The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #9229   Message #59471
Posted By: Joe Offer
21-Feb-99 - 01:53 PM
Thread Name: Clancy of the Overflow (Banjo Paterson)
Subject: ADD: Snake Yarne (W.T. Goodge)
I found a nice selection of Australian poetry here - Banjo Paterson, Henry Lawson, and others. Good stuff.
Here's a nice sample:

A Snake Yarn

W. T. Goodge 

"You talk of snakes," said Jack the Rat, "
But, blow me, one hot summer,
I seen a thing that knocked me flat
Fourteen foot long, or more than that,
It was a regular hummer!
Lay right along a sort of bog,
Just like a log!

"The ugly thing was lyin' there
And not a sign o' movin',
Give any man a nasty scare;
Seen nothin' like it anywhere
Since I first started drovin'.
And yet it didn't scare my dog.
Looked like a log!

I had to cross that bog, yer see,
And blue I was humpin';
But wonderin' what that thing could be
A-layin' there in front o' me
I didn't feel like jumpin'.
Yet, though I shivered like a frog,
It seemed a log!

I takes a leap and lands right on
The back of that there whopper!" He stopped.
We waited. Then Big Mac Remarked, "
Well, then, what happened, Jack?"
"Not much," said Jack, and drained his grog.
It was a log!"