Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, GENTLEMAN GEORGE, by W. A. HORN


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

GENTLEMAN GEORGE, by                    
First Line: Gentleman george in his youthful days was the pride of the eighth hussars
Last Line: The slash of a whip on a skeleton hip, as the hoof-strokes echo away.
Subject(s): Death; Memory; Old Age; Soldiers; Dead, The


GENTLEMAN George in his youthful days was the pride of the Eighth Hussars,
He's only a bronzed old teamster now in the land of the red galahs.
He sits on his dray, a pipe in his mouth, in reverie, dust and smoke,
Yet keeping an eye on that blue-roan steer who struggles to turn the yoke.
His lips at times grow stern and set when he thinks of a traitorous wife,
And his blood grows hot with a withering scorn for the woman who ruined his
life;
For the smouldering scandal had burned and blazed and sullied his spotless
name—
'Twas rough on a man whose life was straight and who always had played the game;
And the scar on his cheek from a Muscovite blade, in that chivalrous charge of
the Light Brigade,
Glowed scarlet at thoughts of the heartless jade who ruined his life in a day.
Creak, creak, creak, go the wheels of his rickety dray,
And he plies his whip on the blue-roan's hip.
"Woay! Bawley, come hither, woay!"

He recalls the runs with the Hursley pack; those glorious days with the Vine,
Ere the shadows of age commenced to dim the shimmer of youthful shine;
Recalls the race from point to point, on the back of the Ascot Clown,
And the ringing cheers that rang in his ears as he won by a length, hands down;
Recalls a scene that pleases and thrills—the home of his youth in the
Hampshire hills;
Where the Avon comes down in a thousand rills, to the fields where he used to
play.
Creak, creak, creak, go the wheels of his rickety dray, and he thinks of the
life he was leading then
And the life he is leading today.

These thoughts of the grace of days long dead rouse a bitter feeling of pain:
Ah! what would he give for a headlong charge with the Light Brigade again;
And what of the comrades of those days; do they still give a thought to him?
For the world too soon forgets a man when once he is out of the swim.
In a vivid dream, when camped at night, beneath his rickety dray,
He sees the squadrons galloping past, as their hoof-strokes thunder away:
Sees gleaming sword-blades parry and thrust, and the dauntless valour displayed
By his troopers who rode to certain death, in the van of the Light Brigade.
Ah! what did their country do for them—the bravest where all were brave?
It sang their deeds in a Laureate's song, but left them a pauper's grave.
Creak, creak, creak, go the wheels of the rickety dray,
As he flays a strip from the blue-roan's hip.
"Woay! Bawley, come hither, woay!"

This bearded bushman carries himself with an easy careless grace,
And honesty written in every line of his manly, careworn face.
Though his mind is filled with vain regrets, it is useless now to repine,
Yet it shortens a weary mile at times, to think of the auld lang syne.
But the rough bush life has left its stamp on his face and his mind as well,
For in drink he strives to drown the thoughts that make his life a hell.
His epithets savour of realms below, when the blue-roan turns the yoke;
A blue flame seems around his head, and an odour of sulphurous smoke.
He's a rare good hand with a sulky steer, he shows no mercy and knows no fear:
And the lash of his whip will scald and sear the bullock that goes astray.
Creak, creak, creak, go the wheels of his rickety dray,
And his whip is plied on the blue-roan's hide.
"Woay! Bawley, come hither, woay!"

He rashly stands on the pole to reach that obstinate blue-roan steer,
When the wheel goes into a fathomless rut, and the teamster's end is near.
He loses his balance and seems to reel as he falls behind the blue-roan's heel,
And is crushed by that ponderous creaking wheel in a Juggernaut kind of way.
Creak, creak, creak, go the wheels of the rickety dray,
And the lamp of his life goes flickering out at the close of that fateful day. .
. .

Thus ended the life of a man who rode in the van of the Light Brigade.
They buried him out on the Yanko Plain, where there isn't a shadow of shade:
No comrade to close his bloodshot eyes or to drop a regretful tear,
And little to mark his lonely grave on that shadeless plain so drear.
A rough-hewn cross by a bushman placed at the head of a mound of loam,
His name unknown to his pals abroad, forgotten by all at home.
No funeral anthem's notes are heard o'er the grave of that dead Hussar;
Instead of the kettledrum's roll they hear the screech of the red galah.
A "G" interlaced with "G" on the cross, and a short bush prayer was said,
While a curlew's plaintive wailing note seemed a requiem over the dead.
'Tis the old, old tale of a ruined "swell", who goes to the bush and perhaps
to—well
We'll hope for the best; you never can tell, there may be a rut on the way.
His spirit now roams those dreary plains in the land of the red galah—
'Tis the soul of a teamster that haunts the spot, not that of an Eighth Hussar.
If you cross those plains in the dead of night, you'll hear that team in a head-
long flight,
And the shout of the driver in ghostly white:
"Woay! Bawley, come hither, woay!"

Creak, creak, creak, go the wheels of the vanishing dray,
The slash of a whip on a skeleton hip, as the hoof-strokes echo away.





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