A Change Of Menu Poem by A B Banjo Paterson

A Change Of Menu

Rating: 2.6


Now the new chum loaded his three-nought-three,
It's a small-bore gun, but his hopes were big.
"I am fed to the teeth with old ewe," said he,
"And I might be able to shoot a pig."
And he trusted more to his nose than ear
To give him warning when pigs were near.

Out of his lair in the lignum dark.
Where the wild duck nests and the bilbie digs,
With a whoof and a snort and a kind of bark
There rose the father of all the pigs:
And a tiger would have walked wide of him
As he stropped his tusks on a leaning limb.

Then the new chum's three-nought-three gave tongue
Like a popgun fired in an opera bouffe:
But a pig that was old when the world was young
Is near as possible bullet-proof.
(The more you shoot him the less he dies,
Unless you catch him between the eyes.)

So the new chum saw it was up to him
To become extinct if he stopped to shoot;
So he made a leap for a gidgee limb
While the tusker narrowly missed his boot.
Then he found a fork, where he swayed in air
As he gripped the boughs like a native bear.

The pig sat silent and gaunt and grim
To wait and wait till his foe should fall:
For night and day were the same to him,
And home was any old place at all.
"I must wait," said he, "till this sportsman drops;
I could use his boots for a pair of strops."

The crows that watch from the distant blue
Came down to see what it all might mean;
An eaglehawk and a cockatoo
Bestowed their patronage on the scene.
Till a far-off boundary rider said
"I must have a look -- there is something dead."

Now the new chum sits at his Christmas fare
Of a dried-up chop from a tough old ewe.
Says he, "It's better than native bear
And nearly as tender as kangaroo.
An emu's egg I can masticate,
But pork," says he, "is the thing I hate."

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Tom Allport 12 March 2017

a hunting poem with food for thought? and a new menu!

2 2 Reply
Edward Kofi Louis 12 March 2017

The pig sat silent. Thanks for sharing this poem with us.

2 1 Reply
Geoffrey Fafard 12 March 2017

Now Banjo - he could tell a story that painted a picture in my mind…and then some…!

2 1 Reply
Ratnakar Mandlik 12 March 2017

The live video shooting of the hunter and his target, along with their movement, wonderfully narrated in this beautiful verse.

2 0 Reply
Robert Eckstein 12 March 2017

Yes indeed! Many years ago, a neighbor who hunted was cut up by what he later described as a little pig He said, It ran out of the woods, cut my leg open, and ran away.

1 1 Reply
Chinedu Dike 25 May 2022

An interesting story written in good, poetic diction with conviction.

0 0 Reply
Mahtab Bangalee 23 July 2020

The crows that watch from the distant blue Came down to see what it all might mean; An eagle hawk and a cockatoo Bestowed their patronage on the scene. Till a far-off boundary rider said " I must have a look - there is something dead." ........changing naturally but for surviving anywhere anyone for anything

0 0 Reply
Ratnakar Mandlik 30 April 2019

Another interesting poem narrating the story of a hunter and his gun and hunting of pigs.

0 0 Reply
andrea taee 10 December 2018

wth? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

0 0 Reply
Muzahidul Reza 12 March 2018

I am fed to the teeth with old ewe, ........ well penned

1 0 Reply
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