from John_in_brisbane

I'm sure when he gets a few minutes he will come in to comment on this.


MARYBOROUGH MINER

Come all you sons of liberty and listen to my song,
I'll tell you my observations and it won't take very long,
I've fossicked around this continent, five hundred miles or more,
And many's the time I might have starved, but for the cheek I bore.

I've been on all the diggings, boys, from famous Ballarat,
I've long-tommed on the Lachlan, and I've fossicked Lambing Flat,
So you can understand, my boys, just from this little rhyme,
I'm a Maryborough miner, and I'm one of the good old time.

I came to the Fitzroy River, all with my Bendigo rig,
I had a shovel, a pick and a pan, and for a licence I begged,
But the assay-man called me a loafer, said for work I'd no desire,
And so, to do him justice, boys, I set his office on fire.

Oh yes, my jolly jokers, I've done it on the cross,
Although I carry my bluey now, I've sweated many a horse,
I've helped to rob the escort of many an ounce of gold,
And the traps have been upon my tail more tiroes than I ever told.

Oh yes, the traps have trailed me and been frightened out of their stripes,
They never could have caught me, for they feared my cure for gripes,
And well they knew I carried it, for they had often seen it,
Glistening in my flipper, chaps, my 'patent pill machine'.

I'm one of the men who cradled on the reef at Tarrangower,
Anxiety and misery my grim companions there,
I puddled the clay at Bendigo, and chanced my arm at Kew,
And I wound up my avocation with ten years on Cockatoo.

So you can understand, my boys, just from this little rhyme,
I'm a Maryborough miner, and I'm one of the good old time.