A Word To Texas Jack
By Henry Lawson
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 Id 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 horses back!
Learn the cornstalk ridin! Blazes!, wat yer givnus, Texas Jack?
Learn the cornstalk, what the flamin, jumptup! wheres my country gone?
Why, the cornstalks mother often rides the day afore hes born!
You may talk about your ridin in the city, bold an free,
Talk o ridin in the city, Texas Jack, but whered 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 cant count the bulls an bisons that yer copped with your lassoo,
But a stout old myall bullock praps ud learn yer somethin new;
Yerd 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 saddles turned to laces like we put in blucher boots.
And yer say yer death on Injins! Weve got somethinin yer line,
If yer think your fitins 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 yell find the blackll 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 yerd best be mighty careful, youll 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 isnt no ill-feelin that is gettin up my back,
But I wont see this land crowded by each Yank and British cuss
Who takes it in his head to come a-civilisin us.
So if you feel like shootin now, dont let yer pistol cough,
(Our Government is very free at chokin fellers off);
And though on your great continent theres misery in the towns
An not a few untitled lords and kings without their crowns,
I will admit your countrymen is busted big, an free,
An great on ekal rites of men and great on liberty;
I will admit yer fathers punched the gory tyrants head,
But then weve got our heroes, too, the diggers that is dead,
The plucky men of Ballarat who toed the scratch right well
And broke the nose of Tyranny and made his peepers swell
For yankin Lib.s gold tresses in the roarin days gone by,
An doublin up his dirty fist to black her bonny eye;
So when it comes to ridin mokes, or hoistin out the Chow,
Or stickin up for labours rights, we dont want showin how.
They come to learn us cricket in the days of long ago,
An Hanlan come from Canada to learn us how to row,
An doctors come from Frisco just to learn us how to skite,
An pugs from all the lands on earth to learn us how to fight;
An when they go, as like or not, we find were taken in,
Theyve left behind no larnin, but theyve carried off our tin.