Works in the Herald 1934
A VANDAL'S LIFE - AND DEATH

Because some visitors persist in scratching names and initials on the bronze doors of the Shrine of Remembrance, it has been decided to close the upper gallery to the public.

An illegible scrawl on the dining-room wall
   Was his earnest bid for high fame,
But the spanking he had from a furious dad
   Served to set his ambition aflame.
Determined by then to be known amongst men,
   No furtive occasion he lost
To seek lasting renown in his own native town,
   And glory without the high cost.

Then the trees in the park he defaced after dark;
   Every bill-board and bridge bore his name;
No post in the street seemed somehow complete
   Till, at last, he'd initialled the same.
Subsequently, at school, altho' branded a fool,
   His name was indelibly graved
On desk and on form that, thro' many a storm,
   He sought the cheap fame his soul craved.

Then travel appealed and he wandered afield
   To the earth's most historical spots,
And each monument, wherever he went,
   Soon blossomed with one of his blots.
Then the grand Taj Mahal and China's great wall
   And the Pyramids sought all in vain
Vicarious glory for his sordid story:
   He advertised ever in vain.

He has now passed away, I am happy to say,
   And in some far burial ground
He rests all alone, remote and unknown,
   Where never a headstone is found.
Unfamed and unwept, here his vigil is kept
   While his poor restless soul seeks in vain,
In the shrines of the great, to wrestle from fate,
   That cheap glory he sought to attain.

"Den"
Herald, 18 April 1934, p6

Copyright © Perry Middlemiss 2003-04