While The Billy BoilsSearchThe gaunt earth gasps beneath the sunThat breathes hot Hades down,The scrub is burnt a dreary dun,The spinifex is brown.The track is lonely, hard and long,The soaks are far between,With not a shade of currajongTo break the swelt’ring sheen,But still, as on I lonely lopeBeyond the wide world’s ken,I storm not at my star of hopeOr envy merrier men.I do not whine as others mayOf money I’ve misused;Ah, no, I only think to-day,Of pints that I’ve refused!
In long seductive rows they standTheir metal all a-shine,As when I lorded in the land,Neglecting them for wine.I clutch them now in midnight dreams,I hear them ring and clink;I gulp their brown ambrosial streams,But waken as I drink.At noon, as I spell underneathMy hot arboreal homeI feel them lap against my teeth,I see them froth and foam.Alack, alas, in far-off spaceI find my wits have cruised,And luke-warm water takes the placeOf pints that I’ve refused!
From out the mulga shade I lookAcross the grave of years,To days where I unwilling tookSmall shandy-gaffs and beers,And when the stars upon me stareFrom out the dusky vault,There steals along the heated airThe scent of hops and malt.I conjure up the liquid feastIn brewery cellars cool,Where oft I’ve played amid the yeastThe dashed teetotal fool.My punishment is that of CainMy soul is self-accused,As hour by hour I count againThe pints that I’ve refused.
At dusk I do not weep or curseAs on my swag I sit,And vote this world a trifle worseThan deep Gehenna’s pit.I do not sigh for rippling rills,That babble through the ferns,Ah, no, for flowing frothy swillsMy thirsty thorax yearnsI recollect the sprees that irked,When shanties ran with schick;And as I think of drinks I’ve shirked,My mental self I kick.Yea, here amidst a beerless droughtMy heart with grief is bruised,When I in fancy figure outThe pints that I’ve refused.
I envy not the coaching crowdFor whom aside I’m thrust,I care not though with laughter loudThey spatter me with dust.No burning envy saps my soulThough penniless I tramp,As down the golden ounces rollFrom every mining camp.And when I’m dead, O bury meAfar from any pub,Lest I should haunt the crowd who spreeWithin the mulga scrub.For I’d emerge from where I’m gravedNor beg to be excused,While I my ghostly larynx lavedIn pints that I’ve refused!
Hot Sheol must consist, I think,Of long and pintless years,Where no poor sinful soul may drinkHis fill of cooling beers.The burning brimstone and the torchMay be for mulga men,But grant, O Satan, as I scorch,A tiddley now and then.Still, if Gehenna will not giveWhat I’m on earth denied,I may at last decide to liveWherein no souls are fried;And when Saint Peter at the doorMy passport has perused,He’ll put me, p’raps, where I may score,The pints that I’ve refused!