THE DIGGER'S DUFF.

Otago Witness, Volume 11, Issue 1938, 11 January 1889, Page 29

THE DIGGER'S DUFF.

If ev'ry day were Sunday, And Sunday always fine, I'd ask no spacious mansion Wherein to sit and dine;— The digger's canvas palace For me were large enough, Where, happy, free, and healthy, I'd live on digger's duff! Boil'd in a kerosene tin,

And dish'd up in a pan, It gives forth an aroma To glad the heart of man; Its brown sides thro' the sugar

Show like a hill-side rough Wrapp'd in a dazzling snow-wreath— Such is the digger's duff!— If youth were but eternal, And no rheumatic chills Could come to mar the rapture Of life amid the hills, Within a wooded gully Wild, picturesque, and rough, My home should be; my dinner The steaming digger's duff!

Its sweet and splcy odour Should summon me to dine,

A pannikin of tea, too, Should be my flask of wine; Upon the neighb'ring bushes I'd find dessert enough, Of lucious fuchsia-berries

After my plate of duff. The blithe New Zealand robin

Should sing my matin song— Within the sunlit woodlands

I'd ramble all day long; At night, the tinkling streamlet Were lullaby enough, For sweetly could I slumber After the digger's duff! If every day were Sunday, And Sunday always fine, If youth were but eternal, Such freedom should be mine; But sickness or bad weather

Would spoil it, sure enough;

I'd pine beneath the canvas, And shirk the digger's duff! So farewell, wooded gully, And digger's camp farewell; Of you in scenes far distant This pinch of gold shall tell; And fancy oft shall lead me Where, down the pathway rough, In Donald Grant's encampment I tasted "digger's duff"!

—WYCH ELM.

Moeraki, December 31, 1888.