Dear Boy
As it appears to us old fogeys
If you'll excuse the term that we adopt
You and your battery of bowling bogeys
...
I knew a policeman once
And this is true as it ever could be
Who made me feel an awful dunce;
'Cos I lost my dad, and it frightened me.
...
They say a touch of spring is in the air;
They say the wattle trees with bloom are gay;
They say each garden now begins to wear
...
Within the wooded avenue I stood,
And I was proud.
I looked upon the scene and found it good;
For here, I vowed,
...
'Twas a hell of a Hell they glimpsed, my son,
In superstitious days
When cultured man had scarce begun
To shed barbaric ways:
...
Where Feathertop frowns thro' the winter scud,
Where Buffalo broods on high,
Dwells she, a lass of royal blood,
And a sparkle lights her eye
...
Child of a myriad varied voices calling
O'er countless leagues of space in divers tongues,
Tho' captious critics view your ways appalling
And fain would quiet your all too strident lungs,
...
Dearest!
You know you ever ARE the nearest
To my fond heart.
Joking apart,
...
They fights their fights and they hunt their game,
As they did before the white man came,
Far in the unexplored Outback,
Where still Australia's mostly black.
...
O! Hernia! My hernia.
'Twas here we parted dear
A parting that for four long weeks
Held me in sickness here.
...