Songs from the Mountains (1880). Billy Vickers
No song is this of leaf and bird, And gracious waters flowing; I'm sick at heart, for I have heard Big Billy Vickers "blowing". He'd never take a leading place In chambers legislative: This booby with the vacant face— This hoddy-doddy native! Indeed, I'm forced to say aside, To you, O reader, solely, He only wants the horns and hide To be a bullock wholly. But, like all noodles, he is vain; And when his tongue is wagging, I feel inclined to copy Cain, And "drop" him for his bragging. He, being Bush-bred, stands, of course, Six feet his dirty socks in; His lingo is confined to horse And plough, and pig and oxen. Two years ago he'd less to say Within his little circuit; But now he has, besides a dray, A team of twelve to work it. No wonder is it that he feels Inclined to clack and rattle About his bullocks and his wheels— He owns a dozen cattle. In short, to be exact and blunt, In his own estimation He's "out and out" the head and front Top-sawyer of creation! For, mark me, he can "sit a buck" For hours and hours together; And never horse has had the luck To pitch him from the leather. If ever he should have a "spill" Upon the grass or gravel, Be sure of this, the saddle will With Billy Vickers travel. At punching oxen you may guess There's nothing out can "camp" him: He has, in fact, the slouch and dress Which bullock-driver stamp him. I do not mean to give offence, But I have vainly striven To ferret out the difference 'Twixt driver and the driven. Of course, the statements herein made In every other stanza Are Billy's own; and I'm afraid They're stark extravaganza. I feel constrained to treat as trash His noisy fiddle-faddle About his doings with the lash, His feats upon the saddle. But grant he "knows his way about", Or grant that he is silly, There cannot be the slightest doubt Of Billy's faith in Billy. Of all the doings of the day His ignorance is utter; But he can quote the price of hay, The current rate of butter. His notions of our leading men Are mixed and misty very: He knows a cochin-china hen— He never speaks of Berry. As you'll assume, he hasn't heard Of Madame Patti's singing; But I will stake my solemn word He knows what maize is bringing. Surrounded by majestic peaks, By lordly mountain ranges, Where highest voice of thunder speaks His aspect never changes. The grand Pacific there beyond His dirty hut is glowing: He only sees a big salt pond, O'er which his grain is going. The sea that covers half the sphere, With all its stately speeches, Is held by Bill to be a mere Broad highway for his peaches. Through Nature's splendid temples he Plods, under mountains hoary; But he has not the eyes to see Their grandeur and their glory. A bullock in a biped's boot, I iterate, is Billy! He crushes with a careless foot The touching water-lily. I've said enough—I'll let him go! If he could read these verses, He'd pepper me for hours, I know, With his peculiar curses. But this is sure, he'll never change His manners loud and flashy, Nor learn with neatness to arrange His clothing, cheap and trashy. Like other louts, he'll jog along, And swig at shanty liquors, And chew and spit. Here ends the song Of Mr. Billy Vickers.
Henry Kendall’s other poems:
