Written by
Eugene Field |
TO MISS GRACE KING
Down in the old French quarter,
Just out of Rampart street,
I wend my way
At close of day
Unto the quaint retreat
Where lives the Voodoo Doctor
By some esteemed a sham,
Yet I'll declare there's none elsewhere
So skilled as Doctor Sam
With the claws of a deviled crawfish,
The juice of the prickly prune,
And the quivering dew
From a yarb that grew
In the light of a midnight moon!
I never should have known him
But for the colored folk
That here obtain
And ne'er in vain
That wizard's art invoke;
For when the Eye that's Evil
Would him and his'n damn,
The *****'s grief gets quick relief
Of Hoodoo-Doctor Sam.
With the caul of an alligator,
The plume of an unborn loon,
And the poison wrung
From a serpent's tongue
By the light of a midnight moon!
In all neurotic ailments
I hear that he excels,
And he insures
Immediate cures
Of weird, uncanny spells;
The most unruly patient
Gets docile as a lamb
And is freed from ill by the potent skill
Of Hoodoo-Doctor Sam;
Feathers of strangled chickens,
Moss from the dank lagoon,
And plasters wet
With spider sweat
In the light of a midnight moon!
They say when nights are grewsome
And hours are, oh! so late,
Old Sam steals out
And hunts about
For charms that hoodoos hate!
That from the moaning river
And from the haunted glen
He silently brings what eerie things
Give peace to hoodooed men:--
The tongue of a piebald 'possum,
The tooth of a senile 'coon,
The buzzard's breath that smells of death,
And the film that lies
On a lizard's eyes
In the light of a midnight moon!
|
Written by
William Butler Yeats |
Processions that lack high stilts have nothing that
catches the eye.
What if my great-granddad had a pair that were
twenty foot high,
And mine were but fifteen foot, no modern Stalks
upon higher,
Some rogue of the world stole them to patch up a fence
or a fire.
Because piebald ponies, led bears, caged lions, ake
but poor shows,
Because children demand Daddy-long-legs upon This
timber toes,
Because women in the upper storeys demand a face at
the pane,
That patching old heels they may shriek, I take to
chisel and plane.
Malachi Stilt-Jack am I, whatever I learned has run wild,
From collar to collar, from stilt to stilt, from father to child.
All metaphor, Malachi, stilts and all.
A barnacle goose
Far up in the stretches of night; night splits and the
dawn breaks loose;
I, through the terrible novelty of light, stalk on, stalk on;
Those great sea-horses bare their teeth and laugh at the dawn.
|
Written by
Andrew Barton Paterson |
Wargeilah town is very small,
There's no cathedral nor a club,
In fact the township, all in all,
Is just one unpretentious pub;
And there, from all the stations round,
The local sportsmen can be found.
The sportsmen of Wargeilah-side
Are very few but very fit;
There's scarcely any sport been tried
But they can hold their own at it;
In fact, to search their records o'er,
They hold their own and something more.
The precincts of Wargeilah town
An English new-chum did infest:
He used to wander up and down
In baggy English breeches drest;
His mental aspect seemed to be
Just stolid self-sufficiency.
The local sportsmen vainly sought
His tranquil calm to counteract
By urging that he should be brought
Within the Noxious Creatures Act.
"Nay, harm him not," said one more wise,
"He is a blessing in disguise!
"You see, he wants to buy a horse,
To ride, and hunt, and steeplechase,
And carry ladies, too, of course,
And pull a cart, and win a race.
Good gracious! he must be a flat
To think he'll get a horse like that!
"But, since he has so little sense
And such a lot of cash to burn,
We'll sell him some experience
By which alone a fool can learn.
Suppose we let him have The Trap
To win Wargeilah Handicap!"
And her, I must explain to you
That round about Wargeilah run
There lived a very aged screw
Whose days of brilliancy were done.
A grand old warrior in his prime --
But age will beat us any time.
A trooper's horse in seasons past
He did his share to keep the peace,
But took to falling, and at last
Was cast for age from the Police.
A publican at Conroy's Gap
Bought him and christened him The Trap.
When grass was good and horses dear,
He changed his owner now and then
At prices ranging somewhere near
The neighbourhood of two-pound-ten:
And manfully he earned his keep
By yarding cows and ration sheep.
They brought him in from off the grass
And fed and groomed the old horse up;
His coat began to shine like glass --
You'd think he'd win the Melbourne Cup.
And when they'd got him fat and flash
They asked the new chum -- fifty -- cash!
And when he said the price was high,
Their indignation knew no bounds.
They said, "It's seldom you can buy
A horse like that for fifty pounds!
We'll refund twenty if The Trap
Should fail to win the handicap!"
The deed was done, the price was paid,
The new-chum put the horse in train.
The local sports were much afraid
That he would sad experience gain
By racing with some shearer's hack,
Who'd beat him half-way round the track.
So, on this guileless English spark
They did most fervently impress
That he must keep the matter dark,
And not let any person guess
That he was purchasing The Trap
To win Wargeilah Handicap.
They spoke of "spielers from the Bland",
And "champions from the Castlereagh",
And gave the youth to understand
That all of these would stop away,
And spoil the race, if they should hear
That they had got The Trap to fear.
"Keep dark! They'll muster thick as flies
When once the news gets sent around
We're giving such a splendid prize --
A Snowdon horse worth fifty pound!
They'll come right in from Dandaloo,
And find -- that it's a gift for you!"
The race came on -- with no display
Nor any calling of the card,
But round about the pub all day
A crowd of shearers, drinking hard,
And using language in a strain
'Twere flattery to call profane.
Our hero, dressed in silk attire --
Blue jacket and scarlet cap --
With boots that shone like flames of fire,
Now did his canter on The Trap,
And walked him up and round about,
Until other steeds came out.
He eyed them with a haughty look,
But saw a sight that caught his breath!
It was Ah John! the Chinee cook!
In boots and breeches! pale as death!
Tied with a rope, like any sack,
Upon a piebald pony's back!
The next, a colt -- all mud and burrs,
Half-broken, with a black boy up,
Who said, "You gim'me pair o' spurs,
I win the bloomin' Melbourne Cup!"
These two were to oppose The Trap
For the Wargeilah Handicap!
They're off! The colt whipped down his head,
And humped his back, and gave a squeal,
And bucked into the drinking shed,
Revolving like a Catherine wheel!
Men ran like rats! The atmosphere
Was filled with oaths and pints of beer!
But up the course the bold Ah John
Beside The Trap raced neck and neck:
The boys had tied him firmly on,
Which ultimately proved his wreck;
The saddle turned, and, like a clown,
He rode some distance upside-down.
His legs around the horse were tied,
His feet towards the heavens were spread,
He swung and bumped at every stride
And ploughed the ground up with his head!
And when they rescued him, The Trap
Had won Wargeilah Handicap!
And no enquiries we could make
Could tell by what false statements swayed
Ah John was led to undertake
A task so foreign to his trade!
He only smiled and said, "Hoo Ki!
I stop topside, I win all li'!"
But never in Wargeilah Town
Was heard so eloquent a cheer
As when the President came down,
And toasted, in Colonial beer,
"The finest rider on the course!
The winner of the Snowdon Horse!
"You go and get your prize," he said;
"He's with a wild mob, somewhere round
The mountains near the Watershed;
He's honestly worth fifty pound --
A noble horse, indeed, to win,
But none of us can run him in!
"We've chased him poor, we've chased him fat,
We've run him till our horses dropped;
But by such obstacles as that
A man like you will not be stopped;
You'll go and yard him any day,
So here's your health! Hooray! Hooray!"
The day wound up with booze and blow
And fights till all were well content.
But of the new-chum all I know
Is shown by this advertisement --
"For sale, the well-known racehorse Trap.
He won Wargeilah Handicap!"
|
Written by
Andrew Barton Paterson |
When Ironbark the turtle came to Anthony's lagoon
The hills were hid behind a mist of equinoctal rain,
The ripple of the rivulets was like a cheerful tune
And wild companions waltzed among the grass as tall as grain.
But Ironbark the turtle cared no whit for all of these;
The ripple of the rivulets, the rustle of the trees
Were only apple sauce to him, or just a piece of cheese.
Now, Dan-di-dan the water rat was exquisitely dressed,
For not a seal in Bass's Straits had half as fine a coat,
And every day he combed and brushed his golden-yellow vest,
A contrast with the white cravat he wore beneath his throat.
And Dan-di-dan the water rat could move with ease and grace,
So Ironbark appeared to him a creature out of place,
With iron-plated overcoat and dirty little face.
A crawfish at the point of death came drifting down the drains.
Said he, "I'm scalded to the heart with bathing near the bore.
"
The turtle and the water rat disputed his remains,
For crawfish meat all day they'd eat, and then they'd ask for more.
Said Dan-di-dan, "The prize is mine, for I was fishing here
Before you tumbled down the bank and landed on your ear.
"
"I wouldn't care," the turtle said, "if you'd have fished a year.
"
So Baggy-beak the Pelican was asked to arbitrate;
The scales of justice seemed to hang beneath his noble beak.
He said, "I'll take possession of the subject of debate";
He stowed the fish inside his pouch and then began to speak.
"The case is far from clear," he said, "and justices of note" --
But here he snapped his beak and flapped his piebald overcoat --
"Oh dear," he said, "that wretched fish has slithered down my throat.
"
"But still," he said, "the point involved requires a full debate.
I'll have to get the lawyer birds and fix a special day.
Ad interim I rule that costs come out of the estate.
"
And Baggy-beak the Pelican got up and flew away.
So both the pair who went to law were feeling very small.
Said they, "We might have halved the fish and saved a nasty brawl;
For half a crawfish isn't much, but more than none at all.
"
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