" NORMAN-BAY."—AN IMPRESSION.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue 8177, 18 March 1905, Page 4

" NORMAN-BAY."— AN IMPRESSION.

(By D. Rougnnent.) By the old hotel verandah, longing fiercely for a spree, There's an old sundowner leaning, and he's hunting for a flea, — And his are dungarees, and the tainted bneczes say, "Got you back, you dirty swagger, get you back ami wash to-day! Wash, for once, in Norman-bay, Wash, betimes, while yet you may, Lest, perchance, the. hoc is needed To scrape, ero long, the silt away. His hair is full of gorse-pricks, and slouching is his mcin { And his name is Alias, — just the same as might-have-been, — And we saw him gravely puffing at a putrid old briar-root, And a wasting wealth of spittle on the stolid barman's boot. Blooming whiskers soaked in mud, There ho stood and chewed his cud, Plucky lot he cared for curses, When we doomed him where he stud.

He'd stolen whence he.d lain the night before- m the raupo-covered creek, And the slime adhered as closely, you could almost "hear" it .speak; Are ye yearning now to know what the ancient tourist Mis? "W'en you've roughed it as I 'as, you'll take no Ved of smells, — Oh, you'll never note the smells, Nor the bloomin' bobbies' yells, But the bar-scent, and the tap-room And the tinkling dinner-bells, That you strike at Norman-bay! "Slip me' somewhere in the sewage, where the vest is Hke to burst, Where the landlords ne'er demand rents, and a bloke can slake a thirst ; But the barmaid girls are bawling, and it's here I've longed to be, — By the ol.d hotel verandah, getting gayly on the spree! On the "bust" at Norman-bay! Where the licensed horses bray, Can't you hear their hooves afthumping? Round the streets of Norman-bay? "I am tired of 'xpectorating on these blimey cobble stones, And that busted beefsteak sizzle wakes the thirst within me bones; Though I hinterviews the 'ousemaids, they talks of corn-beef canned! And mo hexpiring with the thirst, — now'U what'll you beggars stand? Lord! don't ye understand? 'Ow many schooners will ye> stand? I've a rougher, tougher throat, Then ever tanner tanned. And I'd soak it here in Norman-bay." Then we rodo from Norman-bay, — Rode, at once/ from Norman-bay, Where the curse of ragwort lay, . ■ ' An.d the ranger comes like lightning To drive the cows away! •