A Word to Texas Jack
Texas Jack, you are amusin’. By Lord Harry, how I laughed
When I seen yer rig and saddle with its bulwarks fore-and-aft;
Holy smoke! In such a saddle how the dickens can yer fall?
Why, I seen a gal ride bareback with no bridle on at all!
Gosh! so-help-me! strike-me-balmy! if a bit o’ scenery
Like ter you in all yer rig-out on the earth I ever see!
How I’d like ter see a bushman use yer fixins, Texas Jack;
On the remnant of a saddle he can ride to hell and back.
Why, I heerd a mother screamin’ when her kid went tossin’ by
Ridin’ bareback on a bucker that had murder in his eye.
What? yer come to learn the natives how to squat on horse’s back!
Learn the cornstalk ridin’! Blazes!—w’at yer giv’n’us, Texas Jack?
Learn the cornstalk—what the flamin’, jumptup! where’s my country gone?
Why, the cornstalk’s mother often rides the day afore he’s born!
You may talk about your ridin’ in the city, bold an’ free,
Talk o’ ridin’ in the city, Texas Jack, but where’d yer be
When the stock horse snorts an’ bunches all ’is quarters in a hump,
And the saddle climbs a sapling, an’ the horse-shoes split a stump?
No, before yer teach the native you must ride without a fall
Up a gum or down a gully nigh as steep as any wall—
You must swim the roarin’ Darlin’ when the flood is at its height
Bearin’ down the stock an’ stations to the Great Australian Bight.
You can’t count the bulls an’ bisons that yer copped with your lassoo—
But a stout old myall bullock p’raps ’ud learn yer somethin’ new;
Yer’d better make yer will an’ leave yer papers neat an’ trim
Before yer make arrangements for the lassooin’ of him;
Ere you ’n’ yer horse is catsmeat, fittin’ fate for sich galoots,
And yer saddle’s turned to laces like we put in blucher boots.
And yer say yer death on Injins! We’ve got somethin’in yer line—
If yer think your fitin’s ekal to the likes of Tommy Ryan.
Take yer karkass up to Queensland where the allygators chew
And the carpet-snake is handy with his tail for a lassoo;
Ride across the hazy regins where the lonely emus wail
An’ ye’ll find the black’ll track yer while yer lookin’ for his trail;
He can track yer without stoppin’ for a thousand miles or more—
Come again, and he will show yer where yer spit the year before.
But yer’d best be mighty careful, you’ll be sorry you kem here
When yer skewered to the fakements of yer saddle with a spear—
When the boomerang is sailin’ in the air, may heaven help yer!
It will cut yer head off goin’, an’ come back again and skelp yer.
P.S.—As poet and as Yankee I will greet you, Texas Jack,
For it isn’t no ill-feelin’ that is gettin’ up my back,
But I won’t see this land crowded by each Yank and British cuss
Who takes it in his head to come a-civilisin’ us.
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poem by Henry Lawson
Added by Poetry Lover
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