Tuesday Poem: "Alone" by Jack Gilbert

I never thought Michiko would come back
after she died. But if she did, I knew
it would be as a lady in a long white dress.
It is strange that she has returned
as somebody's dalmation. I meet
the man walking her on a leash
almost every week. He says good morning
and I stoop down to calm her. He said
once that she was never like that with
other people. Sometimes she is tethered
on thier lawn when I go by. If nobody
is around, I sit on the grass. When she
finally quiets, she puts her head in my lap
and we watch each other's eyes as I whisper
in her soft ears. She cares nothing about
the mystery. She likes it best when
I touch her head and tell her small
things about my days and our friends.
That makes her happy the way it always did.

by Jack Gilbert

I certainly hope all my readers (both of them) were not alone on Christmas and I hope you had a lovely time with your extended families and that your credit card is still in the black and your waistline is on the right side of respectable.

For more about the poet, Jack Gilbert, see:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/jack-gilbert

Tuesday Poem: "Alcohol" by Franz Wright

 
You do look a little ill.

But we can do something about that, now.  

Can’t we.

The fact is you’re a shocking wreck.  

Do you hear me.

You aren’t all alone.

And you could use some help today, packing in the  
dark, boarding buses north, putting the seat back and  
grinning with terror flowing over your legs through  
your fingers and hair . . .

I was always waiting, always here.  

Know anyone else who can say that.

My advice to you is think of her for what she is:  
one more name cut in the scar of your tongue.

What was it you said, “To rather be harmed than  
harm, is not abject.”

Please.

Can we be leaving now.

We like bus trips, remember. Together

we could watch these winter fields slip past, and  
never care again,

think of it.

I don’t have to be anywhere.

by Franz Wright

I'm no wowser (isn't that a terribly punitive label?), but as the "Silly Season" approaches, this might be a timely reminder of the dangers of excessive consumption.


A fascinating piece of trivia for you - Franz Wright and his father, James Wright, are the only people to have both won a Pulitzer in the same category.

For more on the poet, Franz Wright, see:


http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/franz-wright

Tuesday Poem: "Meditation XVII -- (Excerpt)" by John Donne

No man is an island entire of itself; every man 

is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

by John Donne

For more on poet, John Donne, see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Donne

Tuesday Poem: "Untitled" by Li Shangyin

The east wind sighs, the fine rains come:
Beyond the pool of water-lilies, the noise of faint thunder.
A gold toad gnaws the lock. Open it, burn the incense.
A tiger of jade pulls the rope. Draw from the well and escape.
Chia's daughter peeped through the screen when Han the clerk was young,
The goddess of the River left her pillow for the great Prince of Wei.
Never let your heart open with the spring flowers:
One inch of love is an inch of ashes.

by Li Shangyin

Sorry, no photographs are available as Li Shangyin shunned the limelight and also he was born before the invention of the camera.

For more about the poet, Li Shangyin, see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Shangyin

Tuesday Poem: "Ceremony For Any Beginning" by Robert Pinsky

Against weather, and the random

Harpies—mood, circumstance, the laws
Of biography, chance, physics—
The unseasonable soul holds forth,
Eager for form as a renowned
Pedant, the emperor's man of worth,
Hereditary arbiter of manners.

Soul, one's life is one's enemy.
As the small children learn, what happens
Takes over, and what you were goes away.
They learn it in sardonic soft
Comments of the weather, when it sharpens
The hard surfaces of daylight: light
Winds, vague in direction, like blades

Lavishing their brilliant strokes
All over a wrecked house,
The nude wallpaper and the brute
Intelligence of the torn pipes.
Therefore when you marry or build
Pray to be untrue to the plain
Dominance of your own weather, how it keeps

Going even in the woods when not
A soul is there, and how it implies
Always that separate, cold
Splendidness, uncouth and unkind—
On chilly, unclouded mornings,
Torrential sunlight and moist air,
Leafage and solid bark breathing the mist.

by Robert Pinsky

For more information about poet, Robert Pinsky, see:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/robert-pinsky

A Poem for America's Thanksgiving: "América" by Richard Blanco

I.

Although Tía Miriam boasted she discovered

at least half a dozen uses for peanut butter—

topping for guava shells in syrup,

butter substitute for Cuban toast,

hair conditioner and relaxer—

Mamá never knew what to make

of the monthly five-pound jars

handed out by the immigration department

until my friend, Jeff, mentioned jelly.

 

 

II.

There was always pork though,

for every birthday and wedding,

whole ones on Christmas and New Year’s Eve,

even on Thanksgiving day—pork,

fried, broiled, or crispy skin roasted—

as well as cauldrons of black beans,

fried plantain chips, and yuca con mojito.

These items required a special visit

to Antonio’s Mercado on the corner of Eighth Street

where men in guayaberas stood in senate

blaming Kennedy for everything—“Ese hijo de puta!”

the bile of Cuban coffee and cigar residue

filling the creases of their wrinkled lips;

clinging to one another’s lies of lost wealth,

ashamed and empty as hollow trees.

 

III.

By seven I had grown suspicious—we were still here.

Overheard conversations about returning

had grown wistful and less frequent.

I spoke English; my parents didn’t.

We didn’t live in a two-story house

with a maid or a wood-panel station wagon

nor vacation camping in Colorado.

None of the girls had hair of gold;

none of my brothers or cousins

were named Greg, Peter, or Marcia;

we were not the Brady Bunch.

None of the black and white characters

on Donna Reed or on the Dick Van Dyke Show

were named Guadalupe, Lázaro, or Mercedes.

Patty Duke’s family wasn’t like us either—

they didn’t have pork on Thanksgiving,

they ate turkey with cranberry sauce;

they didn’t have yuca, they had yams

like the dittos of Pilgrims I colored in class.

 

IV.

 A week before Thanksgiving

I explained to my abuelita

about the Indians and the Mayflower,

how Lincoln set the slaves free;

I explained to my parents about

the purple mountain’s majesty,

“one if by land, two if by sea,”

the cherry tree, the tea party,

the amber waves of grain,

the “masses yearning to be free,”

liberty and justice for all, until

finally they agreed:

this Thanksgiving we would have turkey,

as well as pork.

 

 

V.

Abuelita prepared the poor fowl

as if committing an act of treason,

faking her enthusiasm for my sake.

Mamá set a frozen pumpkin pie in the oven

and prepared candied yams following instructions

I translated from the marshmallow bag.

The table was arrayed with gladiolas,

the plattered turkey loomed at the center

on plastic silver from Woolworth’s.

Everyone sat in green velvet chairs

we had upholstered with clear vinyl,

except Tío Carlos and Toti, seated

in the folding chairs from the Salvation Army.

I uttered a bilingual blessing

and the turkey was passed around

like a game of Russian Roulette.

“DRY,” Tío Berto complained, and proceeded

to drown the lean slices with pork fat drippings

and cranberry jelly—“esa mierda roja,” he called it.

Faces fell when Mamá presented her ochre pie—

pumpkin was a home remedy for ulcers, not a dessert.

Tía María made three rounds of Cuban coffee

then Abuelo and Pepe cleared the living room furniture,

put on a Celia Cruz LP and the entire family

began to merengue over the linoleum of our apartment,

sweating rum and coffee until they remembered—

it was 1970 and 46 degrees—

in América.

After repositioning the furniture,

an appropriate darkness filled the room.

Tío Berto was the last to leave.

by Richard Blanco

For more about the poet, Richard Blanco, see:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/richard-blanco

Tuesday Poem: "Arrival at Santos" by Elizabeth Bishop

Here is a coast; here is a harbor;
here, after a meager diet of horizon, is some scenery;
impractically shaped and—who knows?—self-pitying mountains,
sad and harsh beneath their frivolous greenery,

with a little church on top of one. And warehouses,
some of them painted a feeble pink, or blue,
and some tall, uncertain palms. Oh, tourist,
is this how this country is going to answer you

and your immodest demands for a different world,
and a better life, and complete comprehension
of both at last, and immediately,
after eighteen days of suspension?

Finish your breakfast. The tender is coming,
a strange and ancient craft, flying a strange and brillant rag.
So that's the flag. I never saw it before.
I somehow never thought of there being a flag,

but of course there was, all along. And coins, I presume,
and paper money; they remain to be seen.
And gingerly now we climb down the ladder backward,
myself and a fellow passenger named Miss Breen,

descending into the midst of twenty-six freighters
waiting to be loaded with green coffee beans.
Please, boy, do be more careful with that boat hook!
Watch out! Oh! It has caught Miss Breen's

skirt! There! Miss Breen is about seventy,
a retired police lieutenant, six feet tall,
with beautiful bright blue eyes and a kind expression.
Her home, when she is at home, is in Glens Fall

s, New York. There. We are settled.
The customs officials will speak English, we hope,
and leave us our bourbon and cigarettes.
Ports are necessities, like postage stamps, or soap,

but they seldom seem to care what impression they make,
or, like this, only attempt, since it does not matter,
the unassertive colors of soap, or postage stamps—
wasting away like the former, slipping the way the latter

do when we mail the letteres we wrote on the boat,
either because the glue here is very inferior
or because of the heat. We leave Santos at once;
we are driving to the interior.

by Elizabeth Bishop

This poem was first published in the New Yorker in 1952.

Photo Credit: Alice Helen Methfessel, courtesy of Frank Bidart

           

For more about poet, Elizabeth Bishop, see:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/elizabeth-bishop

This is an unusual poem in its format and layout. In line 2, stanza 4, the phrase "a strange and brillant rag" looks like the word should be brilliant, but Bishop published it as "brillant". I cannot find such a word in the dictionary.

At the end of line 4, stanza 7, Bishop carries the "s" which one would expect at the end of the place name "Glen Fall" onto the beginning of line 1, stanza 8. Whether Bishop does this to play with the reader's perceptions I cannot know as she died in 1979 and we cannot ask her.

We might expect her to be mailing letters in line1, stanza 10, but Bishop publishes the phrase as "the letteres" which sounds vaguely French, but isn't since the French word for letter is lettre.

Despite, or perhaps because of these eccentricities, this is a fascinating poem of travel only undertaken sixty years ago.

This is where Elizabeth Bishop is talking about:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santos,_S%C3%A3o_Paulo

and these are the kind of things you can do in Santos these days:

https://www.facebook.com/places/Things-to-do-in-Santos-Brazil/107844482581802/

For Paris and Parisians: "Darkness" by Lord Byron

I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came and went—and came, and brought no day,
And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light:
And they did live by watchfires—and the thrones,
The palaces of crowned kings—the huts,
The habitations of all things which dwell,
Were burnt for beacons; cities were consum'd,
And men were gather'd round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other's face;
Happy were those who dwelt within the eye
Of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch:
A fearful hope was all the world contain'd;
Forests were set on fire—but hour by hour
They fell and faded—and the crackling trunks
Extinguish'd with a crash—and all was black.
The brows of men by the despairing light
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits
The flashes fell upon them; some lay down
And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest
Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smil'd;
And others hurried to and fro, and fed
Their funeral piles with fuel, and look'd up
With mad disquietude on the dull sky,
The pall of a past world; and then again
With curses cast them down upon the dust,
And gnash'd their teeth and howl'd: the wild birds shriek'd
And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,
And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes
Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl'd
And twin'd themselves among the multitude,
Hissing, but stingless—they were slain for food.
And War, which for a moment was no more,
Did glut himself again: a meal was bought
With blood, and each sate sullenly apart
Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left;
All earth was but one thought—and that was death
Immediate and inglorious; and the pang
Of famine fed upon all entrails—men
Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;
The meagre by the meagre were devour'd,
Even dogs assail'd their masters, all save one,
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept
The birds and beasts and famish'd men at bay,
Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead
Lur'd their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,
But with a piteous and perpetual moan,
And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand
Which answer'd not with a caress—he died.
The crowd was famish'd by degrees; but two
Of an enormous city did survive,
And they were enemies: they met beside
The dying embers of an altar-place
Where had been heap'd a mass of holy things
   For an unholy usage; they rak'd up,
And shivering scrap'd with their cold skeleton hands
The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath
Blew for a little life, and made a flame
Which was a mockery; then they lifted up
Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld
Each other's aspects—saw, and shriek'd, and died—
Even of their mutual hideousness they died,
Unknowing who he was upon whose brow
Famine had written Fiend. The world was void,
The populous and the powerful was a lump,
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless—
A lump of death—a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes and ocean all stood still,
And nothing stirr'd within their silent depths;
Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,
And their masts fell down piecemeal: as they dropp'd
They slept on the abyss without a surge—
The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
The moon, their mistress, had expir'd before;
The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need
Of aid from them—She was the Universe.


by George Gordon (Lord Byron)


Rest assured, Paris and Parisians and the people of France, this darkness may have descended on your fair city recently, but the free and loving world is with you and we will help you with every fibre of our beings to lift this darkness, brought by mad men, from the "City of Light".


Our prayers are with all the dead and their grieving families.


Take heart, these fanatics will not prevail.

Tuesday Poem: "Fork" by Charles Simic

This strange thing must have crept  
Right out of hell.
It resembles a bird’s foot
Worn around the cannibal’s neck.

As you hold it in your hand,
As you stab with it into a piece of meat,
It is possible to imagine the rest of the bird:  
Its head which like your fist
Is large, bald, beakless, and blind.

by Charles Simic

For more information about the poet, Charles Simic, see:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/charles-simic

Tuesday Poem: "The Pig" by Roald Dahl

In England once there lived a big
And wonderfully clever pig.
To everybody it was plain
That Piggy had a massive brain.
He worked out sums inside his head,
There was no book he hadn't read.
He knew what made an airplane fly,
He knew how engines worked and why.
He knew all this, but in the end
One question drove him round the bend:
He simply couldn't puzzle out
What LIFE was really all about.
What was the reason for his birth?
Why was he placed upon this earth?
His giant brain went round and round.
Alas, no answer could be found.
Till suddenly one wondrous night.
All in a flash he saw the light.
He jumped up like a ballet dancer
And yelled, 'By gum, I've got the answer! '
'They want my bacon slice by slice
'To sell at a tremendous price!
'They want my tender juicy chops
'To put in all the butcher's shops!
'They want my pork to make a roast
'And that's the part'll cost the most!
'They want my sausages in strings!
'They even want my chitterlings!
'The butcher's shop! The carving knife!
'That is the reason for my life! '
Such thoughts as these are not designed
To give a pig great piece of mind.
Next morning, in comes Farmer Bland,
A pail of pigswill in his hand,
And piggy with a mighty roar,
Bashes the farmer to the floor…
Now comes the rather grisly bit
So let's not make too much of it,
Except that you must understand
That Piggy did eat Farmer Bland,
He ate him up from head to toe,
Chewing the pieces nice and slow.
It took an hour to reach the feet,
Because there was so much to eat,
And when he finished, Pig, of course,
Felt absolutely no remorse.
Slowly he scratched his brainy head
And with a little smile he said,
'I had a fairly powerful hunch
'That he might have me for his lunch.
'And so, because I feared the worst,
'I thought I'd better eat him first.'

by Roald Dahl

A revenge fantasy for our porcine friends plus their allies the Vegetarians and Vegans.

For more on writer and poet, Roald Dahl, see:

https://www.roalddahl.com/

Tuesday Poem: "My November Guest" by Robert Frost

My Sorrow, when she's here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.

Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She's glad the birds are gone away,
She's glad her simple worsted gray
Is silver now with clinging mist.

The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so wryly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.

Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell he so,
And they are better for her praise.

by Robert Frost

 

Let's welcome the month of November. But Robert Frost sees it from a Northern Hemisphere perspective whereas those of us who live "Down Under" are welcoming Spring with warmer days, more light and flowers in bloom all over the place. Beautiful!!!

 

 

 

For more about the poet, Robert Frost, see:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Frost

 

Poem to Celebrate the All Blacks winning their Third Rugby World Cup: "Invictus" by William Ernest Henley

In case you haven't heard, the All Blacks (New Zealand's national rugby team) have just won the 2015 Rugby World Cup on the evening of Saturday 31 October at Twickenham in London, England.  

Since the inception of the Rugby World Cup in 1987, the All Blacks have won it three times. This is their third World Cup victory, the first to be won away from home and they are also now the first team to not only retain the World Cup, but to win back-to-back tournaments. 

Invictus 

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit From pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

by William Ernest Henley

William Ernest Henley

For more on the poet, William Ernest Henley, see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Ernest_Henley

Credit: Copyright 2015 Getty Images

Today is Dylan Thomas' birthday and I love Dylan Thomas: "Poem in October" by Dylan Thomas

It was my thirtieth year to heaven
Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood
    And the mussel pooled and the heron
            Priested shore
        The morning beckon
With water praying and call of seagull and rook
And the knock of sailing boats on the net webbed wall
        Myself to set foot
            That second
In the still sleeping town and set forth.

    My birthday began with the water-
Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name
    Above the farms and the white horses
            And I rose
        In rainy autumn
And walked abroad in a shower of all my days.
High tide and the heron dived when I took the road
        Over the border
            And the gates
Of the town closed as the town awoke.

    A springful of larks in a rolling
Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling
    Blackbirds and the sun of October
            Summery
        On the hill's shoulder,
Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly
Come in the morning where I wandered and listened
        To the rain wringing
            Wind blow cold
In the wood faraway under me.

    Pale rain over the dwindling harbour
And over the sea wet church the size of a snail
    With its horns through mist and the castle
            Brown as owls
        But all the gardens
Of spring and summer were blooming in the tall tales
Beyond the border and under the lark full cloud.
        There could I marvel
            My birthday
Away but the weather turned around.

    It turned away from the blithe country
And down the other air and the blue altered sky
    Streamed again a wonder of summer
            With apples
        Pears and red currants
And I saw in the turning so clearly a child's
Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother
        Through the parables
            Of sun light
And the legends of the green chapels

    And the twice told fields of infancy
That his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine.
    These were the woods the river and sea
            Where a boy
        In the listening
Summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy
To the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide.
        And the mystery
            Sang alive
Still in the water and singingbirds.

    And there could I marvel my birthday
Away but the weather turned around. And the true
    Joy of the long dead child sang burning
            In the sun.
        It was my thirtieth
Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon
Though the town below lay leaved with October blood.
        O may my heart's truth
            Still be sung
On this high hill in a year's turning.

by Dylan Thomas

For all things Dylan (the original not Bob):

http://www.dylanthomas.com/

Tuesday Poem: "We Real Cool" by Gwendolyn Brooks

                   THE POOL PLAYERS.
                   SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.

We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

 by Gwendolyn Brooks

For more about poet, Gwendolyn Brooks, see:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/gwendolyn-brooks

Tuesday Poem" Memory (2)" by Raymond Carver

She lays her hand on his shoulder

at the checkout stand. But he won't

go with her, and shakes his head.

She insists! He pays. She walks out

with him to his big car, takes one look,

laughs at it. Touches his cheek.

Leaves him with his groceries

in the parking lot. Feeling foolish.

Feeling diminished. Still paying.

by Raymond Carver

For more about the poet, Raymond Carver, see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Carver

Tuesday Poem: "How to get on in Society" by Martin Parker

Top up my spray tan, Darren,
then phone up Hello and OK
and gold-plate the taps in the toilet.
The Beckhams are coming to stay!

I’ve just origamied the Andrex.
Have I time for another tattoo
in spurious Chinese, with dragons,
or maybe a blatant FU?

I’ve had my nails covered in glitter
and my eyelids and midriff as well.
My extensions are almost the shade of my hair
which is rigid with Superdrug gel.

But it’s hard for a girl to look “current”
when Manolos are something she lacks
and her nipple ring’s only nine carat
and it’s hours since she last had a wax.

by Martin Parker

For more on the poet, Martin Parker, see:

http://www.martinparker-verse.co.uk

Tuesday Poem: "How to get on in Society" by John Betjeman

Phone for the fish knives, Norman
As cook is a little unnerved;
You kiddies have crumpled the serviettes
And I must have things daintily served.

Are the requisites all in the toilet?
The frills round the cutlets can wait
Till the girl has replenished the cruets
And switched on the logs in the grate.

It's ever so close in the lounge dear,
But the vestibule's comfy for tea
And Howard is riding on horseback
So do come and take some with me

Now here is a fork for your pastries
And do use the couch for your feet;
I know that I wanted to ask you-
Is trifle sufficient for sweet?

Milk and then just as it comes dear?
I'm afraid the preserve's full of stones;
Beg pardon, I'm soiling the doileys
With afternoon tea-cakes and scones.

by John Betjeman

This poem was written and published in 1958 and next Tuesday I will post an updated version of this poem written by Martin Parker in 2011.  

For more about the poet, John Betjeman, see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Betjeman

Tuesday Poem: "Waltzing Matilda" by Banjo Paterson

It was pointed out recently to me by a poetry-loving correspondent that is ironic that Australia is deporting criminals when the white colonialism of Australia was built on the deportation of criminals from England.

And also, arguably, the most popular ballad in Australia's literary history and, some say, the unofficial  national anthem, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waltzing_Matilda is Banjo Paterson's ballad of a swagman who poaches a sheep, an offence that would probably get him deported under the Australian government's current practice (that is if said swagman was born overseas, which in Paterson's day, he could easily have been born somewhere in the UK.

   Waltzing Matilda

Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong
Under the shade of a coolibah tree,
And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled:
"Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me?"


Chorus:
Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda
You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me
And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled:
"You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me."


Down came a jumbuck to drink at that billabong.
Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him with glee.
And he sang as he shoved that jumbuck in his tucker bag:
"You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me."


(Chorus)


Up rode the squatter, mounted on his thoroughbred.
Down came the troopers, one, two, and three.
"Whose is that jumbuck you've got in your tucker bag?
You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me."


(Chorus)


Up jumped the swagman and sprang into the billabong.
"You'll never take me alive!" said he
And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong:
"Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me?"

*Marie Cowan (original author - Banjo Paterson)

There are no "official" lyrics to "Waltzing Matilda" and slight variations can be found in different sources. This version incorporates the famous "You'll never catch me alive said he" variation introduced by the Billy Tea company. Paterson's original lyrics referred to "drowning himself 'neath the coolibah tree".


These are the lyrics written in 1903 by Marie Cowan to advertise Billy Tea.

	"Waltzing Matilda MENU 0:00 Tune for "Waltzing Matilda"
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The original lyrics of "Waltzing Matilda", transcribed by Christina Macpherson.

Banjo Paterson