Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TWENTY-ONE, by PATRICK MACGILL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TWENTY-ONE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Dossing it here in the model, dreary, bedraggled, / dry
Last Line: ^1^ let him drink and forget his proverty.— prov. Xxxi., 7.
Subject(s): Maturity; Youth


DOSSING it here in the model, dreary, bedraggled, dry,
They're cooking their grub on the hot-plate, and I have got none to fry,
But still there's a bed for twopence, so I'll go to sleep if I can,
Go a boy to my slumber and rise to-morrow a man.

Twenty and one to-morrow, twenty and one and not
A cent for the weary years that with shovel and bar I've wrought —
Out on my own since childhood, down on my luck since birth,
I who belong to the holiest civilized land on earth.

I've done my graft on the dead line, where the man with the muck-rake is,
Where the model smells I have dossed it in this woeful world of His,
While others were spending their springtime learning to please and pray,
I've fought for my right of living my own particular way.

Oft I put cash to the bankers, banked it and lost till broke,
Watching it tanner by tanner pass to the sharper's poke,
And many a night in the hovel brag was the game we played,
When I who was versed in the shovel fell to a heavy spade.

Horses ran on the race course and won as a matter of course —
I've lost a tribe of money backing the other horse.
Beer, the hope of the dead-line! beer, the joy of the soul!
Why would I pine and worry when beer can make me whole?^1^

And money is round to go round. Horses and wine, and yes,
Women are fond of finery, women are fond of dress —
Oh, pretty as girls are pretty, usual hair and eyes,
Golden and blue, etcetera, choke full of smiles and sighs.

Eyes of a luring siren, a hell of a blarneying tongue,
Old are the arts of women, and I was so very young,
Another came round to woo her, and sudden she took to it,
I hugged a delusion in hairpins, got done like a frog on the spit.

Seven years on the muck-pile — God, but I'm feeling sick!
Sick of the slush and the shovel, sick of the hammer and pick,
Labour endless and thankless, labour that's never done —
Is it sinful to doubt of Heaven at penniless twenty-one?

Not the price of a schooner, and, Lord, but I'm feeling dry;
They're grubbing it up on the hot-plate, but I've got nothing to fry —
Still I can doss on twopence, and I'll go to sleep if I can —
Go a boy to my slumber and rise to-morrow a man!

^FOOTNOTE^

^1^ Let him drink and forget his proverty.— Prov. xxxi., 7.





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