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Verses, Popular and Humorous 6 / 14

THE BURSTING OF THE BOOM

The shipping-office clerks are ‘short,’ the manager is gruff—
 ‘They cannot make reductions,’ and ‘the fares are low enough.’
 They ship us West with cattle, and we go like cattle too;
 And fight like dogs three times a day for what we get to chew....
 We’ll have the pick of empty bunks and lots of stretching room,
 And go for next to nothing at the Bursting of the Boom.
So wait till the Boom bursts!—we’ll all get a show:
 Then when the Boom bursts is our time to go.
 We’ll meet ’em coming back in shoals, with looks of deepest gloom,
 But we’re the sort that battle through at the Bursting of the Boom.
The captain’s easy-going when Fremantle comes in sight;
 He can’t say when you’ll get ashore—‘perhaps to-morrow night;’
 Your coins are few, the charges high; you must not linger here—
 You’ll get your boxes from the hold ‘when she’s ’longside the pier.’ ...
 The launch will foul the gangway, and the trembling bulwarks loom
 Above a fleet of harbour craft—at the Bursting of the Boom.
So wait till the Boom bursts!—we’ll all get a show;
 He’ll ‘take you for a bob, sir,’ and where you want to go.
 He’ll ‘take the big portmanteau, sir, if he might so presume’—
 You needn’t hump your luggage at the Bursting of the Boom.
It’s loafers—Customs-loafers—and you pay and pay again;
 They hinder you and cheat you from the gangway to the train;
 The pubs and restaurants are full—they haven’t room for more;
 They charge us each three shillings for a shakedown on the floor;
 But, ‘Show this gentleman upstairs—the first front parlour room.
 We’ll see about your luggage, sir’—at the Bursting of the Boom.
So wait till the Boom bursts!—we’ll all get a show;
 And wait till the Boom bursts, and swear mighty low.
 ‘We mostly charge a pound a week. How do you like the room?’
 And ‘Show this gentleman the bath’—at the Bursting of the Boom.
I go down to the timber-yard (I cannot face the rent)
 To get some strips of oregon to frame my hessian tent;
 To buy some scraps of lumber for a table or a shelf:
 The boss comes up and says I might just look round for myself;
 The foreman grunts and turns away as silent as the tomb—
 The boss himself will wait on me at the Bursting of the Boom.
So wait till the Boom bursts!—we’ll all get a load.
 ‘You had better take those scraps, sir, they’re only in the road.’
 ‘Now, where the hell’s the carter?’ you’ll hear the foreman fume;
 And, ‘Take that timber round at once!’ at the Bursting of the Boom.
Each one-a-penny grocer, in his box of board and tin,
 Will think it condescending to consent to take you in;
 And not content with twice as much as what is just and right,
 They charge and cheat you doubly, for the Boom is at its height.
 It’s ‘Take it now or leave it now;’ ‘your money or your room;’—
 But ‘Who’s attending Mr. Brown?’ at the Bursting of the Boom.
So wait till the Boom bursts!—and take what you can get,
 ‘There’s not the slightest hurry, and your bill ain’t ready yet.’
 They’ll call and get your orders until the crack o’ doom,
 And send them round directly, at the Bursting of the Boom.
 . . . . . . . . . .
No Country and no Brotherhood—such things are dead and cold;
 A camp from all the lands or none, all mad for love of gold;
 Where T’othersider number one makes slave of number two,
 And the vilest women of the world the vilest ways pursue;
 And men go out and slave and bake and die in agony
 In western hells that God forgot, where never man should be.
 I feel a prophet in my heart that speaks the one word ‘Doom!’
 And aye you’ll hear the Devil laugh at the Bursting of the Boom.

ANTONY VILLA

A Ballad of Ninety-three

Over there, above the jetty, stands the mansion of the Vardens,
 With a tennis ground and terrace, and a flagstaff in the gardens:
 They are gentlemen and ladies—they’ve been ‘toffs’ for generations,
 But old Varden’s been unlucky—lost a lot in speculations.
Troubles gathered fast upon him when the mining bubble ‘busted,’
 Then the bank suspended payment, where his little all he trusted;
 And the butcher and the baker sent their bills in when they read it,
 Even John, the Chow that served him, has refused to give him ‘cledit.’
And the daughters of the Vardens—they are beautiful as Graces—
 But the balcony’s deserted, and they rarely show their faces;
 And the swells of their acquaintance never seem to venture near them,
 And the bailiff says they seldom have a cup of tea to cheer them.
They were butterflies—I always was a common caterpillar,
 But I’m sorry for the ladies over there in ’Tony Villa,
 Shut up there in ’Tony Villa with the bailiff and their trouble;
 And the dried-up reservoir, where my tears were seems to bubble.
Mrs. Rooney thinks it nothing when she sends a brat to ‘borry’
 Just a pinch of tea and sugar till the grocer comes temorry;’
 But it’s dif’rent with the Vardens—they would starve to death as soon as
 Knuckle down. You know, they weren’t raised exactly like the Rooneys!
 . . . . . . . . . .
There is gossip in the ‘boxes’ and the drawing-rooms and gardens—
 ‘Have you heard of Varden’s failure? Have you heard about the Vardens?’
 And no doubt each toney mother on the Point across the water’s
 Mighty glad about the downfall of the rivals of her daughters.
(Tho’ the poets and the writers say that man to man’s inhuman,
 I’m inclined to think it’s nothing to what woman is to woman,
 More especially, the ladies, save perhaps a fellow’s mother;
 And I think that men are better—they are kinder to each other.)
 . . . . . . . . . .
There’s a youngster by the jetty gathering cinders from the ashes,
 He was known as ‘Master Varden’ ere the great financial crashes.
 And his manner shows the dif’rence ’twixt the nurs’ry and gutter—
 But I’ve seen him at the grocer’s buying half a pound of butter.
And his mother fights her trouble in the house across the water,
 She is just as proud as Varden, though she was a ‘cocky’s’ daughter;
 And at times I think I see her with the flick’ring firelight o’er her,
 Sitting pale and straight and quiet, gazing vacantly before her.
There’s a slight and girlish figure—Varden’s youngest daughter, Nettie—
 On the terrace after sunset, when the boat is near the jetty;
 She is good and pure and pretty, and her rivals don’t deny it,
 Though they say that Nettie Varden takes in sewing on the quiet.
(How her sister graced the ‘circle,’ all unconscious of a lover
 In the seedy ‘god’ who watched her from the gallery above her!
 Shade of Poverty was on him, and the light of Wealth upon her,
 But perhaps he loved her better than the swells attending on her.)
 . . . . . . . . . .
 There’s a white man’s heart in Varden, spite of all the blue blood in him,
 There are working men who wouldn’t stand and hear a word agin’ him;
 But his name was never printed by the side of his ‘donations,’
 Save on hearts that have—in this world—very humble circulations.
He was never stiff or hoggish—he was affable and jolly,
 And he’d always say ‘Good morning’ to the deck hand on the ‘Polly;’
 He would ‘barrack’ with the newsboys on the Quay across the ferry,
 And he’d very often tip ’em coming home a trifle merry.
But his chin is getting higher, and his features daily harden
 (He will not ‘give up possession’—there’s a lot of fight in Varden);
 And the way he steps the gangway! oh, you couldn’t but admire it!
 Just as proud as ever hero walked the plank aboard a pirate!
He will think about the hardships that his girls were never ‘useter,’
 And it must be mighty heavy on the thoroughbred old rooster;
 But he’ll never strike his colours, and I tell a lying tale if
 Varden’s pride don’t kill him sooner than the bankers or the bailiff.
You remember when we often had to go without our dinners,
 In the days when Pride and Hunger fought a finish out within us;
 And how Pride would come up groggy—Hunger whooping loud and louder—
 And the swells are proud as we are; they are just as proud—and prouder.
Yes, the toffs have grit, in spite of all our sneering and our scorning—
 What’s the crowd? What’s that? God help us!— Varden shot himself this morning!...
 There’ll be gossip in the ‘circle,’ in the drawing-rooms and gardens;
 But I’m sorry for the family; yes—I’m sorry for the Vardens.

SECOND CLASS WAIT HERE

On suburban railway stations—you may see them as you pass—
 There are signboards on the platforms saying, ‘Wait here second class;’
 And to me the whirr and thunder and the cluck of running gear
 Seem to be for ever saying, saying ‘Second class wait here’—
 ‘Wait here second class,
 Second class wait here.’
 Seem to be for ever saying, saying ‘Second class wait here.’
And the second class were waiting in the days of serf and prince,
 And the second class are waiting—they’ve been waiting ever since.
 There are gardens in the background, and the line is bare and drear,
 Yet they wait beneath a signboard, sneering ‘Second class wait here.’
I have waited oft in winter, in the mornings dark and damp,
 When the asphalt platform glistened underneath the lonely lamp.
 Ghastly on the brick-faced cutting ‘Sellum’s Soap’ and ‘Blower’s Beer;’
 Ghastly on enamelled signboards with their ‘Second class wait here.’
And the others seemed like burglars, slouched and muffled to the throats,
 Standing round apart and silent in their shoddy overcoats,
 And the wind among the wires, and the poplars bleak and bare,
 Seemed to be for ever snarling, snarling ‘Second class wait there.’
Out beyond the further suburb, ’neath a chimney stack alone,
 Lay the works of Grinder Brothers, with a platform of their own;
 And I waited there and suffered, waited there for many a year,
 Slaved beneath a phantom signboard, telling our class to wait here.
Ah! a man must feel revengeful for a boyhood such as mine.
 God! I hate the very houses near the workshop by the line;
 And the smell of railway stations, and the roar of running gear,
 And the scornful-seeming signboards, saying ‘Second class wait here.’
There’s a train with Death for driver, which is ever going past,
 And there are no class compartments, and we all must go at last
 To the long white jasper platform with an Eden in the rear;
 And there won’t be any signboards, saying ‘Second class wait here.’

THE SHIPS THAT WON’T GO DOWN

We hear a great commotion
 ’Bout the ship that comes to grief,
 That founders in mid-ocean,
 Or is driven on a reef;
 Because it’s cheap and brittle
 A score of sinners drown.
 But we hear but mighty little
 Of the ships that won’t go down.
Here’s honour to the builders—
 The builders of the past;
 Here’s honour to the builders
 That builded ships to last;
 Here’s honour to the captain,
 And honour to the crew;
 Here’s double-column head-lines
 To the ships that battle through.
They make a great sensation
 About famous men that fail,
 That sink a world of chances
 In the city morgue or gaol,
 Who drink, or blow their brains out,
 Because of ‘Fortune’s frown.’
 But we hear far too little
 Of the men who won’t go down.
The world is full of trouble,
 And the world is full of wrong,
 But the heart of man is noble,
 And the heart of man is strong!
 They say the sea sings dirges,
 But I would say to you
 That the wild wave’s song’s a pæan
 For the men that battle through.

THE MEN WE MIGHT HAVE BEEN

When God’s wrath-cloud is o’er me,
 Affrighting heart and mind;
 When days seem dark before me,
 And days seem black behind;
 Those friends who think they know me—
 Who deem their insight keen—
 They ne’er forget to show me
 The man I might have been.
He’s rich and independent,
 Or rising fast to fame;
 His bright star is ascendant,
 The country knows his name;
 His houses and his gardens
 Are splendid to be seen;
 His fault the wise world pardons—
 The man I might have been.
His fame and fortune haunt me;
 His virtues wave me back;
 His name and prestige daunt me
 When I would take the track;
 But you, my friend true-hearted—
 God keep our friendship green!—
 You know how I was parted
 From all I might have been.
But what avails the ache of
 Remorse or weak regret?
 We’ll battle for the sake of
 The men we might be yet!
 We’ll strive to keep in sight of
 The brave, the true, and clean,
 And triumph yet in spite of
 The men we might have been.