I want to see him bad.
I want to shake his hand again—I want to shout for him—
I want to have a glass or two with ‘Tambaroora Jim.’

The world is narrow and ways are short, and our lives are dull and slow,
For little is new where the crowds resort, and less where the wanderers go;
Greater, or smaller, the same old things we see by the dull road-side --
And tired of all is the spirit that sings
of the days when the world was wide.

When the North was hale in the march of Time,
and the South and the West were new,
And the gorgeous East was a pantomime, as it seemed in our boyhood's view;
When Spain was first on the waves of change,
and proud in the ranks of pride,
And all was wonderful, new and strange in the days when the world was wide.

Then a man could fight if his heart were bold,
and win if his faith were true --
Were it love, or honour, or power, or gold, or all that our hearts pursue;
Could live to the world for the family name, or die for the family pride,
Could fly from sorrow, and wrong, and shame
in the days when the world was wide.

They sailed away in the ships that sailed ere science controlled the main,
When the strong, brave heart of a man prevailed
as 'twill never prevail again;
They knew not whither, nor much they cared --
let Fate or the winds decide --
The worst of the Great Unknown they dared
in the days when the world was wide.

They raised new stars on the silent sea that filled their hearts with awe;
They came to many a strange countree and marvellous sights they saw.
The villagers gaped at the tales they told,
and old eyes glistened with pride --
When barbarous cities were paved with gold
in the days when the world was wide.

'Twas honest metal and honest wood, in the days of the Outward Bound,
When men were gallant and ships were good -- roaming the wide world round.
The gods could envy a leader then when `Follow me, lads!' he cried --
They faced each other and fought like men
in the days when the world was wide.

They tried to live as a freeman should -- they were happier men than we,
In the glorious days of wine and blood, when Liberty crossed the sea;
'Twas a comrade true or a foeman then, and a trusty sword well tried --
They faced each other and fought like men
in the days when the world was wide.

The good ship bound for the Southern seas when the beacon was Ballarat,
With a `Ship ahoy!' on the freshening breeze,
`Where bound?' and `What ship's that?' --
The emigrant train to New Mexico -- the rush to the Lachlan Side --
Ah! faint is the echo of Westward Ho!
from the days when the world was wide.

South, East, and West in advance of Time -- and, ay! in advance of Thought
Those brave men rose to a height sublime -- and is it for this they fought?
And is it for this damned life we praise the god-like spirit that died
At Eureka Stockade in the Roaring Days
with the days when the world was wide?

We fight like women, and feel as much; the thoughts of our hearts we guard;
Where scarcely the scorn of a god could touch,
the sneer of a sneak hits hard;
The treacherous tongue and cowardly pen, the weapons of curs, decide --
They faced each other and fought like men
in the days when the world was wide.

Think of it all -- of the life that is! Study your friends and foes!
Study the past! And answer this: `Are these times better than those?'
The life-long quarrel, the paltry spite, the sting of your poisoned pride!
No matter who fell it were better to fight
as they did when the world was wide.

Boast as you will of your mateship now -- crippled and mean and sly --
The lines of suspicion on friendship's brow
were traced since the days gone by.
There was room in the long, free lines of the van
to fight for it side by side --
There was beating-room for the heart of a man
in the days when the world was wide.

. . . . .

With its dull, brown days of a-shilling-an-hour
the dreary year drags round:
Is this the result of Old England's power?
-- the bourne of the Outward Bound?
Is this the sequel of Westward Ho! -- of the days of Whate'er Betide?
The heart of the rebel makes answer `No!
We'll fight till the world grows wide!'

The world shall yet be a wider world -- for the tokens are manifest;
East and North shall the wrongs be hurled that followed us South and West.
The march of Freedom is North by the Dawn! Follow, whate'er betide!
Sons of the Exiles, march! March on! March till the world grows wide!

We set no right above hers,
No earthly light nor star,
She hath had many lovers,
But not as lovers are:
They all were gallant fellows
And died all deaths for her,
And never one was jealous
But comrades true they were.

Oh! each one is a brother,
Though all the lands they claim—
For her or for each other
They’ve died all deaths the same
Young, handsome, old and ugly,
Free, married or divorced,
Where springtime bard or Thug lie
Her lover’s feet have crossed.

’Mid buttercups and daisies
With fair girls by their side,
Young poets sang her praises
While day in starlight died.
In smoke and fire and dust, and
With red eyes maniac like,
Those same young poets thrust and—
Wrenched out the reeking pike!

She is as old as ages,
But she is ever young.
Upon her birthday pages
They’ve writ in every tongue;
Her charms have never vanished
Nor beauty been defiled,
Her lovers ne’er were banished—
Can never be exiled.

Ah! thousands died who kissed her,
But millions died who scorned
Our Sweetheart, Queen and Sister,
Whom slaves and Cæsars spurned!
And thousands lost her for her
Own sweet sake, and the world,
Her first most dread adorer,
From Heaven’s high state was hurled.

No sign of power she beareth,
In silence doth she tread,
But evermore she weareth
A cap of red rose red.
Her hair is like the raven,
Her soul is like the sea,
Her blue eyes are a haven
That watch Eternity.

She claimed her right from Heaven,
She claims her right from earth,
She claimed it hell-ward driven,
Before her second birth.
No real man lives without her,
No real man-child thrives,
Sweet sin may cling about her,
But purity survives.

She claims the careless girl, and
She claims the master mind;
She whispers to the Earl, and
She whispers to the hind!
No ruler knoweth which man
His sword for her might draw;
Her whisper wakes the rich man—
The peasant on his straw.

She calls us from the prison,
She calls us from the plain,
To towns where men have risen
Again, again, again!
She calls us from our pleasures,
She calls us from our cares,
She calls us from our treasures,
She calls us from our prayers.

From seas and oceans over
Our long-lost sons she draws,
She calls the careless rover,
She calls us from our wars.
The hermit she discovers
To lead her bravest brave——
The spirit of dead lovers,
She calls them from the grave!

We leave the squalid alley,
Our women and our vice,
We leave the pleasant valley,
Life-lust or sacrifice.
The gold hunt in the mountains,
The power-lust on the sea,
The land-lust by earth’s fountains,
Defeat or victory.

No means of peace discover
Her strength on “Nights Before”,
She has her secret lover
That guards the Grand Duke’s door.
No power can resist hers,
No massacre deter—
Small brothers and wee sisters
Of lovers, watch for her!

Old dotards undetected,
School boys that never tire,
And lone hags unsuspected
That drone beside the fire.
The youth in love’s first passion,
The girl in day-dream mood,
And, in the height of fashion,
The “butterfly” and “dude”.

The millionaire heart-broken,
The beggar with his whine,
And each one hath a token,
And each one hath a sign.
And when the time is ripe and
The hells of earth in power,
The dotard drops his pipe, and—
The maiden drops a flower!

Oh, bloody our revivals!
And swift our vengeance hurled,
We’ve laid our dear-loved rivals
In trenches round the world!
We’ve flung off fair arms clinging,
Health, wealth, and life’s grand whole,
And marched out to her singing,
A passion of our soul.

Her lovers fought on ice fields
With stone clubs long ago,
Her lovers slave in rice fields
And in the “’lectric’s” glow.
Her lovers pine wherever
The lust for Nothing is,
They starve where light is never,
And starve in palaces.

They’ve gathered, crowded and scattered,
With heads and scythe-blades low,
Through fir and pine clump spattered,
Like ink blots on the snow.
With broken limbs and shattered
They’ve crushed like hunted brute,
And died in hellish torture
In holes beneath the roof.

They’ve coursed through streets of cities
The fleeing Parliaments,
And songs that were not ditties
They’ve sung by smouldering tents.
And trained in caps and sashes
They’ve heard the head drums roll,
They’ve danced on kings-blood splashes
The dreadful carmagnole.

By mountains, and by stations,
Out where wide levels are,
They’ve baulked the march of nations
And ridden lone and far.
The whip stroke of the bullet,
The short grunt of distress—
The saddled pony grazing
Alone and riderless.

The plain in sunlight blazing—
No signal of distress,
Unseen by far scouts gazing,
And still, with wide eyes glazing:
Dead lover of our mistress,
Dead comrade of his rivals,
Dead champion of his country,
Dead soldier of his widow
And of his fatherless.

She pauses by her writers,
And whispers, through the years,
The poems that delight us
And bring the glorious tears.
The song goes on unbroken
Through worlds of senseless drones,
Until the words are spoken
By Emperors on their thrones.

Most unpleasantly adjacent to the haunts of lower orders
Stood a ‘terrace’ in the city when the current year began,
And a notice indicated there were vacancies for boarders
In the middle house, and lodgings for a single gentleman.
Now, a singular observer could have seen but few attractions
Whether in the house, or ‘missus’, or the notice, or the street,
But at last there came a lodger whose appearances and actions
Puzzled Constable M‘Carty, the policeman on the beat.

He (the single gent) was wasted almost to emaciation,
And his features were the palest that M‘Carty ever saw,
And these indications, pointing to a past of dissipation,
Greatly strengthened the suspicions of the agent of the law.
He (the lodger—hang the pronoun!) seemed to like the stormy weather,
When the elements in battle kept it up a little late;
Yet he’d wander in the moonlight when the stars were close together,
Taking ghostly consolation in a visionary state.

He would walk the streets at midnight, when the storm-king raised his banner,
Walk without his old umbrella,—wave his arms above his head:
Or he’d fold them tight, and mutter, in a wild, disjointed manner,
While the town was wrapped in slumber and he should have been in bed.
Said the constable-on-duty: ‘Shure, Oi wonther phwat his trade is?’
And the constable would watch him from the shadow of a wall,
But he never picked a pocket, and he ne’er accosted ladies,
And the constable was puzzled what to make of him at all.

Now, M‘Carty had arrested more than one notorious dodger,
He had heard of men afflicted with the strangest kind of fads,
But he couldn’t fix the station or the business of the lodger,
Who at times would chum with cadgers, and at other times with cads.
And the constable would often stand and wonder how the gory
Sheol the stranger got his living, for he loafed the time away
And he often sought a hillock when the sun went down in glory,
Just as if he was a mourner at the burial of the day.

Mac. had noticed that the lodger did a mighty lot of smoking,
And could ‘stow away a long ’un,’ never winking, so he could ;
And M‘Carty once, at midnight, came upon the lodger poking
Round about suspicious alleys where the common houses stood.
Yet the constable had seen him in a class above suspicion—
Seen him welcomed with effusion by a dozen ‘toney gents’—
Seen him driving in the buggy of a rising politician
Thro’ the gateway of the member’s toney private residence.

And the constable, off duty, had observed the lodger slipping
Down a lane to where the river opened on the ocean wide,
Where he’d stand for hours gazing at the distant anchor’d shipping,
But he never took his coat off, so it wasn’t suicide.
For the constable had noticed that a man who’s filled with loathing
For his selfish fellow-creatures and the evil things that be,
Will, for some mysterious reason, shed a portion of his clothing,
Ere he takes his first and final plunge into eternity.

And M‘Carty, once at midnight—be it said to his abasement—
Left his beat and climbed a railing of considerable height,
Just to watch the lodger’s shadow on the curtain of his casement
While the little room was lighted in the listening hours of night.
Now, at first the shadow hinted that the substance sat inditing;
Now it indicated toothache, or the headache; and again,
’Twould exaggerate the gestures of a dipsomaniac fighting
Those original conceptions of a whisky-sodden brain.

Then the constable, retreating, scratched his head and muttered ‘Sorra
‘Wan of me can undershtand it. But Oi’ll keep me oi on him,
‘Divil take him and his tantrums; he’s a lunatic, begorra!
‘Or, if he was up to mischief, he’d be sure to douse the glim.’
But M‘Carty wasn’t easy, for he had a vague suspicion
That a ‘skame’ was being plotted; and he thought the matter down
Till his mind was pretty certain that the business was sedition,
And the man, in league with others, sought to overthrow the Crown.

But, in spite of observation, Mac received no information
And was forced to stay inactive, being puzzled for a charge.
That the lodger was a madman seemed the only explanation,
Tho’ the house would scarcely harbour such a lunatic at large.
His appearance failed to warrant apprehension as a vagrant,
Tho’ ’twas getting very shabby, as the constable could see;
But M‘Carty in the meantime hoped to catch him in a flagrant
Breach of peace, or the intention to commit a felony.

(For digression there is leisure, and it is the writer’s pleasure
Just to pause a while and ponder on a painful legal fact,
Being forced to say in sorrow, and a line of doubtful measure,
That there’s nothing so elastic as the cruel Vagrant Act)
Now, M‘Carty knew his duty, and was brave as any lion,
But he dreaded being ‘landed’ in an influential bog—
As the chances were he would be if the man he had his eye on
Was a person of importance who was travelling incog.

Want of sleep and over-worry seemed to tell upon M‘Carty:
He was thirsty more than ever, but his appetite resigned;
He was previously reckoned as a jolly chap and hearty,
But the mystery was lying like a mountain on his mind.
Tho’ he tried his best, he couldn’t get a hold upon the lodger,
For the latter’s antecedents weren’t known to the police—
They considered that the ‘devil’ was a dark and artful dodger
Who was scheming under cover for the downfall of the peace.

’Twas a simple explanation, though M‘Carty didn’t know it,
Which with half his penetration he might easily have seen,
For the object of his dangerous suspicions was a poet,
Who was not so widely famous as he thought he should have been.
And the constable grew thinner, till one morning, ‘little dhramin’
‘Av the sword of revelation that was leapin’ from its sheath,’
He alighted on some verses in the columns of the Frayman,
‘Wid the christian name an’ surname av the lodger onderneath!’

Now, M‘Carty and the poet are as brother is to brother,
Or, at least, as brothers should be; and they very often meet
On the lonely block at midnight, and they wink at one another—
Disappearing down the by-way of a shanty in the street.
And the poet’s name you’re asking!—well, the ground is very tender,
You must wait until the public put the gilt upon the name,
Till a glorious, sorrow-drowning, and, perhaps, a final ‘bender,’
Heralds his triumphant entrance to the thunder-halls of Fame.

The second time I lived on earth
Was several hundred years ago;
And—royal by my second birth—
I know as much as most men know.
I was a king who held the reins
As never modern monarch can;
I was a king, and I had brains,
And, what was more, I was a man!
Called to the throne in stormy times,
When things were at their very worst,
I had to fight—and not with rhymes—
My own self and my kindred first;
And after that my friends and foes,
And great abuses born of greed;
And when I’d fairly conquered those,
I ruled the land a king indeed.

I found a deal of rottenness,
Such as in modern towns we find;
I camped my poor in palaces
And tents upon the plain behind.
I marked the hovels, dens and drums
In that fair city by the sea.
And burnt the miles of wretched slums
And built the homes as they should be.

I stripped the baubles from the State,
And on the land I spent the spoil;
I hunted off the sullen great,
And to the farmers gave the soil.
My people were their own police;
My courts were free to everyone.
My priests were to preach love and peace;
My Judges to see justice done.

I’d studied men and studied kings,
No crawling cant would I allow;
I hated mean and paltry things,
As I can hate them even now.
A land of men I meant to see,
A strong and clean and noble race—
No subject dared kneel down to me,
But looked his king straight in the face

Had I not been a king in fact,
A king in council-hall and tent,
I might have let them crawl and act
The courtier to their heart’s content;
But when I called on other kings,
And saw men kneel, I felt inclined
To gently tip the abject things
And kick them very hard behind.

My subjects were not slaves, I guess,
But though the women in one thing—
A question ’twas of healthy dress—
Would dare to argue with their king
(I had to give in there, I own,
Though none denied that I was strong),
Yet they would hear my telephone
If anything went very wrong.

I also had some poets bright—
Their songs were grand, I will allow—
They were, if I remember right,
About as bad as bards are now.
I had to give them best at last,
And let them booze and let them sing;
As it is now, so in the past,
They’d small respect for gods or king.

I loved to wander through the streets—
I carried neither sword nor dirk—
And watch the building of my fleets,
And watch my artisans at work.
At times I would take off my coat
And show them how to do a thing—
Till someone, clucking in his throat,
Would stare and gasp, ‘It is the king!’

And I would say, ‘Shut up, you fools!
Is it for this my towns I burn?
You don’t know how to handle tools,
And by my faith you’ll have to learn!’
I was a king, but what of that?
A king may warble in the spring
And carry eggs home in his hat,
Provided that he is a king.

I loved to stroll about the town
With chums at night, and talk of things,
And, though I chanced to wear the crown,
My friends, by intellect, were kings.
When I was doubtful, then I might
Discuss a matter quietly,
But when I felt that I was right
No power on earth could alter me!

And now and then it was no sin
Nor folly to relax a bit—
I’d take my friends into an inn
And call for wine and pay for it.
And then of many things we’d clack
With loosened tongues and visions clear—
I often heard behind my back
The whispered ‘Peace, the king is here!’

The women harped about a queen,
I knew they longed to have a court
And flaunt their feathers on the scene,
But hitherto I’d held the fort.
My subjects wanted me, no doubt,
To give the throne a son and heir—
(There were some little kings about,
But that was neither here nor there).

I’d no occasion for a wife—
A queen as yet was not my plan;
I’d seen a lot of married life—
My sire had been a married man.
‘A son and heir be hanged!’ I said—
‘How dare you ask for such a thing,
‘You fight it out when I am dead
‘And let the best man be the king!’

‘Your Majesty, we love you well!’
A candid friend would say to me—
‘But there be tales that people tell
‘Unfitted to thy dignity’—
‘My dignity be damned!’ I’d say,
‘Bring me no women’s chattering!
‘I’ll be a man while yet I may—
‘When trouble comes I’ll be a king!

I’d kept my kingdom clean and strong
While other kingdoms were like ours—
I had no need to brook a wrong,
I feared not all the rotten Powers
I did not eat my heart out then,
Nor feebly fight in verse or prose
I’d take five hundred thousand men
To argue matters with my foes!

It thrilled me through, the mighty tramp
Of armëd men, the thundering cheer—
The pregnant whisper through the camp
At dead of night: ‘The King is here!’
And though we paid for victory
On some fields that were hard to hold,
The faith my soldiers had in me
Oft strengthened mine a hundredfold.

I’d chat with soldiers by the fires
On rocky heights and river banks,
I’d seek the brains that war requires,
And take my captains from the ranks.
And so, until the storm was by,
And came the peace just war can bring,
I bore me so that men might cry
With all their hearts, ‘God Save the King.’

When I was king the world was wide,
And I was strong and I was free.
I knew no hatred, knew no pride,
No envy and no treachery.
I feared no lies. I feared no truth,
Nor any storm that time might bring.
I had my love, I had my youth,
The world was mine when I was king.

Peace came at last—and strange is Fate—
The women begged just once alone
To see me robed in royal state
And seated on my father’s throne.
I thought, ‘Shall I this boon deny?’
And said—and ’twas a paltry thing:
‘I’ll show the fools just once that I
‘Can look, as well as be, a king.’

They dusted out the castle old,
And from the closet and the chest
They dug the jewels set in gold—
The crown and robes and all the rest.
They came with eyes like stars of night,
With diamonds set in raven hair,
They came with arms and bosoms white—
And, Oh my God! but one was fair!

They dressed me as the kings had been,
The ancient royal purple spread,
And one that was to be my queen,
She placed the circlet on my head.
They pressed their hearts and bowed to me,
They knelt with arms uplifted all.
I felt the rush of vanity—
The pride that goes before the fall.


And then the banquet and the wine
With Satan’s music and the glance
Of siren eyes. Those captains mine
Were reeling in the maddening dance:
A finger writing on the wall,
While girls sang as the angels sing—
A drunken boaster in the hall,
The fool that used to be a king.
I rose again—no matter how—
A woman, and a deeper fall—
I move amongst my people now
The most degraded of them all.
But, if in centuries to come,
I live once more and claim my own,
I’ll see my subjects blind and dumb
Before they set me on a throne