While The Billy BoilsSearchI wish that Time could bring againTo Letters--and so give to Art--The healthy humour of Mark Twain,The kindly scamps of poor Bret Harte!This worship of the Things That Are,These lazy pens of Let it Bide--These would-be makers who but marHave held their sway since Dickens died.
Oh, we are wise, and "realise",We study men and things, and know--Just in the sense that fools grew wiseThree thousand weary years ago.We sit beneath the fraud and fool,With poisoned minds in manhood's prime,While children prattle home from school,As happy as in Pharaoh's time!
We want no God, but many a god,And we want many gods and none--The preacher by the upturned sodShall pray, when all is said and done.We make a noble thing of sin--We've found the "Truth" (for aught I know),Since we, as children, tip-toed inWhen late to "chapel" long ago.
We part the husband and the wife,And make a filthy thing of love.We make a "problem" of grand Life!Despite the shining signs above.We "scoff at gale" or "rail at fate",Or rave and rant with rotten lung,But Jim and Mary at the gateAre young as when the world was young.
There's gold, and passing fame in storeFor those with "clever books" to give,But I would win me back once moreTo where my working people live.Where evening, coming on apace,Brings father and the boys to seeThe mother bustling round the place,And Mary "dishing" up the "tea".