Jonah's Luck Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABCDCD EFE GHGH GIGIJGJG EFEFEKEK LHLDLGLG LGLGEBEB MGMGNONO EPEPLQLQ PPPPRJRJ PPPPLGLG STSTPUPU EVEVLWLW| Out of luck mate Have a liquor Hang it where's the use complaining | A |
| Take your fancy I'm in funds now I can stand the racket Dan | B |
| Dump your bluey in the corner camp here for the night it's raining | A |
| Bet your life I'm glad to see you glad to see a Daylesford man | B |
| Swell Correct Dan Spot the get up and I own this blooming shanty | C |
| Me the fellows christened 'Jonah' at Jim Crow and Blanket Flat | D |
| 'Cause my luck was so infernal you remember me and Canty | C |
| Rough times those the very memory keeps a chap from getting fat | D |
| - | |
| Where'd I strike it That's a yarn The fire's a comfort sit up nearer | E |
| Hoist your heels man take it easy till Kate's ready with the stew | F |
| Yes I'll tell my little story 'tain't a long one but it's queerer | E |
| Than those lies that Tullock pitched us on The Flat in ' | - |
| Fancy Phil a parson now He's smug as grease the Reverend Tullock | G |
| Yes he's big his wife and fam'ly are a high and mighty lot | H |
| Didn't I say his jaw would keep him when he tired of punching mullock | G |
| Well it has he's made his pile here How d'you like your whiskey hot | H |
| - | |
| Luck Well now I like your cheek Dan You had luck there's no denying | G |
| I in thirty years had averaged just a wage of twenty bob | I |
| Why at Alma there I saw men making fortunes without trying | G |
| While for days I lived on 'possums and then had to take a job | I |
| Bah you talk about misfortune my ill luck was always thorough | J |
| Gold once ran away before me if I chased it for a week | G |
| I was starved at Tarrangower lived on tick at Maryborough | J |
| And I fell and broke my thigh bone at the start of Fiery Creek | G |
| - | |
| At Avoca Canty left me Jim you know was not a croaker | E |
| But he jacked the whole arrangement found we couldn't make a do | F |
| Said he loved me like a brother but 'twas rough upon a joker | E |
| When he'd got to fight the devil and find luck enough for two | F |
| Jim was off I didn't blame him seeing what he'd had to suffer | E |
| When Maginnis just beside us panned out fifty to the tub | K |
| 'We had pegged out hours before him and had struck another duffer | E |
| And each store upon the lead my lad had laid us up for grub | K |
| - | |
| After that I picked up Barlow but we parted at Dunolly | L |
| When we'd struggled through at Alma Adelaide Lead and Ararat | H |
| See my luck was hard upon him he contracted melancholy | L |
| And he hung himself one morning in the shaft at Parrot Flat | D |
| Ding it No Where gold was getting I was on the job and early | L |
| Struck some tucker dirt at Armstrong's and just lived at Pleasant Creek | G |
| Always grafting like a good 'un never hopeless like or surly | L |
| Living partly on my earnings Dan but largely on my cheek | G |
| - | |
| Good old days they like to call them they were tough old days to many | L |
| I was through them and they left me still the choice to graft or beg | G |
| Left me gray and worn and wrinkled aged and stumped without a penny | L |
| With a chronic rheumatism and this darned old twisted leg | G |
| Other work That's true in plenty But you know the real old stager | E |
| Who has followed up the diggings how he hangs on to the pan | B |
| How he hates to leave the pipeclay Though you mention it I'll wager | E |
| That you never worked on top until you couldn't help it Dan | B |
| - | |
| Years went by On many fields I worked and often missed a meal and | M |
| Then I found Victoria played out and the yields were very slack | G |
| So I took a turn up Northward tried Tasmania and New Zealand | M |
| Dan I worked my passage over and I sneaked the journey back | G |
| Times were worse I made a cradle and went fossicking old places | N |
| But the Chows had been before me and had scraped the country bare | O |
| There was talk of splendid patches 'mongst the creeks and round the races | N |
| But 'twas not my luck to strike them and I think I lived on air | O |
| - | |
| Rough That's not the word So help me Dan I hadn't got a stiver | E |
| 'When I caved in one fine Sunday found I couldn't lift my head | P |
| They removed me and the doctor said I'd got rheumatic fever | E |
| And for seven months I lingered in a ward upon a bed | P |
| Came out crippled feeling done up hopeless like and very lonely | L |
| And dead beat right down to bed rock as I'd never felt before | Q |
| Bitter Just Those hopeful years of honest graft had left me only | L |
| This bent leg and some asylum was the prospect I'd in store | Q |
| - | |
| You'll be knowing how I felt then cleaned out lame completely gravelled | P |
| All the friends I'd known were scattered widely north and east and west | P |
| There seemed nothing there for my sort and no chances if I travelled | P |
| No my digging days were over and I had to give it best | P |
| Though 'twas hard I tried to meet it like a man in digger fashion | R |
| 'Twasn't good enough I funked it I was fairly on the shelf | J |
| Cursed my bitter fortune daily and was always in a passion | R |
| With the Lord sir and with everyone but mostly with myself | J |
| - | |
| I was older twenty years then than I am this blessed minute | P |
| But I got a job one morning knapping rock at Ballarat | P |
| Two and three for two inch metal You may say there's nothing in it | P |
| To the man who's been through Eaglehawk and mined at Blanket Flat | P |
| Wait you'd better let me finish We and ill I bucked in gladly | L |
| But to get the tools I needed I was forced to pawn my swag | G |
| I'd no hope of golden patches but I needed tucker badly | L |
| And this job I think just saved me being lumbered on the vag | G |
| - | |
| Fortune is a fickle party but in spite of all her failings | S |
| Don't revile her Dan as I did while you've still a little rope | T |
| Well the heap that I was put on was some heavy quartz and tailings | S |
| That was carted from a local mine I think the Band of Hope | T |
| Take the lesson that is coming to your heart old man and hug it | P |
| For I started on the heap with scarce a soul to call my own | U |
| And in less than twenty minutes I'd raked out a bouncing nugget | P |
| Scaling close on ninety ounces and just frosted round with stone | U |
| - | |
| How is that for high my hearty Miracle It was by thunder | E |
| After forty years of following the rushes up and down | V |
| Getting old and past all prospect and about to knuckle under | E |
| Struck it lucky knapping metal in the middle of a town | V |
| Pass the bottle Have another Soon we'll get the word from Kitty | L |
| She's a daisy cook I tell you Yes the public business pays | W |
| But my pile was made beforehand made it 'broking' in the city | L |
| That's the yarn I pitch the neighbours Here's to good old now a days | W |
Edward Dyson
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about Jonah's Luck poem by Edward Dyson
Best Poems of Edward Dyson