And ye’d far better tak to th’ hills fo’ th’ day
Tha opens thy gob a’ the drop o’ the noo
And thou lets the wind bloo tha tongue aroon.
Och ye poor wee laddie, ye’ve no got the breen,
Ye’ve no got the sense to come oot o’ the reen,
Why don’t thou gi’e it awa’ and gae hame,
It’s no guid th’ watch if ye can’t tell th’ tame,
There are jobs gang aplenty awa’ at the farm
Afrightening birds by waving th’ arms,
Ye ken they’re gae keen t’ employ the bold laddies
Awa’ at the links where they’re lookin for caddies,
If that’s no to thy taste and thou’s wanting a change
Thou’ll try wi’ th’ gunnery up at the range,
Thou’ll no have much truible, thou’ve dun it afore,
Thou’s an expert for a’ that; look, ‘Wanted: Small Bore’.
Arnold Wordsworth
Arnold Wordsworth was a plumber in Sydney during the first half of the nineteenth century and was responsible for much of the underground piping in Annandale and Balmain. He lived with his sister Gail and with his mate Ewen Coleridge, who shared his interest in plumbing, poetry and Gail.LINES COMPOSED ABOUT HALF-WAY ACROSS THE PYRMONT BRIDGE
Earth has not anything to show more fair,
Soft would he be of swede, a quid unfull,
Who would willingly forgo such a view,
For lo, the sparrow breaketh of his wind
And this entire joint looks not too foul,
Stand back, for when she goes, she bloody goes.
Trevor Henry Leigh Hunt
When ‘Jenny Hit Me’ was first published in 1838, Trevor Henry Leigh Hunt ran the Examiner and knew almost everyone in Australia. A friend of Stumpy Byron V.C., Neville Shelley and Jay Esmill, he also supported Warren Keats and ‘Shagger’ Tennyson when they were getting going. He did two years in Long Bay for criticising a lobster in a Sydney restaurant.JENNY HIT ME
Jenny hit me when we met, Leaping from the knee she sat on;
Fate, you clown, who love to get Medals on your chest, pin that on!
Say I’m ancient, say I’m mad, Say the costume doesn’t fit me,
Say that Santa drinks, but add, Jenny hit me.
Thomas Wolfe
Possibly not a poet of the first rank, but related on his mother’s side to two members of the Literature Board, one of whom is a publisher and the other an arts adviser to the Bicentennial. Wolfe wrote approximately four poems and now lives in Tuscany.THE BURIAL OF SURGEON MOORE AT NARRUNGA
Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note
As his mortal remains we carried,
From the secret laboratory round to his house
To the woman to whom he was married.
‘Begging your pardon,’ we said to his wife,
‘Your husband appears to have carked it,
We’ve brought all his papers and tapers and things
And the ute is outside where he parked it.
There’s nothing unsafe about nuclear testing,
Be perfectly clear about that,
He might have said otherwise but he was wrong,
Here, look at the hole in his hat.’
Warren Keats
An unashamedly modern poet whose interest is in marrying classical forms with contemporary themes. Warren’s promise is limitless if he can beat the grog.A CUSTOMARY TALE
There was a naughty boy
And a naughty boy was he,
He wandered up to Bangkok
The people for to see—
There he saw
That a whore
Was as pretty,
That a fight
Was as hitty,
That a kilo
Was as sold,
That a jail
Was as cold,
That a bribe
Was as taken,
That for
Was as saken,
That a lie
Was as sworn,
That a sucker
Was as born
Every minute—
So he sat in the dock
And he wonder’d
He wonder’d
He sat in the dock
And he wonder’d.
Fifteen Bobsworth Longfellow
Fifteen Bobsworth Longfellow was an Adelaide academic who wrote instructions for kit-set model products, mainly balsa wood aircraft and submarines which ran on baking powder. The manual included here was for the assembling of a twenty-five-foot aircraft carrier marketed by Myer stores between 1954 and 1960.MYER’S WHOPPER
Take the pieces from the package,
Lay them out as per the graph,
Gathering the bits you’ll need,
Removing what you shouldn’t have.
With the implement provided
Ease the bearings to the left,
Push the little angled mullion
Up into the socket ‘F’.
This will free the moulded bracket
Holding back the nylon strand,
Draw the slippery hoop and coupling
Through the right-hand rubber-band.
Put the topside brown side outside,
Push the inside upside down,
Underneath the left-hand wingnut,
Press the folding backward crown.
Overlapping lifting side-flaps
Lower in to fit the screws,
Pack up tools, retire to distance,
Don protective hat, light fuse.
Ted Lear
Ted Lear popularised limericks in his A Book of Rubbish, although tragically he failed to recognise that the way to make them work was to have a filthy last line.LIMERICKS
There was an old man with a beard,
A funny old man with a beard,
He had a big beard,
A great big old beard,
That amusing old man with a beard.
——————
There once was a woman whose hat,
Was a regular brute of a hat,
Oh a hat she did wear,
On the top of her hair,
And everyone said ‘Look! A hat!’
——————
There was an old fellow from Bong,
Who hailed in the first place from Bong,
From Bong did he come,
With Bongolian rum,
That humorous old fellow from Bong.
——————
There was an old man with a bird,
Who was an old man with a bird,
The bird with the man,
Confessed, ‘It’s absurd,
I’m the bird with the man with the bird!’
——————
There was an old man with a goat,
An amusing old man with a goat,
The man with the goat,
Was a man with a goat,
That interesting old man with a goat.
——————
There once was this doctor called Jones,
A medical doctor, named Jones,
And this Doctor Jones,
This doctor, this Jones,
Was a crazy old doctor called Jones.
As well as writing limericks, Ted Lear has left us with some of the most enchanting nonsense verse in the language.THE PIBBLEDY-POBBLEDY MAN
When the Yonghy Bonghy’s singly fat
On the coast of the Fimbly Far,
And the beauteous Lady Jingly’s hat
Looks up at the evening star.
He weeps alone on the shingly shore,
He pumpkinly goes for a walk,
Drinks his marsala through calico straws,
He haveth a runcible dork.
Rapidly numerous,
Vapidly humorous,
He mourns with a sweet guitar,
The wonderful pussy is loved by the owl
Who feels a complete galah.
When the Yonghy Bonghy has lost his way,
The birds make a nest in his beard,
He sits in the afternoon-tea tree,
And regrets it is just as he feared.
William McGonigall
William McGonigall was once a familiar sight around the universities, where he wrote and
