Omar The Vagabond Bard

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 208, 3 September 1938, Page 2 (Supplement)

Omar The Vagabond Bard

were travelling, I remember, IT first-class cattle truck on the southern line when Omar the Poet first came into our nomad life. This celebrity of Hobohemia, a brown-skinned, wire-haired, largeeared and short-legged adventurer, was to a great extent responsible for the numerous hobo ballads that rang around the "jungle" fires in '35-36. The good bard often declared loudly that he trod the via dolorosa of Trackdorr, for pleasure and freedom of soul instead of retiring to a Trappist monastery. We had a lot is common. Has vitriolic descriptions of the genus "mug editor™ who appreciated not his manuscripts— grubby on principle and frequently illegible —had all the scorn of "the unrecognised genius. He did not. with present genius, believe that a problematical immortalitv beyond the tomb was. worth any amount of calculated neglect or sketchy meals before it. Though he did on occasions deplore that a writer cannot be con- I sidered properly alive until he is thor- i oughly dead, a quotation blatantlv 1 plagiarised irom some successful author j which tfie good Guar appropriated for • hte- personal thunder. On the Sargasso sea of Traekdom the poet was a drifting hulk—a ~ rat ionchafer* avowed. Rumour said that once he had been an English curate; but a preference for the wine when it was anv : colour had pat him far awav in this ' Hobohemian exile," where his unfortunate : preferences for alcohol had perforce to! express themselves in "white ladv," 1 -"bins hoop"* or "'thousand delights."' Out of regard for the Cloth, the poet ' always affected .garments of as sober a ; has as he could 'bite"' from missions; ! though present fashion-plate recalls ose I memorable occasion when Omar was I seen in gaily strip«d troosers which • smacked aggressively of the Flesh acd ' the Devil. . Tbe time that he "fah" an undertaker : *or his suit is vagabond hlstorv, having I an honoured place in the lexicons of the Hominy Gazette. " \ It seems taat the bard, having success- f tally '■fatEged" the mortician, found that ■ the ga ran en is- were too large, the under-! taker being long'and ikm, Omar short i and pliajmp. So fee got to work with the Kfßal ingenuity of the bagman and re-? dpeed the suit to his own size.it was a sight aroand the Wallabv Trail for = months to see Omar, bobbing S asm eoat tails straggling on ths groan dl < . rattlers" while hanging oa to I and "mssebag," j

By--

A. F. Bruno

Then there was the time when the citizens of Toirceville—at least those who were abroad at six in the morning —beheld the top-hatted, frock-coated figure of Omar the poet riding in state upon the local sanitarv cart!

One night at the Millions Club in Griffiths, Xevr South Wales, there was a "jungle"' concert ; and the ballads of the bard roared out into the startled night. The Miiuons Club is an old disused fac-

Tory —or the foundations of it. rathe encroaching bagmen have claimed it f their own. They live in the cellars; is a postal address proper. Present chai letter writer once received a letter the wflsch had travelled more than 70 miles about the ecrontrv. The concert was started br a trio tsght-hearted rascals who re/used to < to-day what they could put off till t morrow. They sang (did Filthy Allen. Dirl Neck Mulkgan and Awful Bob): Wcenrc-sTkAir has tariKtl to «a Ter , *■.££ Scikl be on ;lw ° T 1 . !l J e ia Happy Taller where J«ck .-ap.; has fuli control. " the rations and t! tzt -L : h •i sa « Pension we w ieave t b«> <i<>Be for yoa. TiEe \TSt' iatnp a , N>2r 'i a rattler that htaiiia way down s-onth. t;* 5. »f>s«Swz on oar Ider and la mir saomb We ZFU?? *"'■* a: Coota. .he And ™ jr, 2 et the pension we wil! l ea toe dole for tcrned to tUrer _ er-9P*'*i op with are. "fl a - s!w,s! ou ~ trarels in t' oi-i Dagnsan days. Z3 'a. th» s-insJilce. we w rosad in ti» siade Tfe»'p-^^ r ~' 2Ch tlEjil lae Bigsaa s Serenade.

That is "The Baf man's Serenade." rhe tune k one allegedly popular. Then we would all sing, to tie tune of "The Stockman's Lament:" A southern lia e bastnen lay dying \ a under liis head. And the gu&rd and the driver were eryinr as he rose on his nosebag and said: UP * ith mj ***S and my dole And barj- me deep down below Where railway demons can't pet me la tie saades where all good bagmen go. Tell j^ sntwalchm en Who oft€E have sought ?^ ba^ h!E = * itb wood on the "tarps." put ln tbe fcK>ot when they caught That I'm one of the hobos with harps. Wr *cart 6 CP * iLtl me «**S and me dole 4 e s wan t to know. On *he St 1 hare taken the rattler To the shades where all good bagmen go. There was Big Jim and his guitar, old Tony and his piano accordion, a couple of tinkling banjba, a ukelele or two, mouth organs in more or less focus °; *-ajtnony, gum leaves, a tin whistle played by a master who had once drawn a princely salary in concert orchestras, and a violin that could sob. There was Bertram, an ex-Prussian Guard sergeant, who sang, with The Prof. German etuaent songs, masterpieces of melodv. T-ere was a ventriloquist who caused the camp Qog—a "stiff" dog which, as ;. BC j. wa ° to all privileges of ! vne junkie —to utter remarkable risque _, , Tnere was present thespian ravest ' es oi Maori hakas. And Hsldebrand, our low-brow souls were uplifted thereby. . .? ood ba J" d bad his own ideas of ' f Dignity of Labour, too. Bad luck i ZL. ln dogging the footsteps of uU - A w »i»ng person ' rTSi™"* 4 u * ™ rt ™«"*««»: , "Y' don' wan' work. v> such-and-*ueh ! ! f thtT aSbes '- ho ~™ Backbone Country in azony. "Consider, laddie,"' pleaded th» ba-d " If " e our j hoir *e a«"o' ; to a npe 0; d age? How m an v rroal .^ r i. men," be cried oratorically, w-vfs

we eborussed TTear, hear!' "perish of heart strain, dying before they can enjoy the base coin for which they have bartered the priceless boon of youth? Xo. no, fellow"—and Omar the Poet spurned the frothing farm employer—"leave us and carry on. We toil not, neither do we spin. O' what a panic's in thv breastie! Anyway," he appended righteously, '"cookies are the lowest form of animal life I" One disclaims his radical sentiments naturally, especially with regard to the fanning community; and perhaps it was an act of God that shortly afterwards he lost a book of poems while "taking her on the fly" at Taree Junction. There , is such a thing as retribution, Hildebrand. i Perhaps Omar the bard still is lotus--5 eating on the Wallaby Trail. Perhaps a "degenerate respectability" has engulfed him once again; and Omar has sold his Free Soul for a mes of pottage. » Or he ha« gone the same wav as The Pro*, the mild-spoken "entlee i rcan > of a famous European j university, whose biliy hangs on the j wall of the police station on the border - ! of Queensland and West Australia, t There are billies all around the wall— blackened billies: the only monument t to the bagmen who, dying of thirst, have scrawled a last message to someone oa their inseparable utensils. t Wherever he is, his verses will be sunaround ''jungle'' fires while there are bagmen who remember the portlT and . beard-stubbled poet. , The bazman Is a fanny beast 1 5~ hp .., ests .t-e a=d works the least • • * bllln ~ ic * s fce S« life's ease , shares wapsa raj: with Seas > i Tm distance he wanders to f i But lend enchantment to the Tlew. i J And when at -as: he passes on There's no one cares that he Is *o-e. ; j He wrote that in the Crystal Palace ' j Brisbane, b?far« that colourful "stin- ■ ? age" wa« closei down for ever br the I authorities. It is the Bard's ; "What the hell—? We cai't be aiiv 1 ! wirse off!" "Milk-Wool" T TP to this time the so-called i V "milk-wool" has been proeduced only in Italy, from which i\ l t , ook comn »«cial name "lana j Italiana. | _ A German textile concern in Thunnzia nas now. however, commenced the raeture of this fabric, the p- : n ? -\a ? i- ; is the casein o£ ski=-ij-evk ni 4 s obtained in j For the present only small 'ouant*'« o* tnie Textile are beia? masufa."-'-- -/ Germany, and m-»t of this U *or making felt bets, "