1

The children of the Czar
Played with a bouncing ball

In the May morning, in the Czar's garden,
Tossing it back and forth.

It fell among the flowerbeds
Or fled to the north gate.

A daylight moon hung up
In the Western sky, bald white.

Like Papa's face, said Sister,
Hurling the white ball forth.

2

While I ate a baked potato
Six thousand miles apart,

In Brooklyn, in 1916,
Aged two, irrational.

When Franklin D. Roosevelt
Was an Arrow Collar ad.

Have you heard of one Humpty Dumpty
How he fell with a roll and a rumble
And curled up like Lord Olofa Crumple
By the butt of the Magazine Wall,
  (Chorus) Of the Magazine Wall,
           Hump, helmet and all?

He was one time our King of the Castle
Now he's kicked about like a rotten old parsnip.
And from Green street he'll be sent by order of His Worship
To the penal jail of Mountjoy
  (Chorus) To the jail of Mountjoy!

The Honourable M. T. Nutt
About the bush did jog.
Till, passing by a settler's hut,
He stopped and bought a dog.
Then started homewards full of hope,
Alas, that hopes should fail!
The dog pulled back and took the rope
Beneath the horse's tail.

The Horse remarked, "I would be soft
Such liberties to stand!"
"Oh dog," he said, "Go up aloft,
Young man, go on the land!"

The old priest Peter Gilligan
Was weary night and day
For half his flock were in their beds
Or under green sods lay.

Once, while he nodded in a chair
At the moth-hour of the eve
Another poor man sent for him,
And he began to grieve.

'I have no rest, nor joy, nor peace,
For people die and die;
And after cried he, 'God forgive!
My body spake not I!'

He knelt, and leaning on the chair
He prayed and fell asleep;
And the moth-hour went from the fields,
And stars began to peep.

They slowly into millions grew,

WHO knows the world will never feel surprise,
When men are duped by artful women's eves;
Though death his weapon freely will unfold;
Love's pranks, we find, are ever ruled by gold.
To vain coquettes I doubtless here allude;
But spite of arts with which they're oft endued;
I hope to show (our honour to maintain,)
We can, among a hundred of the train,
Catch one at least, and play some cunning trick:--
For instance, take blithe Gulphar's wily nick,
Who gained (old soldier-like) his ardent aim,
And gratis got an avaricious dame.

"Tis the everyday Australian
Has a language of his own,
Has a language, or a slanguage,
Which can simply stand alone.
And a "dickon pitch to kid us"
Is a synonym for "lie",
And to "nark it" means to stop it,
And to "nit it" means to fly.

And a bosom friend's a "cobber,"
And a horse a "prad" or "moke,"
While a casual acquaintance
Is a "joker" or a "bloke."
And his lady-love's his "donah"
or his "clinah" or his "tart"
Or his "little bit o' muslin,"
As it used to be his "bart."

The auncient acquaintance, madam, betwen vs twayn,
The famylyaryte, the formal dalyaunce,
Causyth me that I can not myself refrayne
But that I must wryte for my plesaunt pastaunce:
Remembryng your passying goodly countenaunce,
Your goodly port, your bewteous visage,
Ye may be countyd comfort of all corage.

Of all your feturs fauorable to make tru discripcion,
I am insuffycyent to make such enterpryse;
For thus dare I say, without [con]tradiccyon,
That dame Menolope was neuer half so wyse:
Yet so it is that a rumer begynneth for to ryse,

If you ask him he will talk for hours--
how at fourteen he hammered signs, fingers
raw with cold, and later painted bowers
in ladies' boudoirs; how he played checkers
for two weeks in jail, and lived on dark bread;
how he fled the border to a country
which disappeared wars ago; unfriended
crossed a continent while this century
began. He seldom speaks of painting now.
Young men have time and theories; old men work.
He has painted countless portraits. Sallow
nameless faces, made glistening in oil, smirk
above anonymous mantelpieces.

One star
Is better far
Than many precious stones;
One sun, which is by its own luster seen,
Is worth ten thousand golden thrones;
A juicy herb, or spire of grass,
In useful virtue, native green,
An em'rald doth surpass,
Hath in 't more value, though less seen.

No wars,
Nor mortal jars,
Nor bloody feuds, nor coin,
Nor griefs which those occasions, saw I then;
Nor wicked thieves which this purloin;
I had not thoughts that were impure;
Esteeming both women and men
God's work, I was secure,

The ape, the monkey and baboon did meet,
And breaking of their fast in Friday street,
Two of them swore together solemnly
In their three natures was a sympathy.

Nay, quoth baboon,
I do deny that strain:
I have more knavery in me
than you twain.

Why, quoth the ape, I have a horse at will
In Paris Garden for to ride on still,
And there show tricks. Tush, quoth the monkey,
For better tricks in great men's houses lie.

Tush, quoth baboon,
when men do know I come,
For sport from city, country
they will run.