Poems by Edward George Dyson

Edward George Dyson was born at Morrisons near Ballarat in March 1865. His father, George Dyson, arrived in Australia in 1852 and after working on various diggings became a mining engineer, his mother came from a life of refinement in England. The family led a roving life during Dyson's childhood, moving successively to Alfredton, Bendigo, Ballarat and Alfredton again. Unconsciously the boy was storing for future use the life of the miners, farmers and bushmen, among whom he lived. At 12 he began to work as an assistant to a travelling draper, after that was a whimboy in a mine, and for two or three years an assistant in a factory at Melbourne. This was followed by work in a newspaper office. At 19 he began writing verse, and a few years later embarked on a life of free-lance journalism which lasted until his death. His first notable work was "The Golden Shanty", which appeared in the Bulletin, and many other short stories followed. In 1896 he published a volume of poems, Rhymes from the Mines, and in 1898 the first collection of his short stories, Below and On Top. In 1901 his first long story The Gold-stealers was published in London, which was followed by In the Roaring Fifties in 1906. In the same year appeared Fact'ry 'Ands, a series of more or less connected sketches dealing with factory life in Melbourne in a vein of humour. Various other stories and collections of stories were published in the Bookstall Series and will be found listed in Miller's Australian Literature. Another volume of verse Hello, Soldier! appeared in 1919. All through the years Dyson did an enormous amount of work until he broke down under the strain and died after a long illness on 22 August 1931. He married Miss Jackson who survived him with one daughter.

Dyson was an admirable workman but does not rank among the greater prose-writers of Australia. The Gold-stealers and In the Roaring Fifties are two interesting tales, and the short stories are capably written. His work has the merit that it was written out of his own experience and observation. Of his two volumes of verse the first, Rhymes from the Mines, is the better, and gives Dyson an honourable place in the ranks of Australian balladists.

In his book "Hello, Soldier!" Khaki Verse, many poems were originally printed in the "Bulletin," others in "Punch," "The Leader" and Melbourne "Herald."

This poem was entitled - MUD

This war's a waste of slurry, and its atmosphere is mud,
All is bog from here to sunset. Wadin' through
We're the victims of a thicker sort of universal flood,
With discomforts that old Noah never knew.

We have dubbed our trench The Cecil.
There's a brass-plate and a dome, And a quagmire where the doormat used to be,
If you're calling, second Tuesday is our reg'lar day at home,
So delighted if you'll toddle in to tea!

There is mud along the corridors enough to bog a cow;
In the air there hangs a musty kind of woof;
There's a frog-pond in the parlour, and the kitchen is a slough.
She has neither doors nor windows, nor a roof.

When they post our bald somnambulist as missing from his flat
We take soundings for the digger with a prop.
By the day the board is gratis, by the week it's half of that;
For the season there's a corresponding drop.

Opening off the spacious hallway is my natty little suite,
A commodious and accessible abode.
By judicious disposition, with exclusion of my feet,
There is sleeping room for Oliver the toad.

Though the ventilation's gusty, and in gobs the ceiling falls--
Which with oral respiration disagrees--
Though there comes a certain quantity of seepage from the walls,
There are some I knew in diggings worse than these.

On my right is Cobber Carkeek. There's a spring above his head,
And his mattress is a special kind of clay.
He's a most punctilious bloke about the fashion of his bed,
And he makes it with a shovel every day.

Man is dust. If so, the Cobber has been puddled up a treat.
On domestic sanitation he's a toff,
For he lights a fire on Sunday, bakes his sur face in the heat,
Then he takes a little maul, and cracks it off.

After hanging out a winter in this Cimmerian hole
We're forgetting sheets, and baths, and tidy skins.
In the dark and deadly calm last night they took us on patrol.
Seven, little fellows, thinking of their sins.

It was ours like blinded snails to prowl the soggy, slimy night,
With a feeler pricking out at every pore
For the death that stalks in darkness, or the blinking stab of light,
And the other trifling matters that are war.

That's the stuff to get your liver, that's the acid on a man,
For it tries his hones, and seeks his marrow throngh.
You have got the thought to comfort you that life is but a span,
If Fritz squirts his loathly limelight over you.

We got back again at daybreak. Cobber ducked to doss and said,
From the soft, embracing mud: "No more I'll roam.
"Oh, thank Heaven, blokes," he murmured, "for the comforts of a bed!
Gorstruth, but ain't it good to have a home!"