• 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

Stokin’ [poem by Quilp N]

22 September 2012 · Leave a Comment

[Editor: This poem by Quilp N (Will Lawson) was published in The Bulletin Reciter, 1901.]

Stokin’.

Stowed deep below the load-line —
Ten feet to twenty-five —
We face the glarin’ dazzle
And make good steam to drive.
Keepin’ the gauges steady
At near two hundred pound,
With scorching heat before us
And scorching steel all round.

And when an air-shoot ’s loafin’
Instead of suckin’ air,
We sneak on deck to fix it,
Then sling in coal an’ swear,

To the scrape, scrape, scrape of the shovels,
An’ the snarlin’ rolling rattle of the coal.
God has made some men to starve ashore in hovels,
And us to sweat our lives out in this hole.

You praise your gallant skipper
And skilful engineers ;
The A.B. is a hero
Who squints one eye and steers ;
The ladies like the moonlight
And officers to chaff ;
They have n’t got no tickets
On us, the stoke’ole staff,
Who keep the boilers hummin’
And funnel-flues a-roar.
With blisterin’ steel above us
And on a blisterin’ floor.
They ’re laughin’ on the main-deck,
But I would like to know
If they are ever thinkin’
Of men who toil below.

To the clank, clank, clank and the bangin’,
And the rattlin’ of the heavy furnace doors.
Which is best: to loaf and starve or die by hangin’,
Or waste your lives a-toilin’ on these floors ?

The steamers from La Plata
Take sufferin’ cattle ’Ome ;
The liner leaves ’em standin’
With splutterin’ screws afoam ;
The wool-tanks from Port Jackson,
Melbourne and Moreton Bay,
The meat-carts from New Zealand
Are smashin’ clouds of spray ;
And down below their load-lines —
Ten feet to twenty-five —
We curse their graspin’ owners
And give ’em steam to drive.
It ’s double whacks of win’s’ls
When cattle feels it hot,
But who cares two dead Chinkies
If we are grilled or not ?

We must stoke, stoke, stoke to the pourin’
Of the gleamin’ glist’nin’ rollin’, snarlin’ coal ;
Up aloft it may be calm or gales a-roarin’
But it ’s always heat and stillness in this hole.

There ’s men of every natur’
And every sort of breed
Sent down to make the vapour —
The steam that makes the speed ;
A canny Tyne-side Dogger
Is workin’ right of me,
And, may my eyes be jiggered !
My left ’s a Portugee !
With blunderin’ swing she ’s rollin’,
There ’s ugly swells abeam ;
The draught is singin’ noisy
And makin’ tons of steam ;
Our forehead-veins are bulgin’
And veins on arms as well.
I wonder what they ’re burnin’
If it ’s hotter down in hell ?

They must graft, graft, graft as we are graftin’ —
Ten times as hard and twice as hard again ;
But they ’ll miss the kick and rumble of the shaftin’,
Which tells us that we labour not in vain.

There ’s flirtin’ on the spar-deck,
Both sittin’ on one spar ;
There ’s drinkin’ in the smoke-room
And in the steamer’s bar ;
They ’re playin’ a pianner,
I s’pose, in the saloon,
Some patriotic, rowdy,
And fashionable tune.
But better girls are waitin’
For us when we ’re ashore,
Who ’ll give us all the huggin’
We ever want — and more.
And all the shallow drinkin’
In smoke-room, bar, and such,
Compared to what we founder,
It don’t amount to much.

For it ’s thirst, thirst, thirst so dry and burning :
We want no grub, we only long for drink ;
Until we see the pub-lights fade, returning,
We never want to pause or pause to think.

God makes some men’s lives easy,
And some he makes as slaves ;
The first gets rich by thinkin’,
The last on what they saves.
And berthed above her Plimsoll —
Ten feet and mostly more —
The men who live by thinkin’
Are dreamin’ of the shore,
Or laughin’ in their deck-chairs ;—
They’re all so blessed proud
They can’t abear to look at
The dirty stoke-’ole crowd
Who feed the hungry boilers,
That drive the piston-heads,
Settin’ the screw a-tearin’
The ocean into shreds,

To the scrape, scrape, scrape and the bangin’
Of the swelterin’, heazy, rattlin’ furnace-doors ;
Which IS best: to loaf and starve or die by hangin’,
Or sweat and swear a-toilin’ on these floors ?

Quilp N.



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 72-76

Filed Under: poetry Tagged With: poem, SourceArchiveOrg, The Bulletin Reciter (1901), Will Lawson, year1901

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

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

Primary Sidebar

The Institute of Australian Culture
Heritage, history, and heroes. Writers, workers, and wages. 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
Significant events and commemorative dates
A list of significant Australiana
Australian slang
Books (full text)
Australian explorers
Australian literature
Recommended poetry
Poetry and songs, 1786-1900
Poetry and songs, 1901-1954
Rock music and pop music (videos)
Folk music and bush music (videos)
Early music (videos)
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

Barcroft Boake
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

  • Died on Active Service / Heroes of the Empire [Australian military personnel (WW1, WW2), 24 April 1943]
  • Flooded house on Villiers Street, Grafton (NSW) [postcard, circa 1950]
  • Fossicker’s claim, Daylesford [postcard, circa 1905-1912]
  • The Bathing Beach Flinders [postcard, early 20th Century]
  • The Lass of Yackandandah [poem, 11 June 1857]

Top Posts & Pages

  • Australian slang, words, and phrases
  • The Man from Snowy River [poem by Banjo Paterson]
  • Timeline of Australian history and culture
  • Flooded house on Villiers Street, Grafton (NSW) [postcard, circa 1950]
  • Drop Bears

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 Those Names [poem by Banjo Paterson]
  • Paul on Those Names [poem by Banjo Paterson]
  • Floyd Black on Eurunderee [poem by Henry Lawson]
  • Warren fahey on The Institute of Australian Culture: An introduction
  • Julia Sweet nee Mooney on Laughing Mary [poem by John O’Brien]

For Australia

Copyright © 2025 · Log in