The Bay and Padie Book | Page 3

the 'randah in the wet!
Now'n
again we've heard him chatter,
But we've never seen him yet.
Tip-toe, tip-toe, through the house,
'Round the pantry, down the hall!


P'raps he's only just a mouse,
P'raps he's nuffing real at all.
Hush you! Hush! I think I hear
Just a little noise of humming!
If
you see him waiting near,
Please don't whisper him we're coming.
Someone smashed the photo-lady;
Who upset the pot of musk?
Was
it Micky? Was it Padie
Hunting Micky in the dusk?
In the after afternoons
When there comes big, starey moons,
Often
we've heard Micky playing
By the window, fairy tunes;
But I don't
know what he's saying
In the after afternoons.
Anyone seen Micky, say,
On the Coota-wattle perching?
He might
know and run away
If he knows we're searching, searching.
When he talks to Bay and me,
Micky doesn't seem to know
It's too
far for boys to see
If he's in the trellis tree;
It's too damp for boys to
go
Hunting in the grass below.
On the rafters in the night
I've heard little footmarks trot;
And I
watch the candle light,
Wondering if it's him or not.
Micky's always everywhere;
Watches children while they sleeping;

'Round about the attic stair
Sometimes mother saw him peeping.
Micky doesn't like much noise,
He's a wide-eye whisper fairy;
Very
kind to girls and boys,
Very shy and most contrary.
Tip-toe, tip-toe! Hush the noise!
There's a wide-eye whisper tune!

Micky's telling songs to boys
Sleepy after the afternoon.
THE LADY NANCY
What's the gooder being good?
Always every day
Somefing comes
and compradicks
Everyfing I play.

I was digging in the garden
And I digged me toe,
Why do I do that
for?
I don't know!
Then I goes and chases Sufi,
Sufi won't be chased:
I falled over the
wheelbarrow
And hurted all me waist.
I tooks me little pictures out
And laid them in a row,
I told the wind
to stop away
And not come round and blow.
Up there comes a norful wind
And brushed the lot away:
Daddie,
Gord's been 'noying me
All this day.
THE HANGING SWORD
I used to stride like a warrior
All hot for alarms, and game--
But I'm
not the fellow I was before
The little babies came.
Now, furtive 'mid the city's noise,
I pause, I start, I flee!
For what
would happen to my little boys
If a tram ran over me?
NONSENSE IMMORTAL
From France or Spain or the Himalayas,
Out of the hearts of
unknown loons,
In toothless mouths of old soothsayers,
On hairy
lips of wandering players
Come the lullabies, come the croons.
Lords have lashed and poets have pondered,
Blood has flowed in the
runnels deep,
Beacons have broken and faiths been squandered;

Through dank forests these songs have wandered
Quietly crooning
our babes to sleep.
Grandmother melodies, grandmother fancies,
Crooned by the Oxus
ever endure!
Epics of valour and throne romances
Have much
honour and take big chances,
But the clowns who sang for the babes
are sure.

The goblin speaks while in old caves moulder
Priest-made destinies
and lord-made law,
The goblin leered from the monarch's shoulder

And, his sight being true and his young heart bolder,
'Twas only the
goblin the baby saw!
So the god's death agonies are baby chatter!
A ball on the floor of the
nursery room
The red earth rolls, for what can matter
If old John
Spratt licks clean his platter
And the brown cows go to the broom?
THE ROAD OF NOW AND THEN
Tinkle, tinkle go the bells,
King and prince and silver knight
March
through stories grandma tells
When the winter fire's alight.
Down the Road of Stories ride
People who have never died;
Fairies
float and trumpets blow,
Pretty soldiers fence and bow,
On the
Road from Long Ago,
Long Ago till Now.
Johnnie Fawkner sailed a boat,
There's its picture in the book;

Roses, wreaths and banners float
'Round the head of Captain Cook.
In the time when knights were bold
Ladies rode with bells and chains,

Horses rugged in white and gold,
Feather-legged with plaited
manes.
Singing, Watch Europa go,
Wearing thinner clothes than silk.

Riding from the cattle show
On her bull as white as milk.
Sturt he led a caravan,
Kelly made the bankers jump;
Leichardt was
a camel-man
Riding on a camel-hump.
Down the Road of Stories march
Gentle-folk and bullock-men,

Cracking whips and wearing starch
Down the Road of Stories go
All the people that we know.
Oh!
what wonders grandmas show,
Spectacles on brow,
'Bout the Road

from Long Ago,
Long Ago, Long Ago,
'Bout the Road from Long
Ago,
Long Ago till Now.
SLEEP SONG
Half-past bunny-time,
'Possums by the moon;
Tea and
bread-and-honey time,
Sleep-time soon.
Things that poets pant to see,
The beautiful, the true,
Are nothing to
the phantasy
The closed eyes view.
KITCHEN LULLABY
Steady in the kitchen, steady in the hall,
Don't let the dipper or the
gruel pot fall!
The ole blind's flapping
And the little dog's snapping

At the butcher and the baker and the woodman when they call.
Ssh! ssh! ssh! for the little boy peeping,
Ssh! ssh! ssh! did the milky
make him start?
Little boy sleeping, sleeping, sleeping,
Little boy
sleeping at his mother's heart.
What a lot of noises, carts and buzzing flies!
Keep his little hands
down, shut his little eyes;
For the boys are larking
And the dogs are barking
And he can't go
to bye-low though he tries