• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

The Institute of Australian Culture

Heritage, history, and heroes; literature, legends, and larrikins

  • Home
  • Articles
  • Biographies
  • Books
  • Ephemera
  • Poetry & songs
  • Slang
  • Timeline
  • Topics
    • Anzac Day
    • Australia Day
    • Australian Aborigines
    • Australianism
    • Australian literature
    • The Eureka Rebellion
    • Explorers
    • Significant events and commemorative dates

Billy Vickers [poem by Henry Kendall]

31 December 2016 · Leave a Comment

[Editor: This poem by Henry Kendall was published in Songs from the Mountains (1880).]

Billy Vickers.

No song is this of leaf and bird
And gracious waters flowing —
I’m sick at heart, for I have heard
Big Billy Vickers “blowing.”

He’d never take a leading place
In chambers legislative:
This booby with the vacant face —
This hoddy-doddy native!

Indeed, I’m forced to say aside
To you, O reader, solely,
He only wants the horns and hide
To be a bullock wholly.

But, like all noodles, he is vain;
And, when his tongue is wagging,
I feel inclined to copy Cain,
And drop him for his bragging.

He, being bush bred, stands of course
Six feet his dirty socks in.
His lingo is confined to horse,
And plough, and pig, and oxen.

Two years ago, he’d less to say
Within his little circuit;
But now he has, besides a dray
A team of twelve to work it.

No wonder is it that he feels
Inclined to clack and rattle
About his bullocks and his wheels —
He owns a dozen cattle.

In short, to be exact and blunt,
In his own estimation
He’s “out-and-out” the head and front
Top-sawyer of creation!

For, mark me, he can “sit a buck”
For hours and hours together;
And never horse has had the luck
To pitch him from the leather.

If ever he should have a “spill”
Upon the grass or gravel,
Be sure of this, the saddle will
With Billy Vickers travel.

At punching oxen, you may guess
There’s nothing out can “camp” him:
He has, in fact, the slouch and dress
Which bullock-driver stamp him.

I do not mean to give offence,
But I have vainly striven
To ferret out the difference
’Twixt driver and the driven.

Of course, the statements herein made
In every other stanza
Are Billy’s own; and I’m afraid
They’re stark extravaganza.

I feel constrained to treat as trash
His noisy fiddle-faddle
About his doings with the lash —
His feats upon the saddle.

But grant he “knows his way about,”
Or grant that he is silly,
There cannot be the slightest doubt
Of Billy’s faith in Billy.

Of all the doings of the day
His ignorance is utter;
But he can quote the price of hay —
The current rate of butter.

His notions of our leading men
Are mixed and misty very:
He knows a Cochin-China hen —
He never speaks of Berry.

As you’ll assume, he hasn’t heard
Of Madame Patti’s singing;
But, I will stake my solemn word,
He knows what maize is bringing.

Surrounded by majestic peaks —
By lordly mountain ranges,
Where highest voice of thunder speaks —
His aspect never changes.

The grand Pacific there beyond
His dirty hut is glowing:
He only sees a big salt pond,
O’er which his grain is going.

The sea that covers half the sphere,
With all its stately speeches,
Is held by Bill to be a mere
Broad highway for his peaches.

Through Nature’s splendid temples he
Plods, under mountains hoary;
But he has not the eyes to see
Their grandeur and their glory.

A bullock in a biped’s boot,
I iterate, is Billy!
He crushes with a careless foot
The touching water-lily.

I’ve said enough — I’ll let him go!
If he could read these verses,
He’d pepper me for hours, I know,
With his peculiar curses.

But this is sure, he’ll never change
His manners loud and “flashy;”
Nor learn with neatness to arrange
His clothing cheap and trashy.

Like other louts, he’ll jog along,
And swig at shanty liquors,
And chew and spit. Here ends the song
Of Mr. Billy Vickers.



Source:
Henry Kendall, Songs from the Mountains, Sydney: William Maddock, 1880, pages 80-86

Editor’s notes:
Berry = Graham Berry (1822-1904) English-born Victorian politician; Premier of Victoria (1875, 1877-1880, 1880-1881)

biped = a two-footed animal; an animal that walks on two feet (from “bi”, meaning twice or double, and “pedis”, meaning “foot”); in the context of people, a reference to a human

blow = boast

Cain = the oldest of the two sons of Adam and Eve (according to the Bible, in the Book of Genesis, Cain murdered Abel, and thus the word Cain became associated with murder)

flash = showy, vulgar; fashionable or showy, but often in a way that shows a lack of taste

hoary = a descriptive term for someone or something which is old or ancient; someone with grey or white hair; something grey or white in colour

leather = in the context of horse-riding, a leather saddle

maize = a cereal plant (Zea mays), also known as “corn”

Mr. = an abbreviation of “Mister”

o’er = over (pronounced the same as “oar”, “or”, and “ore”)

Pacific = the Pacific Ocean

shanty = a pub, especially an unlicensed pub; may also refer to a small roughly-built cabin or hut

[Editor: Changed “salt pond.” to “salt pond,” (replaced full stop with a comma).]

Filed Under: poetry Tagged With: Henry Kendall (author) (1839-1882), poem, Songs from the Mountains (Henry Kendall 1880), SourceIACLibrary, year1880

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Australian flag, 100hThe Institute of Australian Culture
Heritage, history, and heroes. Literature, legends, and larrikins. Stories, songs, and sages.

Featured books

The Man from Snowy River and Other Verses, by Banjo Paterson A Book for Kids, by C. J. Dennis  The Bulletin Reciter: A Collection of Verses for Recitation from The Bulletin The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke, by C. J. Dennis The Complete Inner History of the Kelly Gang and Their Pursuers, by J. J. Kenneally The Foundations of Culture in Australia, by P. R. Stephensen The Australian Crisis, by C. H. Kirmess Such Is Life, by Joseph Furphy
More books (full text)

Featured lists

Timeline of Australian history and culture
A list of significant Australiana
Significant events and commemorative dates
Australian slang
Books (full text)
Australian literature
Rock music and pop music (videos)
Folk music and bush music (videos)
Early music (videos)
Recommended poetry
Poetry and songs, 1786-1900
Poetry and songs, 1901-1954
Australian explorers
Topics
Links

Featured posts

Advance Australia Fair: How the song became the Australian national anthem
Brian Cadd [music videos and biography]
Ned Kelly: Australian bushranger
Under the Southern Cross I Stand [the Australian cricket team’s victory song]

Some Australian authors

E. J. Brady
John Le Gay Brereton
C. J. Dennis
Mary Hannay Foott
Joseph Furphy
Mary Gilmore
Charles Harpur
Grant Hervey
Lucy Everett Homfray
Rex Ingamells
Henry Kendall
“Kookaburra”
Henry Lawson
Jack Moses
“Dryblower” Murphy
John Shaw Neilson
John O’Brien (Patrick Joseph Hartigan)
“Banjo” Paterson
Marie E. J. Pitt
A. G. Stephens
P. R. Stephensen
Agnes L. Storrie (Agnes L. Kettlewell)

Recent Posts

  • Vale! Percy Mahoney [by H. A. Burton, 14 December 1950]
  • Early-day sportsman’s death [obituary of Percy Mahoney, 7 December 1950]
  • Visits to the IAC site from various countries
  • Poems by J. Shaw Neilson [book review, 22 December 1923]
  • “Australia in Palestine” [book review, 6 November 1919]

Top Posts & Pages

  • Poetry and songs, 1786-1900
  • Rommel’s comments on Australian soldiers [1941-1942]
  • The Bastard from the Bush [poem, circa 1900]
  • The Man from Snowy River [poem by Banjo Paterson]
  • Australian slang

Categories

Archives

Posts of note

The Bastard from the Bush [poem, circa 1900]
A Book for Kids [by C. J. Dennis, 1921]
Click Go the Shears [traditional Australian song, 1890s]
Core of My Heart [“My Country”, poem by Dorothea Mackellar, 24 October 1908]
Freedom on the Wallaby [poem by Henry Lawson, 16 May 1891]
The Man from Ironbark [poem by Banjo Paterson]
Nationality [poem by Mary Gilmore, 12 May 1942]
The Newcastle song [music video, sung by Bob Hudson]
No Foe Shall Gather Our Harvest [poem by Mary Gilmore, 29 June 1940]
Our pipes [short story by Henry Lawson]
Rommel’s comments on Australian soldiers [1941-1942]
Shooting the moon [short story by Henry Lawson]

Recent Comments

  • Rawlinson R on Rommel’s comments on Australian soldiers [1941-1942]
  • Mike Gregory on Australian slang
  • Peter Morgan on Rise of the wool industry: John Macarthur’s work for Australia [chapter 10 of “The story of Australia” by Martin Hambleton]
  • raymond on Ballad and Lyrical Poems [by John Shaw Neilson, 1923]
  • IAC on Ballad and Lyrical Poems [by John Shaw Neilson, 1923]

Search this site



For Australia


Copyright © 2022 · Log in