G'day again,

I'll start by upholding poor old Henry's honour and posting the clean version - his 1892 poem The Captain of the Push. He is believed to have written the much morte pungent version for private circiulation. I will PM a copy to mcpiper, Bugsy and John.

BTW: mcpiper, strictly speaking, it IS a song. There is one tune for THE CAPTAIN OF THE PUSH in Chris Kempster's book The Songs of Henry Lawson - not one I am familiar with but it looks an appropriately gloomy tune, in Em. I will try it out ... and MAY end up posting it.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

The Captain of the Push
Henry Lawson

As the night was falling slowly down on city, town, and bush
From a slum in Jones's Alley sloped the Captain of the Push,
And he scowled towards the North, and he scowled towards the South,
As he hooked his little fingers in the corners of his mouth.
Then his whistle, loud and piercing, woke the echoes of the Rocks",
And a dozen ghouls came sloping round the corners of the blocks.

There was nought to rouse their anger; yet the oath that each one swore
Seemed less fit for publication than the one that went before.
For they spoke the gutter language with the easy flow that comes
Only to the men whose childhood knew the gutters and the slums.
Then they spat in turn, and halted; and the one that came behind,
Spitting fiercely at the pavement called on Heaven to strike him blind.

Let me first describe the captain, bottle-shouldered, pale and thin:
He was just the beau-ideal or' a Sydney larrikin.
E'en his hat was most suggestive of the place where Pushes live,
With a gallows-tilt that no one, save a larrikin, can give;
And the coat, a little shorter than the fashion might require,
Showed a (more or less uncertain) lower part of his attire.

That which tailors know as "trousers"-known to him as "blooming bags"-
Hanging loosely from his person, swept, with tattered ends, the flags;
And he had a pointed sternpost to the boots that peeped below
(Which he laced up from the centre of the nail of his great toe),
And he wore his shirt uncollared, and the tie correctly wrong;
But I think his vest was shorter than should be on one so long.

Then the captain crooked his finger at a stranger on the kerb,
Whom he qualified politely with an adjective and verb,
And he begged the Gory Bleeders that they wouldn't interrupt
Till he gave an introduction-it was painfully abrupt
"Here's the bleedin' push, my covey-here's a (something) from the bush!
Strike me dead, he wants to join us!" said the captain of the push.

Said the stranger: "I am nothing but a bushy and a dunce;
But I read about the Bleeders in the Weekly Gasbag once:
Sitting lonely in the humpy when the wind began to woosh,
How I longed to share the dangers and the pleasures of the push!
Gosh! I hate the swells and good uns-I could burn 'em in their beds;
I am with you, if you'll have me, and I'll break their blazing heads."

"Now, look here," exclaimed the captain to the stranger from the bush,
"Now, look here-suppose a feller was to split upon the push,
Would you lay for him and down him, even if the traps were round?
Would you lay him out and kick him to a jelly on the ground?
Would you jump upon the nameless-kill, or cripple him, or both?
Speak? or else I'll-SPEAK!" The stranger answered, "My kerlonial oath!"

"Now, look here," exclaimed the captain to the stranger from the bush,
"Now, look here-suppose the Bleeders let you come and 'join the push,
Would you smash a bleedin' bobby if you got the blank alone?
Would you stoush a swell or Chinkie-split his garret with a stone?
Would you have a 'moll' to keep you-like to swear off work for good?"
"Yes, my oath!" replied the stranger. "My kerlonial oath! I would!"

"Now, look here," exclaimed the captain to that stranger from the bush,
"Now, look here-before the Bleeders let you come and join the push.
You must prove that you're a blazer-you must prove that you have grit
Worthy of a Gory Bleeder-you must show your form a bit
Take a rock and smash that winder!" and the stranger, nothing loth,
Took the rock and - smash! The Bleeders muttered "My kerlonial oath!"

So they swore him in, and found him sure of aim and light of heel,
And his only fault, if any, lay in his excessive zeal.
He was good at throwing metal, but I chronicle with pain
That he jumped upon a victim, damaging the watch and chain
Ere the Bleeders had secured them; yet the captain of the push
Swore a dozen oaths in favour of the stranger from the bush.

Late next mom the captain, rising, hoarse and thirsty, from his lair,
Called the newly-feathered Bleeder; but the stranger wasn't there!
Quickly going through the pockets of his bloomin' bags, he learned
That the stranger had been through him for the stuff his moll had earned;
And the language that he uttered I should scarcely like to tell
(Stars! and note's of exclamation!! blank and dash will do as well).

That same night the captain's signal woke the echoes of The Rocks,
Brought the Gory Bleeders sloping through the shadows of the blocks;
And they swore the stranger's action was a blood-escaping shame,
While they waited for the nameless-but the nameless never came.
And the Bleeders soon forgot him; but the captain of the push
Still is laying round, in ballast, for the stranger "from the bush'.

Poetical Works of Henry Lawson, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1918 – 1979 (et seq), p. 202