free-verse36 lines
Our Mat
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)It came from the prison this morning,
Close-twisted, neat-lettered, and flat;
It lies the hall doorway adorning,
A very good style of a mat.
Prison-made! how the spirit is moven
As we think of its story of dread,
What wiles of the wicked are woven
And spun in its intricate thread!
The letters are new, neat and nobby,
Suggesting a masterly hand,
Was it Sikes, who half-murdered the bobby,
That put the neat D on the "and"?
Some banker found guilty of laches,
It's always called laches, you know,
Had Holt any hand in those Hs?
Did Bertrand illumine that O?
That T has a look of the gallows,
That A's a triangle, I guess;
Was it one of the Mount Rennie fellows
Who twisted the strands of the S?
Was it made by some "highly connected",
Who is doing his spell "on his head",
Or some wretched woman detected
In stealing her children some bread?
Does it speak of a bitter repentance
For the crime that so easily came?
Of the wearisome length of the sentence,
Of the sin, and the sorrow, and shame?
A mat! I should call it a sermon
On sin, to all sinners addressed;
It would take a keen judge to determine
Whether writer or reader is best.
Though the doorway be hard as a pavestone,
I rather would use it than that,
I'd as soon wipe my boots on a gravestone,
As I would on that Darlinghurst mat!