While The Billy BoilsSearch“I never nursed a dear gazelle,”The decomposing poet rhymed,“But when it came to know me wellThe high-up, heavenly stairs he climbed.”The last line may not be correct —It may be off its quoting feet —But what, dear souls, can you expectWhen singing in a Sunday sheet?But let me say and let me sighI’ve rarely known a barmaid fair —One with a loving languorous eye,A star amid the three-star there —But when her soul I tried to wooWith sentimental metaphors,Commercially she’d coyly coo —“Wot’s yors?”
“Wot’s yors?” she’d ask in keen demand,When unto her my heart I’d bared,When I had held her shapely handAnd everlasting love declared;When I’d recited her as mineSome verses penned by other peas:When I had toasted her in wine(McShicker’s pints with bread and cheese);When I had her sweet face comparedTo goddesses of ages dim;When I had all my classics airedThat cost my pa two hundred jim;When in an oratoric verseI’d windmilled my poetic paws,My song was shattered with her terse —“Wot’s yors?”
How often have I wandered in(Your bar-room bardlet never walks)To find her fixing someone’s pin,Around her feet some Moet corks?The clod whose necktie she must fixWas knocking down a cattle cheque,While we were spending next to nixYet wanted all the quarter-deck!And when she went to change her dressAnd, inter alia, slip him up),We steered him to a small recessAnd made him hark to “Kissing Cup” —We gave him Lawson, Banjo P.,And Louis Becke on coral shores,Until in self-defence said he —“Wot’s yors?”
We’ve also sought the tender sighOf sweet, neat-handed Abigail,When we discussed our tea and pie,Our senile scone and ginger-ale.We’ve sung to her with fire and forceOf gallant Gordens of that ilk,The while she asked. “Oo spilt the sorce,An’ put the mustard in the milk?We murmured as she came along,With tender looks and tenderer tone,Some snatches of Venetian songWe learned from father’s gramophone;Like some long-dead Castilian don.We hummed a lay of sunny shores,Until at last she snapped, “Come on —Wot’s yors?”
’Twas ever thus, as I remarkedWhen I this sonnet sad began;The bar-room Byron nipped and narked,Becomes a sour and sorry man.What use to quote the inky yelpOf Ella Wheeler’s message high.The comfort of the lady-helpWho hugs the boss upon the sly?What use your rhyming brain to rackWhere Hebe pumps the amber rill,If she remarks, “You owe a zac;Your I.O.U. is in the till”!The Omar lines you say you wroteTouch not their scheming sordid cores,As they remark, “Doan act ther goat —Wot’s yors?”