[Editor: This poem by Louisa Lawson was published in “The Lonely Crossing” and Other Poems (1905).]
“Another for the Queen.”
When you have sunk a score of holes,
And drove a hundred more,
And every blessed one has been
Worse than the one before;
And when on top of this the store
Turns off the tucker “tick,”
’Tis time for you to throw aside
The shovel, dish, and pick —
And take the tightest pinch of all
From dire misfortune’s screw;
And humbly barrack for a job
The hated cockatoo.
And if you get it after all,
You’ll stagger at his cheek
To offer you a ration mean,
And twelve-and-six a week.
Then will your thoughts go sweeping back
Across the dreary sea,
To where the finger-points of time
Show what can never be.
And clearly you, with mental eye,
See far across the main
The perfect home, the gentle friends,
And loves of “ne’er again.”
Ah! then you think the fiends in hell
Have consciousness serene —
Compared with one who sunk his all,
In “duffers for the Queen.”
Source:
Louisa Lawson, “The Lonely Crossing” and Other Poems, Sydney: Dawn Office, [1905], pp. 31-32
Editor’s notes:
barrack = lobby, persuade, pressure
blessed = an exclamatory oath; “bloody” was the most common expletive used in colonial times (and afterwards), but it was regarded as so rude and uncouth that it could not be printed
cockatoo = a farmer (the term was used to refer to poor bush farmers, from having land so poor that they were jokingly said to only be able to farm cockatoos, a type of bird; however, it was later used to refer to farmers in general) (also rendered as “cockie” and “cocky”)
drove = past tense of “drive” (e.g. to have driven a hole into the ground, such as in the context of mining)
duffer = a non-paying or unproductive mine
main = the high sea, the open ocean
ne’er = (vernacular) an archaic contraction of “never”
score = twenty (sometimes used in conjunction with a cardinal number, e.g. “threescore”, “fourscore”) (may also refer to an undefined large number)
tick = credit; often expressed as to buy something “on tick” (from the term “ticket”, used for a written acknowledgment of a debt)
’tis = (archaic) a contraction of “it is”
tucker = food
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