TOO OLD.

It is durned hard lines, when a man grows sere And his whiskers are flecked with grey, And he wears the boots that he wore last year When he worked for a miner’s pay, To be brushed aside, with a callous word, By the arms of sturdier men, As they rush and crush, with a hope deferred, For the coveted three-pound-ten! Oh! he sold his strength, and he sold his health, And he bartered his manhood’s prime As he toiled and moiled, in the stores of wealth— Where they banter the whole crib-time; And they sweat, and sweat, and they crack their jokes To the tune that the “banjos” play; For the world wags fine with the bow-yanged blokes While they work for a miner’s pay! And To-morrow’s left for To-morrow’s self To provide for as best it can; For there comes no dream of a workless shelf To the brain of the miner man— Not a whining call from the voice of Thrift! Not a cramp in the open hand! As they play and pay—and they drift and drift To the ranks where the grey-heads stand. But his kids are cold, and their feet are bare, And the prospect is bleak and brown, And the missus has never a hat to wear That’s fit to be seen in the town; And the spectres flock—that were held last year, With the rattle of coin, at bay: When the old man smiled at his old wife’s fear While he worked for a miner’s pay. There are none to heckle; there’s nought to blame But the curse of a gambler’s quest! And the men pass out, as they lose the game That we play in the Golden West: But their thoughts must turn as the days grow late. In a dream, to some “cocky” patch Where the old folk stand at their homestead gate, And they laugh ’neath their whitening thatch.