What memories cluster round his name and cling!
What scenes he lit and limned to grip you fast,
Artist whose words could on a canvas fling
With cunning strokes and vivid coloring
Those pictures of the past!
How oft with him through that familiar ground,
With trench and pothole seamed and scarred, we strayed;
Followed the "Old Whim Horse" upon his round,
Or heard (in chapel) the tempestuous sound
"When Brother Petree Played"!
The old-time diggings, with their glory gone,
He conjured up once more for all to see.
And when those fields in splendor blazed and shone,
Say, was there any found or worked thereon
A richer vein than he?
'Mid crumbling shacks, where batteries are dumb,
Still in our minds "The Golden Shanty" stands;
Still in the silences we catch the hum,
Rich with the argot of the street and slum,
Of Spats's "Fact'ry 'Ands."
No keener and no kindlier eyes were bent
Upon the tides of life that past him rolled;
Toll of the moving show that came and went,
He took, for wit and mirth and merriment,
And touched the dross with gold.
He gave us tales that dance and rhymes that ring.
His was the sunshine that the clouds dispelled,
The shaft that wounds and tears he scorned to wing.
A satarist, perhaps. And yet no sting
His gentle satire held.
Out of the gloom he lit with many a gleam,
Out of the day whereon the shadows close,
Out of the realm where once he reigned supreme,
Into the sleep that knows nor stir nor dream
The Master Craftsman goes.
First published in The Bulletin, 2 September 1931
