J. P. Bourke

“ There is a literature of art, and there is a literature of humanity. The one kind does not exclude the other; the best poetry is human in impulse, artistic in expression. Yet inevitably, as verse is written, there are found writers with a languid pulse whose finest effects are gained by a decorative use of language, and opposed to these are the writers who use the oldest rhymes, the oldest rhythms, to give impetus to the messages of emotion that fly hot from their hearts.
This Western Australian poetry is often inartistic; it is often a poor thing considered as literature ”

“ We’re whizzing towards the East!
[129]
THE OLD FARM GATE.
There’s an all-pervading glamour and a glitter in the West;
There’s a market here for muscle or for brain:
And Success stands ever near us, with a blossom at her breast,
And a galaxy of beauty in her train!
There are prizes worth the winning, for the daring hearts and bold,
There are gauds and gear for those who work and wait,
But I’m often drifting, drifting, from the palling gleam of gold
Till I stand beside the old farm gate. ”

“ In the same manner I think that every lover of poetry is careful not to contemn the rudest rhyme that may contain a heartbeat. That is to say that every lover of poetry is a faithful Catholic. He may like some kinds of poetry better than others, yet he finds every kind a good kind—however stiffly or crudely it succeeds in transferring its content of emotion. If it does not hold and convey emotion, then it is not poetry, no matter how fine its form or how famous the name of its author. I value this little wild garden of verses the more because it grows in Australia. ”

“ With a very seedy poet, who pours piffle out for pelf,
In the columns of the western Sunday Press.
And when those two collaborate, a change comes o’er the scene,
(It happens so when kindred spirits meet)
For here and there, a patch of red! and here and there, of green!
And a chirpy crowd goes laughing down the street!
The genial face of Friendship ’gainst the window-pane is pressed,
And an optimist keeps boredom well at bay,
Whilst a maiden comes a-tripping, with a rosebud at her breast,
Adown his mental corridors of grey. ”

“ Straight as a gunbarrel and unfaltering in his denunciation of all that savoured of the mean, the paltry, or the unjust, Bourke was the whitest and the most lovable of men. Gifted with a keen insight into human nature and unlimited power of happy expression, he was a staunch friend and a true mate, and no man on the fields was more personally popular. ”

“ What did Bourke write? The verse that appeals to wanderers, to reckless men, to men who have fought and lost, fought and won, fought and wasted their winnings [22] in all the ways of all the earth. Wasted? Not all wasted; not most, it may be.
What is a purse? A thing to scatter free.
What is a talent but a gift for joy?
What is life’s lesson? To live heartily
To man’s utmost, like a happy boy. ”

“ Got no time to sky the wipe—only time to fight!
Only time for graft and grind, dog and dough and dust!
That’s the tune the music plays—scratchin’ for a crust.
From such a life as that stanza depicts, almost inevitably men turn to intoxicating liquor for consolation or for oblivion. Any reader of Western verses must see first how large a part liquor plays in life, and secondly, how large a part of that life, that life in the desert, in the sand, in the wilderness, can only be assuaged by liquor. ”

“ From the deadhead’s room, where a light shines through
With a dimmed and a sickly ray:
There are some folk born with a lucky caul,
And a hobby to ride at will,
While for others—it isn’t the Lord at all,
But the Devil, who drives the mill.
And though you may laugh on the mountain’s crown,
And though I may toil at the base,
It is neither he who is up nor down
Has himself to thank for his place ”

“ An artist may touch everything with mastery. These writers are not artists, but men who utter the measures and rhymes that come to them often unsought; they are poetical interpreters of life and manhood. Accept them in that guise, and they need no justification from another’s hand: they justify themselves.
John Philip Bourke, who wrote for The Sun, Kalgoorlie, scores of stanzas that ring harshly or melodiously, but that ring true, has set down his page of Western history over the signature of “Bluebush.” Between East [21] and West his honours are easy ”

“ No more verses in praise of Wine!
Yet, through a tangle of years and strife,
Constant still do her true eyes shine—
Mother, or sweetheart, or child, or wife.
Is there a haven where Hope is rife,
Holding a remnant of life’s design? ”

“ Did you ever see gold glitter in the dull light of the glim,
Where the face is specked and sprinkled with the best of sovereign-dust,
And you calkerlate your income at a pick-blow to the jim?
Hello, on top! Hello!
Hook on, and let her go!
Or we’ll never make our tucker in a five-ounce show!
[66]
Oh, the days go by like drinkin’—for it’s entertainin’ graft,
And you hear your mate discoursin’ to the crowd around the brace,
As he tugs away the hide, and it goes skimmin’ up the shaft,
While a smile ’ud trip a bullock jest illumernates his face—
Hello, on top! ”

“ The East has more refined writers, more cultivated and more artistic writers; but not more manly writers.
Poetry is a man’s work if it performs a man’s deeds. When, on the night of 24th April, 1792, Rouget de l’Isle tramped his lodging-house room “with a head of ice and fire” to compose “The Marseillaise,” how many deeds were his exultant verses worth! How vainly he himself would have fought to achieve the feats of swelling valour to which his art inspired others. In a literary aspect the words are little more than a rant:—
“Aux armes, citoyens! ”

“ THE WESTERN WRITER TO HIS MUSE.
I have no wild desire to sing, and sing,
Or kneel at Nature’s feet, and be her mummer.
Poetic fancies are not rioting
For liberty, like prisoned birds in summer.
No thoughts, like maidenhair, climb round and cling
To rhyming roosters writing on a thrummer ”

“ Shirking the fight that a man should fight.
There are keen sight and shrewd sense underlying Bourke’s verses. There is sentiment, too, intermingled with pathos, in many places—as in “His Letter from W.A.”
It’s scarcely six months since I left Cooranbean,
But seems longer than all of last year;
The moon ain’t so bright and the grass ain’t so green,
And the sky, somehow, isn’t so clear.
Oh! I’d give all their towns to the very last brick,
And the mines with the forchins they yield,
Just to hear the old ripple of Cooranbean crick,
And the rustle of corn in the field. ”

“ Doubtless, its Australian appeal detracts from its quality considered as universal literature; yet that detraction is balanced by the additional attraction it has for readers here and now. I am not concerned to measure out comparative credit, but only to emphasise the point that we have here something that is worthy our credit.
The opinion offered, the attitude taken, follow after reading some hundreds of representative Western verses. The merit of those verses is to be found in the impression one receives from the whole—an impression gained from many patches of gold that shine in the quartz. ”

“ CHURNING “COPY” FOR THE PRESS.
Men are rushing through the level, or are delving in the shaft,
Or a-belting like the devil at a moil—
With a bitter curse for Adam, as the pioneer of graft
And the bloke who took a patent out for toil. ”

“ Hearts grow withered and locks grow white,
Dodging the joys that a man should know,
Shirking the fight that a man should fight.
No more verses in praise of Wine!
Where are the glorious days we knew
Touched with the rays of a light divine,
Decked with a garland of thyme and rue?
[195] Where is their glamour for yours and you? ”