THE CURSE OF THE LAUNDRIED SHIRT.

I came down here from the ’Back, last year, For a spell and a high-toned drunk, But I back and fill with a palsied will As I lounge on a kapok bunk. I laze and laze where a man’s life pays For a kiss and a pint of squirt, Like a weak-kneed slop in a draper’s shop— ’Neath the curse of a laundried shirt! I tire to death of the town’s close breath— Of the pave, and the lighted street: Its silken tiles, and its threadbare smiles— Of the patter of kid-shod feet; And thoughts tramp back where I lost the track Of a “leader” of five-ounce dirt, Before I knelt with a “Scheme”-cleansed pelt At the shrine of a laundried shirt! I came down here for a spell, last year, And a brush with the town-bred folk— For a bit of a change from my “moated grange” (A camp by an outback soak): But drift I still with a flagging will And a spirit that grows inert— A sagging jaw and a bleaching paw— ’Neath the curse of a laundried shirt! I’ve lit my camp with the moon’s soft lamp And the light of the outback stars, And drunk my fill of the Out-Back swill, As I breasted the shanty bars: I’ve made my bit, and have squandered it In an island of dreams, rum-girt— To fall at last with my flag half-mast, ’Neath the curse of a laundried shirt! The stampers roar to the tune no more Of “Aboard for the Sydney-side!” The merry hum of the windlass drum ’S like the song of the swan—that died: My mulga maid, in whose eyes hope played— With jewels adown her skirt, She’s sailed a trip on some desert ship From the chap in a laundried shirt!