English

I've not seen a piano for many a day,
My heart has grown callous, my head has grown grey;
'Tis an old faded letter these memories bring,
And I'm thinking to-night of the " Kiss in the Ring " .
Kiss in the Ring —
Kiss in the Ring —
O it makes me remember old " Kiss in the Ring " .

We drove down the gullies, we drove down the creek,
We drove round the sidings, we drove round the Peak
Carts, buggies and horses — the Bush girls to bring
To laugh with us there in sweet " Kiss in the Ring " .
Kiss in the Ring —

When his heart is growing bitter and his hair is growing grey,
And he hears the debt-collector knocking several times a day,
And the shrill voice of the Missus blame, reiterate, accuse —
Then the poet who was famous feels inclined to damn the Muse.

When he's trying to be cheerful, and the ancient joy is dead,
And where themes for laughter found him comes a brooding fit instead;
When he tries for hours to think of something good to write about,
Then the writer realizes that he's getting written out.

'Tis the song of many husbands, and you all must understand
That you cannot call me coward now that women rule the land;
I have written much for women, where I thought that they were right,
But the men who made bad matches claim a song from me to-night.

O the men who made bad matches are of every tribe and clime,
And, if Adam was the first man, then they date from Adam's time.
They shall live and they shall suffer, until married life is past,
And the last sad son of Adam stands alone — at peace at last.

The nearer camp-fires lighted,
The distant beacons bright —
The horsemen on the skyline
Are closing in to-night!
My brothers, O my brothers!
Lie down and rest at last:
The Years of Reparation
Have rushed upon us fast.

O ride and ride, you riders,
Who rode ere I was born,
While blink-and-blink the star-dust
That blinks before the morn.

NO BETTER RIGHT THAN I

I saw it in the days gone by,
When the dead girl lay at rest,
And the wattle and the native rose
We placed upon her breast.

I saw it in the long ago
(And I've seen strong men die),
And who, to wear the wattle,
Hath better right than I?

I've fought it through the world since then,
And seen the best and worst,
But always in the lands of men
I held Australia first.

I wrote for her, I fought for her,
And when at last I lie,

( To a Fellow-Bard Camping Out )

For the sake of those few pleasant
Sunny weeks we lately spent,
Linking old times with the present,
There by ocean, tree and tent;
From the hard streets of a city,
Where the times seem out of joint,
I am sending you a ditty
For your camp on Captain's Point!

Where no jarring note may find you,
You can hunt and fish and dream,

The world is full of kindness —
And not the poor alone;
We Christians in our blindness
Bow down to hearts of stone;
The clever, bitter cynic,
Whose poisoned " soul " is dead,
And, like the rotten clinic,
Raves, helpless, on his bed.

The world is full of kindness —
But not the White alone;
" The heathen in his blindness
Bows down to wood and stone; "

A SONG OF THE TELEPHONE

It is one long ring for Kiah; it is two rings for Green Cape;
It is three for Gabo Island; and, to have it all ship-shape,
One for Eden. Four rings quicken Mallacoota's interest;
And a long ring and a short one gives you Mallacoota West.

O the folk are never lonely that the telephone can reach!
There are three undreamed of places with a telephone at each,
'Twixt the bedroom and the kitchen, to be handy night or day,
For the women mostly tend it while the men folk are away,

It watched me in the cradle laid, and from my boyhood's home
It glared above my shoulder-blade when I wrote my first " pome " ;
It's sidled by me ever since, with greeny eyes aslant —
It is the thing (O Priest and Prince!) that wants to write, but can't.

It yells and slobbers, mows and whines, It follows everywhere;
'Tis gloating on these very lines with red and baleful glare.
It murders friendship, love and truth (It makes the " reader " pant),
It ruins editorial youth, the Wantaritencant.

Curve of beaches like a horse-shoe, with a glimpse of grazing stock,
To the left the Gabo Lighthouse, to the right the Bastion Rock;
Upper Lake where no one dwelleth — scenery like Italy,
Lower Lake of seven islets and six houses near the sea;
'Twixt the lake and sea a sandbank, where the shifting channels are,
And a break where white-capped rollers bow to Mallacoota Bar.

Gabo, of the reddest granite, cut off from the mainland now —
" Gabo " , nearest that the black tongue ever could get round " Cape Howe " ;