My Lady is Waiting for Me [poem by Grant Hervey]

[Editor: This poem by Grant Hervey was published in Australians Yet and Other Verses, 1913.]

My Lady is Waiting for Me

Away with the red wine and thyrsus —
O ! a truce to the writing of verses —
My lady is waiting for Me !
Take the books and the magas and poems,
Their ends and their middles and proems
Must gird on my raiment and gee.
Can’t tarry a single half-minute,
Or I shall be properly “in” it —
My Sweetheart’s a-waiting for Me !

Take the bottles and corkscrews and glasses —
Pile the corks on the mantel in masses ;
My best girl is waiting for ME !
Away with the hazard and poker —
O tear up the deuce and the joker —
It’s time for yours truly to flee !
His coat and his hat and malacca
Farewell to the booze and the ’bacca :
His heart’s love’s a-waiting for He !

She’s waiting around at her gate, Sir —
Must walk at a rapid old rate, Sir :
My darling is waiting for Me !
Can’t stop to take cash or pay bills, man —
I’m after a cargo of frills, man ;
Get out o’ my daylight quicklee !
Must haste to a creature Elysian,
The sweetest and neatest she-vision :
MY BEST GIRL
IS WAITING
FOR ME !

Source:
Grant Hervey. Australians Yet and Other Verses, Thomas C. Lothian, Melbourne, 1913, pages 97-98

Editor’s notes:
Elysian = blissful, delightful; a reference to Elysium (also known as the Elysian Fields) of Greek mythology, as a conception of an indulgent afterlife for the righteous and the heroic

quicklee = presumably an alternate spelling of “quickly”

thyrsus = from Greek mythology, a staff tipped with a pine cone and twined with ivy, carried by Dionysus, Dionysian revelers, and satyrs; in this context, presumably a reference to revelry