• 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
    • Recommended poetry
    • Poetry and songs, 1786-1900
    • Poetry and songs, 1901-1954
    • Rock music and pop music [videos]
    • Early music [videos]
  • Slang
  • Timeline
    • Timeline of Australian history and culture
    • Calendar of Australian history and culture
    • Significant events and commemorative dates
  • Topics

White! [poem by “Dryblower” Murphy, 1926]

7 June 2014 · Leave a Comment

[Editor: This poem by “Dryblower” Murphy was published in Dryblower’s Verses (1926).]

White!

With a gash in her bows and her screws a-flail
She poised for the drowning dive,
But never a sea-bronzed face turned pale
In that shuddering steel-walled hive.
Never a pistol had need to leap
Dead plumb at a coward’s brain,
Never a cutlass needs to sweep
Where white men march the main.
“Hurry up, missus! Come along, kid!
Steady!” the bosun calls,
Till the last rough pair of hands have slid
The strands of the swaying falls.

Not from corrupt Calcutta,
Nor starving Seringapatam;
Not from the Ganges’ gutter
Where leprous hordes salaam;
Men from the English seaport towns,
Found in a tap-room fight,
But men, by God! who are British at heart —
British and brave and white!

The found’ring hull sinks slowly down
Beneath the summer skies;
They watch her fo’c’sle dip and drown,
They watch her rudder rise.
The waters wash around her waist
As the lifeboats shoreward steer,
But there isn’t s quiver of craven haste
Nor a flutter of faint-heart fear.
The bowmen pilot with lifted hand,
The helmsmen steering aft,
Till a gap in the reef that fangs the sand
Accepts the crowded craft.

Eight hundred feet spring glad and light
To the sandy, shallowing beach,
While the worth of a million sovereigns bright
Slips down from human reach
But never a precious life is lost,
Never a drowning cry
To tell of another holocaust
Where hundreds choke and die.
So over the world, and round the world,
Shall cheers the silence crack
Wherever a flag is flown and furled
On ships that ban the black.

* * *

Not from corrupt Calcutta,
Nor starving Seringapatam;
Not from the Ganges’ gutter
Where leprous hordes salaam;
Men from the English seaport towns,
Found in a tap-room fight —
Men, by God! who are British at heart;
British and brave and white!




Source:
Edwin Greenslade Murphy, Dryblower’s Verses, Perth, W.A.: E. G. Murphy, 1926, pages 14-15

Previously published (with some differences) in:
The Sunday Times (Perth, WA), 3 April 1910, p. 6

Editor’s notes:
fang = (Old English, Old Norse) capture, grasp, grip, seize hold of (especially regarding booty or loot); also, a long tapering pointed animal tooth; a long tapering pointed item, shaped like an animal’s fang; (slang) a human tooth; (slang) to go fast, especially to drive fast (from Juan Manuel Fangio, 1911-1995, a famous Argentinian racing car driver, who was the preeminent world champion of Formula One racing)

fo’c’s’le = (a contraction of “forecastle”) the section of the upper deck of a vessel, at the bow, forward of the foremast, where the crew is quartered and stores located

Seringapatam = (also spelt Srirangapatna) a town located at the western end of Seringapatam Island in the Kaveri River (Cauvery River) in the state of Karnataka, India; from 1610 to 1799 it was the capital of the kingdom of Mysore, used as a fortress city, which was besieged by the British in the Third Anglo-Mysore War in 1792, and later besieged and captured by the British in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War in 1799 (Lachlan Macquarie, later Governor of New South Wales, was present at the 1799 siege)
See: 1) “Seringapatam”, Encyclopaedia Britannica (accessed 20 May 2014)
2) “Introduction” (Seringapatam 1799), Macquarie University (accessed 20 May 2014)
3) “Siege of Seringapatam (1792)”, Wikipedia (accessed 20 May 2014)
4) “Siege of Seringapatam (1799)”, Wikipedia (accessed 20 May 2014)

Filed Under: poetry Tagged With: Dryblower Murphy (1866-1939) (author), Dryblower’s Verses (Dryblower Murphy 1926), poem, SourceSLV, year1926

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

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

Primary Sidebar

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

Search this site

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

  • To Australia [poem by Ruby Jean Stephenson, 18 November 1943]
  • [General news items] [4 April 1912]
  • [Australia has had more than its share of shipping disasters of late] [4 April 1912]
  • [Probably Professor Marshall Hall was right] [4 April 1912]
  • Gold-seekers of the Fifties [1 July 1899]

Top Posts & Pages

  • The Man from Snowy River [poem by Banjo Paterson]
  • Our pipes [short story by Henry Lawson]
  • Australian slang
  • Poetry and songs, 1786-1900
  • Rommel’s comments on Australian soldiers [1941-1942]

Archives

Categories

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

  • IAC on How M’Ginnis Went Missing [poem by Banjo Paterson]
  • Stephen on How M’Ginnis Went Missing [poem by Banjo Paterson]
  • IAC on The late Louisa Lawson [by George Black, 2 October 1920]
  • Percy Delouche on Freedom on the Wallaby [poem by Henry Lawson, 16 May 1891]
  • Phil on The Man from Ironbark [poem by Banjo Paterson]

For Australia

Copyright © 2023 · Log in