This ev’nin’ I was sittin’ wiv Doreen,
Peaceful an’ ‘appy wiv the day’s work done,
Watchin’, be’ind the orchard’s bonzer green,
The flamin’ wonder of the settin’ sun.

Another day gone by; another night
Creepin’ along to douse Day’s golden light;
Another dawning when the night is gone,
To live an’ love — an’ so life mooches on.

Times I ‘ave thought, when things was goin’ crook,
When ‘Ope turned nark an’ Love forgot to smile,
Of somethin’ I once seen in some old book
Where an ole sorehead arsts, “Is life worf w’ile?”

But in that stillness, as the day grows dim,
An’ I am sittin’ there wiv ‘er an’ ‘im—
My wife, my son! an’ strength in me to strive,
I only know — it’s good to be alive!

Yeh live, yeh love, yeh learn; an’ when yeh come
To square the ledger in some thortful hour,
The everlastin’ answer to the sum
Must allus be, “Where’s sense in gittin’ sour?”

Fer when yeh’ve come to weigh the good an’ bad —
The gladness wiv the sadness you ‘ave ‘ad —
Then ‘im ‘oo’s faith in ‘uman goodness fails
Fergits to put ‘is liver in the scales.

Livin’ an’ loving learnin’ day be day;
Pausin’ a minute in the barmy strife
To find that ‘elpin’ others on the way
Is gold coined fer your profit — sich is life.

I’ve studied books wiv yearnings to improve,
To ‘eave meself out of me lowly groove,
An’ ‘ere is orl the change I ever got:
“‘Ark at yer ‘eart, an’ you kin learn the lot.”

I gives it in — that wisdom o’ the mind —
I wasn’t built to play no lofty part.
Orl such is welkim to the joys they find;
I only know the wisdom o’ the ‘eart.

An’ ever it ‘as taught me, day be day,
The one same lesson in the same ole way:
“Look fer yer profits in the ‘earts o’ friends,
Fer ‘atin’ never paid no dividends.”

Life’s wot yeh make it; an’ the bloke ‘oo tries
To grab the shinin’ stars frum out the skies
Goes crook on life, an’ calls the world a cheat,
An’ tramples on the daisies at ‘is feet.

But when the moon comes creepin’ o’er the hill,
An’ when the mopoke calls along the creek,
I takes me cup o’ joy an’ drinks me fill,
An’ arsts meself wot better could I seek.

An’ ev’ry song I ‘ear the thrushes sing
That everlastin’ message seems to bring;
An’ ev’ry wind that whispers in the trees
Gives me the tip there ain’t no joys like these:

Livin’ an’ loving wand’rin’ on yeh way;
Reapin’ the ‘arvest of a kind deed done;
An’ watching in the sundown of yer day,
Yerself again, grown nobler in yer son.

Knowin’ that ev’ry coin o’ kindness spent
Bears interest in yer ‘eart at cent per cent;
Measurin’ wisdom by the peace it brings
To simple minds that values simple things.

An’ when I take a look along the way
That I ‘ave trod, it seems the man knows best,
Who’s met wiv slabs of sorrer in ‘is day,
When ‘e is truly rich an’ truly blest.

An’ I am rich, becos me eyes ‘ave seen
The lovelight in the eyes of my Doreen;
An’ I am blest, becos me feet ‘ave trod
A land ‘oo’s fields reflect the smile o’ God.

Livin’ an’ lovin’; learnin’ to fergive
The deeds an’ words of some un’appy bloke
Who’s missed the bus — so ‘ave I come to live,
An’ take the ‘ole mad world as ‘arf a joke.

Sittin’ at ev’nin’ in this sunset-land,
Wiv ‘Er in all the World to ‘old me ‘and,
A son, to bear me name when I am gone…
Livin’ an’ lovin’ — so life mooches on.

We present this work in honor of Western Australia Day.

 

I saw a ploughman against the sky,
The wind of the sea in his horses’ manes,
And the share it was shod with gold;
Down to the sea, on the curve of the hill.
A foam of gulls in the furrow.
The ploughman walking behind his plough.
I heard the cry of the wave in the throats of the gulls,
Far off cry like the voice from a shell,
Yet beating down on me out of the trees,
Out of the net of the leafless trees.
I watched the ploughman stooping behind his plough.
As if Tune crouched on his shoulders there on the hill;
As if he had ploughed all yesterday, when the ships
Sailed fleecy into the harbour down below;
As if he had ploughed all the day before
When men were bright with steel in the valley.
With steel as bright as a winter sky
When the sun ebbs under the rim of the sea;
Ploughing, ploughing, ploughing the bones of
the centuries into the earth:
All pain yielded up in the sigh of the gulls;
Sorrow hid beneath poppy and dock,
To be soothed by the tremulous flame of the corn in spring.
The ploughman was singing, yet wordless his song,
For words are forgotten while thrushes’ notes linger
And music of water is graven in stone.
All is forgotten: the tramping of soldiers;
And proud white list of the clippers from China;
Only the ploughman remains as he follows
The plumed and glistening path of his furrow
Over the field that is strown with gulls.

 

A ray of light, to an oblique observer,
Remains invisible in pure dry air;
But shone into a turbid element
It throws distracting side-gleams everywhere

And is diminished by what takes the eye.
So poetry that moves by chance collision
Scatters its brightness at each random mote
And mars the lucid order of its vision.

The purest meditation will appear
Faint or invisible to those who glance
Obliquely at its unreflected beam.

 

I was annoyed with myself for
Saying I loved her, because
What I wanted, then, was
Less, or more.

And it was no fun
Putting her head in a whirl;
She was such a quiet girl;
It’s not done.

Anyhow, I didn’t do it;
I just kissed her, and then
Tried not to see her again,
Feeling rather a brute.

Perhaps I should have gone
Through with it; she’d have had
One sin, when she was old and sad,
To congratulate herself on.

But I remember, I thought at the time:
You’d better not;
They hang on to what they’ve got
Like birdlime.

You eat the fruit and sing;
When you’ve had enough,
They talk all about love,
And you’re caught there, twittering;

Afraid to look her in the face,
Afraid of what people may say,
Afraid of her relations all day,
And at night, of an imagined disgrace;

Or you have her tagged on to you
For the term of your natural life,
And have to say, “This is my wife;
This is the best I could do”;

And somehow in the end you find
She sits like an over-ripe tomato,
Or walks like a scarecrow,
Because of her beautiful mind:

Like something or other; like a red crystal
Dropped into the pellucid cup
Of a man’s life; time melts it up,
And the lying purple permeates all.

I have seen how many a match
Has gone this way; how an honest man
With a clear mind, can
Turn slowly to a lovely purple patch.

Sometimes I wish I could myself; but
I should not easily come to heel,
I feel, and I feel
I should feel I was getting into a rut.

So perhaps it’s all in the best. interest
Of girls in general; for their part
They take heart;
Indeed, they seem singularly unimpressed

While I sit wearily in my sitting room
And watch the virtuous hands of the clock
Turning the afternoon into a lock
On shadows coinciding with my gloom.

It’s the way I’m made,
Probably. God knows.
As the twig’s bent, it grows,
I’m afraid.