[Editor: This article, about the poems concerning “the dog on the tucker box” (of Gundagai fame), was published in The Wingham Chronicle, and Manning River Observer (Wingham, NSW), 17 June 1952.]
Dog on Tucker Box verses.
Mr. Les. Worth, of Elands, a member of the delegation which recently visited Batlow, has furnished us with a copy of the famous Dog on Tucker Box poems, which he obtained at Gundagai. They are:
Good morning, mate, you are too late,
The shearing is all over,
Tie up your dog behind the log,
Come in and have some dover.
For Nobby Jack has broke the yoke,
Poked out the leader’s eye,
And the dog —— in the tucker box,
Five miles from Gundagai.
As I was coming down Conroy’s Gap
I heard a maiden cry:
“There goes Bill the Bullocky,
He’s bound for Gundagai.
A better poor old ———
Never earn’t an honest crust,
A better poor old ———
Never drug a whip through dust.”His team got bogged at the Five Mile Creek,
Bill lashed and swore and cried:
“If Nobby don’t get me out of this,
I’ll tattoo his ——— hide.”
But Nobby strained and broke the yoke,
And poked out the leader’s eye,
Then the dog sat on the tuckerbox
Five miles from Gundagai.
Jack Moses’ poem.
I’ve done my share of shearing sheep,
Of droving and all that,
And bogged a bullock team as well,
On a Murrumbidgee flat.
I’ve seen the bullock stretch and strain,
And blink his bleary eye,
And the dog sat on the tucker box
Nine miles from Gundagai.I’ve been jilted, jarred and crossed in love,
And sandbagged in the dark,
Till, if a mountain fell on me,
I’d treat it as a lark.
It’s when you get your bullocks bogged,
That’s the time you flog and cry,
And the dog sits on the tucker box
Nine miles from Gundagai.We’ve all got our little troubles
In life’s hard, stony way,
Some strike them in a motor car,
And others in a dray.
But when your dog and bullocks strike,
It ain’t no apple pie —
And the dog sits on the tucker box
Nine miles from Gundagai.But all that’s past and dead and gone,
And I’ve sold the team for meat,
And perhaps some day where I was bogged,
There’ll be an asphalt street.
The dog? Ah, well, he got a bait,
And thought he’d like to die,
So we buried him in the tucker box
Nine miles from Gundagai.
Source:
The Wingham Chronicle, and Manning River Observer (Wingham, NSW), 17 June 1952, p. 4
Also published (with some differences) in:
Balonne Beacon (St. George, Qld.), 3 September 1953, p. 11
Editor’s notes:
Although it is not made clear in this article, the first stanza is one poem, the next two stanzas are a second poem; blockquotes have been used here so as to distinguish the poems from each other.
—— = two em dashes (or a variant number of em dashes) can be used to indicate swearing, just as “****”, “$#*!”, “#$@&%*!”, or similar, can indicate swearing (a series of typographical symbols used to indicate profanity is called a “grawlix”); an em dash is an extended dash (also known as an “em rule” or a “horizontal bar”), being a dash which is as wide as the height of the font being used (em dashes can also be used in place of a person’s name, so as to ensure anonymity; or used to indicate an unknown word)
bait = poison bait, such as that laid out for dingoes or foxes
bullocky = a driver of a bullock team
dover = an alternate name for the European sole, a type of flat fish, also known as Dover sole; any other type of flat fish (also known as: flounder, halibut, sole)
See: 1) Albert, “Types of flatfish: The complete guide”, Fishing Booker, 12 March 2021
2) “Sole (fish)”, Wikipedia
Les. = an abbreviation of the name “Leslie” or “Lester”
tucker = food
tucker box = a box to store food in (as well as cutlery, plates, mugs, napkins, etc.)
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