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"
Problems playing this file? See media help.

The original lyrics of "Waltzing Matilda", transcribed by Christina Macpherson.

Banjo Paterson

Tuesday Poem: "In Westminster Abbey" by John Betjeman

Let me take this other glove off
As the vox humana swells,
And the beauteous fields of Eden
Bask beneath the Abbey bells.
Here, where England's statesmen lie,
Listen to a lady's cry.

Gracious Lord, oh bomb the Germans,
Spare their women for Thy Sake,
And if that is not too easy
We will pardon Thy Mistake.
But, gracious Lord, whate'er shall be,
Don't let anyone bomb me.

Keep our Empire undismembered
Guide our Forces by Thy Hand,
Gallant blacks from far Jamaica,
Honduras and Togoland;
Protect them Lord in all their fights,
And, even more, protect the whites.

Think of what our Nation stands for,
Books from Boots' and country lanes,
Free speech, free passes, class distinction,
Democracy and proper drains.
Lord, put beneath Thy special care
One-eighty-nine Cadogan Square.

Although dear Lord I am a sinner,
I have done no major crime;
Now I'll come to Evening Service
Whensoever I have the time.
So, Lord, reserve for me a crown,
And do not let my shares go down.

I will labour for Thy Kingdom,
Help our lads to win the war,
Send white feathers to the cowards
Join the Women's Army Corps,
Then wash the steps around Thy Throne
In the Eternal Safety Zone.

Now I feel a little better,
What a treat to hear Thy Word,
Where the bones of leading statesmen
Have so often been interr'd.
And now, dear Lord, I cannot wait
Because I have a luncheon date.

by John Betjeman

I love this poem. It's very funny and it cuts straight to the heart of the hypocrisy often paraded as devoutness.

For more about the poet, John Betjeman, see:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/john-betjeman

Tuesday Poem: "The Solitary" by Rainer Maria Rilke

No: my heart shall be a tower,
and I myself set at its highest rim:
where nothing else exists, once again pain
and the unsayable, once again world.

Still one thing alone in immensity,
growing dark then light again,
still one last face full of longing
thrust out into the unappeasable,

still one uttermost face made of stone
heeding only its own inner gravity,
while the distances that silently destroy it
drive it on to an ever deeper bliss.


by Rainer Maria Rilke
(translated from the German by Edward Snow)

Rilke certainly had the remarkable ability to be concise, compact, succinct and yet say so much with so few words. The essence of poetry, I suppose. The maximum impact with the minimum possible words.

For more information on the poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, see:

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

Tuesday Poem: " Acceptance" by Robert Frost

When the spent sun throws up its rays on cloud
And goes down burning into the gulf below,
No voice in nature is heard to cry aloud
At what has happened. Birds, at least must know
It is the change to darkness in the sky.
Murmuring something quiet in her breast,
One bird begins to close a faded eye;
Or overtaken too far from his nest,
Hurrying low above the grove, some waif
Swoops just in time to his remembered tree.
At most he thinks or twitters softly, 'Safe!
Now let the night be dark for all of me.
Let the night be too dark for me to see
Into the future. Let what will be, be.'

by Robert Frost

Tuesday Poem: "Exiles from the Dreamtime"

Tell me of the Dreamtime, Grandfather,

the young boy said.

Fill me with your memories

so you may live on in me.

Show me the past

so I might see the future.

There, under the cold light of the stars,
the fire of youth smouldered in the old man’s eyes
as they travelled the pathway of his tongue
and heard the unheard voices.

It was a time of wonders, he said,

but our currency was change.

We thought we could buy new miracles,

but we sold ourselves short.

The sea was lover to the land.

It knew where to kiss

and where to bite.

The seed of the sea was awash in our veins,

drawing us into it, on it, near it

and we were rewarded

by its majesty and generosity.

From some deep heart the malachite sculptures came,

refined by reef and wind,

until they exploded with white intensity

upon the beaches of the world,

some the cool, white velvet of crushed stars,

some warm and tawny like sleeping lions

and some black and hot with iron.

And in its depths we heard

the songs of our siblings,

but we had lost the lyric language.

Noble cetaceans whose forgiveness never waned

even as the last giant tail fluke

waved goodbye as it sank

into the cauldron of poison we had created.

Forests were the libraries of the land.

In life they charted the planet’s progress

and in death they froze fragments of history.

Like great ideas they affected our lives

and their shelves held the catalogues of Nature.

There were the cathedral canopies of the tropics

where soft light fell like a blessing

on a steamy palette of greens.

There were the eucalypts of the drier climates

which grew lean and tough, seeking the groundwater

like a seaside resort seeks the summer.

Or the mountain pines,

spectral in the moonlit snow,

alive with the red eyes of wolves

and the wind murmuring the secrets of the valleys.

But, like a petulant child,

we pulled the thread that unravelled the tapestry.

One day we awoke

to a desert of silence.

The ants we had taken for granted

were noticeably absent.

The bees, bereaved of flowers,

had nothing to live for.

The birds, robbed of progeny and homes,

plummeted from the sky,

made gangrenous by our excreta.

We had made the Sun an enemy

and it boiled the sea in its rage.

Tears extinguished the youthful fire

as the old man said, Forgive us, Grandson,

we squandered your inheritance

like callow, hedonistic youths

then fled the island

when the volcano erupted.

Surveying the barren landscape of their exile,

he said, It is fitting that

we banished ourselves to the Red Planet

because the blood of the Dreamtime
is on our hands.

Photo Credit: www.edgee.com

I offer my own sort of companion piece to last week's poem by W.S. Merwin just because I'm an old greenie hippie at heart, folks. I wrote this poem way back in 1988 and, sadly, things have probably only got worst since then. Let's be more careful with our precious planet. What say you?

Photo Credit: http://operationfailwhale.blogspot.co.nz

Photo Credit: Wolf Wallpapers

Tuesday Poem: "For a Coming Extinction" by W. S. Merwin

Gray whale
Now that we are sending you to The End
That great god
Tell him
That we who follow you invented forgiveness
And forgive nothing

I write as though you could understand
And I could say it
One must always pretend something
Among the dying
When you have left the seas nodding on their stalks
Empty of you
Tell him that we were made
On another day

The bewilderment will diminish like an echo
Winding along your inner mountains
Unheard by us
And find its way out
Leaving behind it the future
Dead
And ours

When you will not see again
The whale calves trying the light
Consider what you will find in the black garden
And its court
The sea cows the Great Auks the gorillas
The irreplaceable hosts ranged countless
And fore-ordaining as stars
Our sacrifices

Join your word to theirs
Tell him
That it is we who are important

by W. S. Merwin

For more information about the poet, W.S. Merlin, see:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/w-s-merwin

I thought it was appropriate to share this poem because the International Whaling Commission is presently discussing the fate of the near-to-extinction Maui's Dolphin. 

A scientific study into the existing population of the Maui's Dolphin is being presented at an annual meeting of the scientific committee of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in San Diego, USA.

http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/274694/'loud-wakeup-call'-over-maui's-dolphins

Tuesday Poem: "Money" by Philip Larkin

Quarterly, is it, money reproaches me:
    ‘Why do you let me lie here wastefully?
I am all you never had of goods and sex.
    You could get them still by writing a few cheques.’

So I look at others, what they do with theirs:  
    They certainly don’t keep it upstairs.
By now they’ve a second house and car and wife:
    Clearly money has something to do with life

—In fact, they’ve a lot in common, if you enquire:
    You can’t put off being young until you retire,
And however you bank your screw, the money you save
    Won’t in the end buy you more than a shave.

I listen to money singing. It’s like looking down
    From long french windows at a provincial town,  
The slums, the canal, the churches ornate and mad
    In the evening sun. It is intensely sad.


by Philip Larkin

With the New Zealand Budget announcement looming, this seemed a very appropriate poem to post.

For more information about the poet, Philip Larkin, see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Larkin