A Big “Bust” [poem by Edward Dyson]

[Editor: This poem by Edward Dyson was published in The Bulletin Reciter, 1901.]

A Big “Bust.”

The wildest bust I ever struck,” the lean old bushman said,
“Was run up by a gentleman they christened Heavy Ned.

“A s’perior sort o’ person — which they often is the worst —
With Gehenner and the Tropics planted in him fer a thirst.

“To try an’ quench that thirst by pourin’ liquor in his shirt
Was like a-irrigatin’ the Sahara with a squirt.

“He went out on a bust one time, an’ when the devils come
He scooted for the plain with ’arf a yard o’ Hogan’s rum.

“An’ there he held his jamboree for fourteen days, I swear,
An’ jim-jams swarmed from all the world like locusts in the air.

“It was a noble levee. In the middle of a ring
Ned sat in state, receivin’ of his jim-jams, like a king.”

“Two weeks?” a doubter murmured — “Why, he’d starve. What did he eat ?”
“He caught the fantods,” said old Jim, “an’ ate the beggars neat.”

“The fantods? Rats! They was n’t real.” The old man answered : “So,
Of course, they was n’t real, my lad, but how was he to know?”

Edward Dyson.

Source:
A.G. Stephens (editor). The Bulletin Reciter: A Collection of Verses for Recitation from “The Bulletin” [1880-1901], The Bulletin Newspaper Company, Sydney, 1902 [first published 1901], pages 143-144