free-verse45 lines
Our M'cenas
by Victor James DaleyWhat! Don't you our M'cenas know
The man who started, years ago,
Our Wild Australian Author show?
You don't? Your ignorance sublime
Exceeds - to use a Boston rhyme
The taciturnity of time.
Well, there he is, across the way
Tall, thin, and growing somwhat grey
He has good reason, you will say.
He's entering a bookshop. Fine!
He buys a book. Don't make a sign!
Don't speak! Don't breathe! It may be mine!
Alas! The cover isn't blue;
It's green - it's Quinn's - I always knew
His taste was never sound and true!
We all have hobbies. Some endure,
Some pass. Australian Literature
Is his. He likes it straight and pure.
Those breezy gentlemen you see
Walk up the street so spaciously,
He started them; he started me.
My word! My oath, if that you wish!
I would have now been selling fish,
Or something hot and sausageish
And friends of mine, with names renowned
Would now be driving picks in ground,
And hoisting New South Wales around,
If he - the Lord of the Event
Had not appeared, pre-subsequent,
And given us encouragement.
He's now, you see, just skin and bone,
Yet once he weighed quite fourteen stone
When he left coves like us alone.
And he was - breathe it hoarse and low
A man of substance. This I know
But that was several years ago.
Now was he thus to leanness brought?
What tragic Fate his sorrow wrought?
Alas! he read the books he bought!
And now he's growing grey and old:
But while he lives, we'll say: "Behold!
One copy of our works is sold!"
He is the apple of our eye;
His health to us is precious. Why?
We have to live; he dare not die.