Poems by Edward Dyson

All Poems Original Poems Translations

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Billy Khaki

Marching somewhat out of order

when the band is cock-a-hoop,

There's a lilting kind of magic in the swagger

of the troop,

Swinging all aboard the steamer with her

nose toward the sea.

What is calling, Billy Khaki, that you're foot-

ing it so free?

116

by Edward Dyson

Simple Sister Goes To Sydney

When Flo resolved to go to town from brothers three a yell went up,

Predicting ruin and distress. Bill in his horror dropped a cup.

“Gorstruth!” he said, “in Sydney there what is a simple girl to do?

They took me down. I lost me watch and seven quid. What ‘ope for you?”

Ben turned on her in pale dismay. “Look here, me girl, ain’t you bin told

How one iv them there spieler blokes done me for twenty pound in gold?

He was as nice a gentleman as any in the blessed shops:

He got away with all I had, and took a luner at the cops.”

164

by Edward Dyson

How Herman Won The Cross

Once in a blue eternity they gave us

dabs of rum

To close the seams 'n' keep the flume in

liquor-tight condition;

But, soft 'n' sentimental, when the long, cold

evenin's come,

I'd dream me nibs was dronking' to the height

of his ambition,

161

Edward Dyson

Marshal Neigh, VC

He came from tumbled country past the

humps of Buffalo

Where the snow sits on the mountain 'n' the

Summer aches below.

He'd a silly name like Archie. Squattin'

sullen on the ship,

He knew nex' to holy nothin' through the gor-

forsaken trip.

120

Edward Dyson

Battered Bob

HE WAS working on a station in the Western when I knew him,

And he came from Conongamo, up the old surveyors’ track,

And the fellows all admitted that no man in Vic. could ‘do him,’

Since he’d smothered Stonewall Menzie, also Anderson, the black.

Bob was modelled for a fighter, but he’d run to beef a trifle;

For his science every rouseabout was satisfied to vouch,

And Red Fogarty advised us he delivered like a rifle,

And his stopping—well, beside him Harry Sallars was a slouch.

115

Edward Dyson

A New Girl Up At White’s

THERE’S a fresh track down the paddock

Through the lightwoods to the creek,

And I notice Billy Craddock

And Maloney do not speak,

And The Snag is slyly bitter

When he’s criticising Bill,

And there’s quite a foreign glitter

On the fellows at the mill.

142

Edward Dyson

A Poor Joke

‘NO, you can’t count me in, boys; I’m off it—

I’m jack of them practical jokes;

They give neither pleasure nor profit,

And the fellers that plays them are mokes.

I’ve got sense, though I once was a duffer,

And I fooled up my share, I allow,

But since conscience has made me to suffer—

She’s pegging away at me now.

147

Edward Dyson

German Joe

SKIRTING the swamp and the tangled scrub,

Tramping and turning amidst the trees,

Carrying nothing but blankets and grub,

Careless of pleasure and health and ease,

Hither and thither with never a goal,

Heavy, and solemn, and stiff, and slow,

Seeking a track and a long-lost line,

‘Blazed avay to dot lead of mine,’—

102

Edward Dyson

In ‘The Benevolent’

‘I’M OFF on the wallaby!’ cries Old Ben,

And his pipe is lit, and his swag is rolled;

‘There is nothing here for us old-time men,

But up north, I hear, they are on the gold.’

And he shuffles off with a feeble stride,

With his ragged swag and his billy black.

He is making tracks for the other side,

O’er the river deep, or the Great Divide;

116

Edward Dyson

Ah Ling, The Leper

UP a dark and fetid alley, where the offal and the slime

Of a brave and blusterous city met its misery and crime,

In a hovel reeking pestilence, and noisome as the grave,

Dwelt Ah Ling, the Chinese joiner, and the sweater’s willing slave.

Squatting down amongst the shavings, with his chisel and his plane,

Through the long, hot days of striving, dead to pleasure and to pain,

Like a creature barely human, very yellow, gaunt, and grim,

Ah Ling laboured on, for pleasure spread no lures that tempted him.

144

Edward Dyson

The Church Bells

The Viennese authorities have melted down

the great bell in St. Stephen's to supply metal

for guns or muntions. Every poor village

has made a similar gift.—Lokal Anzeiger.

The great bell booms across the town,

Reverberant and slow,

And drifting from their houses down

The calm-eyed people go.

103

Edward Dyson

The Crusaders

What price yer humble, Dicko Smith,

in gaudy putties girt,

With sand-blight in his optics, and much

leaner than he started,

Round the 'Oly Land cavorting in three-

quarters of a shirt,

And imposin' on the natives ez one Dick

the Lion 'Earted?

100

Edward Dyson