Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AN IDYLL OF PIPECLAY PONDS, by TOM FREEMAN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AN IDYLL OF PIPECLAY PONDS, by                    
First Line: Talk of the beauties of wedded life
Last Line: That had its finale at skillicorn's dance.
Subject(s): Dancing & Dancers; Death; Love; Marriage; Dead, The; Weddings; Husbands; Wives


TALK of the beauties of wedded life
From the regular orthodox point of view,
Why, there were the Mullenses, man and wife,
A cosier couple I never knew.
Yet they never were married by parson or priest,
But spliced themselves in the old-time way—
Jumped over the broomstick together—at least
So I've many a time heard Mullens say.
Yet, spite of their flimsy marriage-bonds,
They were well respected at Pipeclay Ponds.

Well, they roughed it together for fifty year
Without ever a youngster to tighten the knot,
And they smoked their 'bacca and drank their beer,
And both from the same black pipe and pot.
I don't mean to say that they never had rows,
But they never got on to the fighting tack,
Though they'd swear at each other about the house
Like bullocky-bucks on a boggy track.
And dance! Why, at every free shivoo
They'd "chazzy" like niggers the whole night through.

At their little ten acres they tugged away,
And neither had ever been known to roam,
Till a rumour went flying around one day
That old Dan Mullens was missing from home.
At the news we neighbours all mustered up,
And raked the gullies for miles around,
While we dragged the Ponds for their last dead pup,
But never a trace of the man we found.
He seemed, in fact, to have dropped as clean
From the world as though he had never been.

She bore up at first, did the tough old dame,
And she wouldn't believe that her mate was dead
But as time slid by and no tidings came,
She lost the run of her poor old head.
And she'd whisper and croak in her crazy way
That the Ponds hadn't yet seen the last of Dan,
While she always vowed she'd have some day
Another jig with her own old man
Till some of us reckoned the case a sell
And that she knew more than she could tell.

At last she showed us the starlight skip
And followed old Mullens to God-knows-where;
We searched some days and then let her rip ...
Then the mystery cleared from the whole affair.
'Twas the night of the races and while the ball
At Skillicorn's shanty was in full wag,
Who should drop in, to the start of all,
But old Mother Mullens a-humping a swag—
A clumsy bundle slung over her back,
In the shape of a half-filled sugee-bag.

She looked us round with a wink and a leer,
And she chuckled and smirked to herself a while,
Then squawked out gaily, "I've got him here
And I've carried him many a weary mile.
You little guessed when I did that flit
Whose bones they'd found in the black-pine scrub;
But I turned up timely and claimed the kit
At the inquest held at the up-line pub;
Bad luck to the train that took him away
And left him to foot it back I say!"

The fiddler started her cackle to stop,
While she gave us a piece of a pantomime
By going off with a can-can hop,
While she jolted she rattled the bones in time.
As the poor old body began to fag
The company clapped and cheered the more,
Till the bottom fell out of the sugee-bag,
And the skull went rolling across the floor.
Then she sank in a corner amongst the bones,
And she gathered them close like a nestling hen,
While she warned us off in her piercing tones—
Saying nothing should rob her of Dan again.

'Tis a simple tale, and there's no more to tell;
But I cannot help letting my memory dwell
On that sweet little chapter of real romance
That had its finale at Skillicorn's dance.





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