[Editor: A poem published in the “Acta Diurna” column of The West Australian Sunday Times, 31 December 1899.]
[The Absentee]
The lovely “bull” which is incorporated in the ensuing slab of jingle is considered of too touching a nature for cold-blooded everyday prose. Therefore, incline thine ear for the lilt of —
“The Absentee.”
He stood in threatening attitude,
His rhetoric was loud and free,
Discarding painful platitude
He cursed the bloated absentee.
It’s absentee who holds the shares
In all the big producers here;
The absentee it is who dares
To introduce abuses here.
“And are there many ?” I inquired,
“Of course; their name is legion here
By artfulness they soon acquired
The rich auriferous region here,
No matter where you chance to be,
You’re really never done with them
You’ll always find the Absentee,
Westralia’s overrun with them.”
Source:
The West Australian Sunday Times (Perth, WA), 31 December 1899, p. 1
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