While The Billy BoilsSearch’Twas by the sandy Crawley SpitHis eye upon his float,I saw a fishing person sitWithin a fishing boat.And glancing upwards from my book,From one of many yawns,I saw him bait his barb’rous hookWith one of many prawns.“O man,” said I, in tones of woe,“In these thine hours of ease,Is there no gentler sport, you knowThan death by slow degrees?What joy is there in murd’ring mulletWith your lines and rod?”Again with barbs behind his gulletCame a wriggling cod.
I also noticed by the smellsAnd firewood on the shore,That he’d been boiling in their shellsCrustaceans by the score.In kerosene and other tinsThat litter picnic lawns,Floated the fragments of the skinsOf crayfish, crabs and prawns.“O, man,” again repeated I,“What pleasure can you gainIn watching helpless creatures dieIn agonising pain?”He hauled his hooks from out the seaHis skiff ashore he ran,“Behold,” said he, “behold in me,A disappointed man.”
“But you have here enough of fish,”Said I, and counted ten,“To satisfy the whim and wishOf ordinary men.Has fortune then denied you drossAnd gifts from heaven above?”“Not so,” he cried, “my only lossIs lasting, lingering love.No matter who or what the girlMy fancy falls upon,I merely clasp my precious pearlTo lose her later on.And this lone, sandy, stormy spot,Where Swanny surges roll,Remains the one where I have notSevered from some sweet soul.
“At all the others — Applecross,Point Walter and the rest,My loving heart has suffered lossBenumbed has been my breast.From Cottesloe to Canning Bridge,From Perth to Blackwall Reach,Romance abides on every ridgeSacred to some sweet peach.Mount Henry’s heights were dear to meWith all its gullies green,Till at that spot a sobbing sheI left in anguish keen.I can’t forget our farewell climbWhen sighing by my side,She said her people thought it timeShe made some bloke a bride.
“Once Como had a call for meTill on its shelving shore,Sweet Sarah Jane I there set freeTo swim with me no more.The weary world seems out of jointAnd Nature tolled her knell,When on the wharf at Coffee PointI bade good-bye to Belle.I first squeezed Fanny’s fairy handBy muddy Brewery BayAnd left her sobbing on the sandWhere Bull’s Creek winds its way.The nymph on Naughty Nedlands shore,The spindle-legged youth,Bring sorrow to my cankered coreWhen I remember Ruth.
“I’m sad when I survey the sea,And when I look on land;The world is mournful now to me,On each and every hand.And can you wonder that I pineWhen picnic parties passKnowing the darlings who will dineAnd gambol on the grass?From every sentimental scene,I turn away in tearsThat calls unto my memory keenMy lost departed dears.And when I’m boiling crabs alive,I wish that they could beThe coves who came along to wiveThe maidens meant for me!”