Classic Poem

The pub that lost its licence
Was very quaint and old;
'Twas built before the railway,
Before the days of gold.
The pub that lost its licence
Was built of solid stone
And good Australian hardwood
In fashion all its own.

They build of bricks and softwood
Their narrow shells and high;
They build with iron girders
And build 'em to the sky:
The " joiners " rush and hurry,
Time-hunted men they are —
And " decorators " chase them
To " fit " the shoddy bar.

The little inn with gables
Rose slowly in the past,
In days when ships and houses
And men were built to last;
In dove-tailed days, and polished
When " slumming " was a sin:
They fashioned it for comfort,
And called it Fig Tree Inn.

Deep windowed and deep seated,
And fire-places deep,
With a stone wall round the garden,
Where the vines of ages creep;
And sunny nooks and corners,
Where one might doze and sleep
And seats on broad verandahs,
And a bar-room cool and deep.

Our public bars are seatless
In days of greed and rush —
Where fat casks stood, and tables,
Now men must stand and " lush "
The pub that lost its licence
Gave time to talk and think;
But now-a-days old cronies
Must elbow up and drink.

Still round the ancient fig tree
The rustic table stands,
Surrounded by its benching
As 'twas in other lands;
Beneath it smiles the harbour,
The shippin' and all that;
And there, on summer Sundays,
Our fathers' fathers sat.

The publicans were stout men,
With manners wise and slow;
And so I sat with cronies
Not very long ago:
The stout and bustling landlady —
While slowly ran the sands
Of life, where arm-chaired " granny "
Would doze with folded hands.

The furniture was ancient,
And heavy as 'twas strong;
Above hung water colours
Of scenes — ah! vanished long —
Of blacks, and teams, and windmills,
Of homes beyond the seas,
And stern, unyielding pictures
Of old celebrities.

And boomerangs and waddies,
And sharks' teeth and whales' corns
And, velveted and polished,
Some mighty bullock horns,
And spears in thongs of greenhide,
And tomahawks of stone,
And ancient guns and pistols —
And other things unknown.

The old pub lost its licence,
Not for its sins at all;
But because it was a free house
(They said it was too small).
'Twas let to other people
That grind and grub, and wowse —
They turned it into " lodgings "
And called it " Fig Tree House " ,

(They opened it for Boarders
And called it Figtree House!)
But 'twas haunted by the spirits
Of a better braver day;
They could not let the lodgings,
The boarders would not stay.
And so it stands deserted,
While through new paint cheap and thin
You might discern by moonlight
The old sign, " Fig Tree Inn " .