Classic Poem

You will find, when over forty, man was made but to repine,
And I sadly sit reflecting on that sinful past of mine;
When the trade that I've forgotten paid far better than the pen,
And when I too, for a season, was a leader amongst men:
When in townships on the Mountains, in the nearer, dearer Bush,
I —by virtue of my “writin's”—was a captain of a push.

Then, the city pushes flourished—lived and flourished as they ought,
For they blanked the world they lived in, and they worked, and loved and fought;
And they worked for carcase butchers, “blanked” and worked the whole day long,
Or they worked in iron foundries, they were big and they were strong:
Feel them bleedin' muscles (blimy!), black with grime and red with rust—
And they belted out their clobber and they belted out a crust.

They were faithful to a clinah, they were loyal to a pal,
And they stuck to their Old 'Un, and they stuck to their old Gal:
She must have the splosh (Gorblimy) and his sledge goes clonk-and-clonk—
For the (bleedin') rest is married, and the Old 'Un's pins is cronk.
And right here I'll have to tell you, though it pains and grieves and shocks,
That the old Gal and the Old 'Un, were his parents on “th' Rocks”.

And perhaps he'd tell you proudly, as he wiped away the grime,
That the Old 'Un was a grafter and a tough 'un in his time.
That he did his share of scrappin' and he'd won his share of scraps,
And he took his share of “tangle” (and his “gruel”, too, perhaps),
And he worked for his “Old Woman” when her “lamps” was gettin' dim,
And he stuck to his own Old 'Un when his pins went crook on him .

And—well, what can man do better e'er he joins the married ranks,
Than be loyal to a cobber and to deal it out to Blanks
(And his clinah on occasion—when it might be good for her)?
And to work for his old people and their sticks of “furnicher”,
To be good to his “Old Woman”, who has suffered for his sins,
And to battle for his Old 'Un when he's shaky on his pins?

When the Push fared forth to battle—when their dignity was hurt
Over Stinker's bit of muslin or the Captain's bit of skirt—
Then the cobbers got off early from the workshop and the dray,
And they togged and took in “ballast” and they hurried to the fray:
Then the fringed and bustled Helen found the purest kind of joy
Where blue metal flew like blazes underneath the walls of Troy!

Oftentimes the Sunday picnic, by the bay or river reach,
Heard the howl of many demons from the cliff and from the beach,
And they ran and screamed and fainted, and maybe they said their prayers,
But their buns were not the object, and the danger was not theirs;
And the Sunday-school conductor found his courage when he knew
It was but “the Rocks” descending on the serried ranks of “'Loo”!

There were anxious eyes, my brothers, watching every ferry boat,
On the day when “'Loo” and “Redfern” had the Rocks Push by the throat;
When the sullen Glebe was neutral, and when Waterloo turned tail,
And the Push, by misadventure, had embittered Annandale—
Watching from the scrub at Clontarf—and they did not watch in vain—
For belated “Stinker” Blucher, and our Allies from Balmain.

Those were lively days (Gorblimy!) as compared with days like these—
And the old Push? Some are fathers of respected families!
For a sign of what they had been it would be in vain to search,
For their boys are steady tradesmen, and their daughters go to church:
And they little think that Father, sitting smoking, in the past
Was the captain of a push and wore the clobber of his caste!

Bob-tailed coat and bell-mouthed trousers, wire-rimmed hat of long ago,
Boots, with stern-posts well amidships, that were laced up from the toe.
Biled-rag Sundays, with no collar—a red riband for a tie—
And a fringe well oiled and plastered! That was Dad in days gone by!
Brand-new uniform on Sunday, and the old one all the week,
Worn to show he was no “blanker”, worn to show he was no sneak.

What is this? Ye gods and fishes—weedy—more than undersized;
Weak and humped and bottle-shouldered— Man's descendant realized!
Neither cripple, dwarf nor midget, nor trained ape, though, be it said,
Dressed to ape the latest fashions: with a straw pot on its head.
Seemingly for ever idle, still its clothes are new, and yet,
From its mouth for ever dribbles the eternal cigarette.

Cuffs and collars mostly spotless—clothes well made and shirts well “done”—
Say! what mother bore and keeps it? Say, what father owns it son?
See it hiding from the sunlight, see it hiding from the stars;
See it, with its fellows, drinking ginger-beer in public bars!
Magpie minded: yet they're harmless, though you meet them one to ten—
Only fit to flock and gibber, after hours, at drunken men.

'Tis the newer “Push”, my masters, shaming you and shaming me,
Born of newer times and cities and our blind prosperity;
Only gathered where our critics peer in at Australia's gate—
Reason, they, why Foster Frasers think that we degenerate.
There'd have been a screech and scatter, ruined togs and mended ways,
Had a Blanky Bloke met fifty, in the old Gorblimy days.