The Even More Complete Book of Australian Verse

Text Classics

CLARKE, JOHN. Dip. Lid. (Hons), PhD in Cattle (Oxen). Adviser and comforter to the government and people of Australia. Born 1948. Educ. subsequently. Travelled extensively throughout Holy Lands, then left New Zealand for Europe. Held important positions with Harrods, Easibind, John Lewis, Selfridges, etc, 1971–72. Escaped (decorated). Rejoined unit. Arrived Australia 1977. Held positions with ABC radio (sckd), ABC television (dfnct), various newspapers (dcd) and Aust. film industry (fkd). Currently a freelance expert specialising in matters of a general character. Recreations: organising Olympics, covering tennis tournaments. Address: c\– the people next door or just pop it inside the door of the fusebox. Should be back Friday.

ALSO BY JOHN CLARKE

Still the Two

A Dagg at My Table

The Howard Miracle

The 7.56 Report

The Tournament

The Catastrophe Continues

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Copyright © John Clarke 1989, 1994, 2003

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of this publication shall be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

First published by Allen & Unwin 1994

Published with new poems by The Text Publishing Company 2003

This edition published 2012

Designed by WH Chong

Primary print ISBN: 9781921922152

Ebook ISBN: 9781921921773

Author: Clarke, John, 1948-

Title: The even more complete book of Australian verse / John Clarke.

Series: Text classics.

Subjects: Australian poetry.

Dewey Number: A821.00994

For Helen

Table of Contents

Cover Page

About the Author

Also by

Title page

Copyright

Dedication

Introduction

Anon.

Tide Is Igoin Oute

Bob Herrick

Upon Julia’s Speedos

Gavin Milton

On His Government

Alexandra Pope

The Warniad

Jeoffry Smart

Hoosagood Boythen

Bill Blake

The Work of Harmony

Rabbi Burns

To A Howard

Arnold Wordsworth

Lines Composed About Half-Way Across The Pyrmont Bridge

Trevor Henry Leigh Hunt

Jenny Hit Me

Thomas Wolfe

The Burial of Surgeon Moore at Narrunga

Warren Keats

A Customary Tale

Fifteen Bobsworth Longfellow

Myer’s Whopper

Ted Lear

Limericks

The Pibbledy-Pobbledy Man

William McGonigall

The Westgate Bridge Disaster

Emmy-Lou Dickinson

Poems

Thomas ‘The Tank’ Hardy

The Failed Businessman

Carol Lewis

The Hunting of The Smirk

Anon.

Who Killed Ned Kelly?

Very Manly Hopkins

Pied Again

Billy ‘The Swank’ Gilbert

The Pirates of penzance.com

Teddy Bentley

Cheerios

Walter Burley Yeats

The Flashing Gyre

Arthur ‘Guitar Boogie’ Patterson

The Authentic Australian Bush Ballad

Jems Choice

The Ballad of Jasper O’Reilly

R. A. C. V. Milne

The Dog’s Breakfast

Obviousness

Sigrid Sassoon

The Prime Minister

Kahlihliji Bran

The Half-Yearly Prophet

Noeleen Sitwell

Still Raining

William Esther Williams

The Carnival

Pinko Brooke

The Soldier

Alain Frost

The Track Less Thrashed

Ezekiel Mad

Canto MCXVXIV

T. S. (Tabby Serious) Eliot

The Accounting Cat

The Love Song of J. Arthur Perpend

Marianne More

The Majesty of Great Big Animals

Morris Clarke

The Mariner’s Daughter

Dorothy Parkinson

The Story So Far

b. b. hummings

74

Ogden Gnash

Pardon Me Madam But Is That Mandible on A Leash Or What?

Sir Don Betjeman

Another Subaltern’s Wedding

Advice To Chaps From Parents

Stewie Smith

Further Thoughts About The Person From Porlock

W. H. Auding

Muse of Bauxite

Louis ‘The Lip’ MacNeice

What I Did in The Holidays Section IX

Flagpole Music

Norman McCrag

South Uist From A Coracle

Elizabeth Bayshop

One Science

Harry Reed

Facing of Facts

Dylan Thompson

A Child’s Christmas in Warrnambool

Robert Bowell

Bury My Head at Wounded Knee

Larry Parkin

Mr Peacock

This Be The Chorus

Vern Scanlon

Standing Orders

Dream

Miloslab Holden

Pathology Report

Anne Bonkford

Where Was JFK When He Heard That I Was Shot?

Ted Cruise

Is Everybody Happy?

Derek Benaud

The Central Commentary Position

Sylvia Blath

Self Defence

Henry Adrian

Here Are The News

John Platten

Are We There Yet?

Nob Dylan

Rain Pain Train Song Number 407B

Leonard Con

The Emperor's New Album

Paul Dorkan

Significant Events

Hamish Sweeney

St Frances And The Brolgas

Margaret Attwood

Everyone Dances

Notes

Text Classics

INTRODUCTION

For many years it was assumed that poetry came from England. Research now clearly demonstrates, however, that a great many of the world’s most famous poets were actually Australians. Works by major poets have been discovered in various parts of Australia and are published here for the first time. This collection aims to put on record the wealth of imagery and ideas in Australian verse.

English is a language relatively new to Australia and obviously in a nation so young there can be no Icelandic Sagas, no Chaucer, and no Shakespeare¹. Certain other works have been tragically lost. The great Neville Shelley of Eildon, for instance, survives only in the oral tradition². Ewen Coleridge, the so-called ‘Automatic Writer’, left nothing whatever and Stumpy Byron V.C.³ has not been included because so much of his work was written in Greece and Italy. It is virtually impossible to find anything from Brian Browning⁴ or from ‘Shagger’ Tennyson, who refused point blank to write anything down.

In other respects, however, this is the most complete collection of Australian verse ever published.

Such an anthology would not be possible were it not for the kind assistance of the poets, their descendants or executors. I would also thank Ms Lurleen Hopcroft for her work in typing the manuscripts and for her tireless support and cheerful presence.

Anon.

Trad. (From the Harleian-Davidson MSS, British Museum. Fragment originally found during excavations for the construction of Botany Bay Gaol, 1788.)TIDE IS IGOIN OUTE

Tide is igoin oute

Lhude yelleth yikes

Water disappeareth fast

Ebbeth before eyen

Moon it pulleth tide oute

Layeth boate on keel

Sand it stretcheth meny myle

Gulle it drifts on wynde

Season goeth round each yeare

Wind it winnow croppe

Farmer reapeth harveste fulle

Meade it fylleth cup

Polly putte ye kyttle on

We wylle all haue tea

Leaf growe sere and branch growe bare

Trees istandin bleak in field

Flocks do fall to rest in fold

Storm it beats on sturdy thatch

Snowe in isolated places

Above aboute ten thousande feet

Rains ifallin on new seed

Springeth up from groun

Mare growe heavy, cowe have calf

Lambe it poppeth oute in field

Birds isingin, suns ishinin

Fysshe ajumpin, cotton hyghe,

Nature goeth on and on

Boreth britches off

Bob Herrick

A Boer War veteran who passed away some years back, Bob is well remembered by local churchpeople in the Mittagong area, where he lived and worked.UPON JULIA’S SPEEDOS

Whenas in Speedos Julia goes,

Their fabric seemeth to expose

The wonders it doth juxtapose!

Next, when I cast mine eyes and see,

That lycra stretching each way free,

Tumescence overtaketh me!

Gavin Milton

Gavin became a political activist at university and wrote an unbroken string of pearlers: ‘Addidas’ about a promising mate of his who threw a seven during a boat trip, ‘Il Ponderosa’ about a group of ageing baritones trying to run a farm, and ‘Lost and Found’ about a retirement village.ON HIS GOVERNMENT

When I consider how my tax is spent,

And bear in mind I’m talking forty years,

Perhaps sometimes a whisker in arrears,

But by and large as incomes