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The Old Camp-Oven

by Edward Dyson

We don't keep a grand piano in our hut beside the creek,

And I'm pretty certain Hannah couldn't bang it, anyhow,

But we've got one box of music, and I'd rather hear its squeak

Than the daisiest cantata that's been fashioned up to now.

It's an old camp-oven merely, with a handle made of wire,

But no organ built could nearly compensate to me for it

When I come off graft and find it playing tunes before the fire,

And I'm feeling sort of vacant, but just wonder fully fit.

In its sizzle, sizzle, sizzle,

There's a thousand little airs,

And no man can sit and grizzle

'Bout his troubles and his cares

While the flames are gaily winding,

And the tea is down to brew,

And the old camp-oven's grinding

All the reels he ever knew.

When the wet winds meet and whip me in the early winter nights,

And the hissing hailstones clip me all the way across the flat,

As I battle for'ards, water-logged, toward the beckoning lights,

There is always there a welcome to console a chap for that.

For my little wife is beaming brisk and bright beside the lamp,

And the old camp-oven's going. Gosh! I feel just like a kid

As I peel and sluice so slippy, and I hear the storm winds vamp

To the singing of the oven when the missus lifts the lid.

There's a sizzle and a splutter

And a whirr of many harps;

Where's the instrument can utter

Such a maze of flats and sharps?

Not for me the great creations

When the old camp-oven plays

'Home Sweet Home,' with variations,

At the end of working days.

In the evenings dim and hazy, stretched outside along a butt,

Feeling reasonably lazy, blowing clouds that curl and climb,

I can hear the old camp-oven on the logs before the hut

Ripping out a mellow chorus that just suits the place and time.

If we strike it in the ranges, or The Windmill turns out well,

I suppose there'll be some changes, and I'll want to make things gee;

But the time will never happen when I'll be so steep a swell

That the old camp-oven's measure won't be melody to me.

'Neath its bubble, bubble, bubble,

There's the lilt of jigs and reels;

All the common kind of trouble

That the horney-handed feels

Is wiped out in half a minute

By the restfulness it brings,

And the peaceful rapture in it

When the old camp-oven sings