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Quite a proud an' happy man is Finn the packer
   Since he built his crazy mill upon the rise,
An' he stands there in the gully, chewin' backer,
   With a sleepy sort of comfort in his eyes,
Gazin' up to where the antiquated jigger
   Is a-wheezin' an' a-hoppin' on the hill,
An' up here me lord the Guvner isn't bigger
   Than the owner of the Federation Mill.

      She goes biff, puff, bang, bump, clitter-clatter, smash,
      An' she rattles on fer half a shift, an' lets up with a crash,
      An' then silence reigns a little while, an' all the land is still
      While they're tinkerin' awkward patches on the tin-pot mill.

It's a five-head plant, an' mostly built of lumber;
   'Twas erected by a man who didn't know,
An' we've never had a decentt spell of slumber
   Since that battery of Finn's was got to go;
For she raises jest the most infernal clatter,
   An' we guessed the Day of Judgment had come down
When the tin-pot mill began to bang and batter
   Like a earthquake in a boiler-metal town.

All the heads are different sizes,'an' the horses
   Are so crazy that the whole caboodle rocks,
An' each time a stamper thunders down it forces
   Little spirtin's through the crannies in the box.
Then the feed-pipe's mostly plugged an' aggravatin',
   An' the pump it suffers badly from a cough;
Every hour or so they bust a bloomin' gratin',
   An' the shoes are nearly always comin' off.

Mickey drives her with a portable, a ruin
   That they used fer donkeyin' cargo in the Ark.
Thunder! when she's got some way on, an' is doin',
   You should hear that spavined coffee-grinder bark.
She is loose in all her jints, an', through corrosion,
   Half her plates 're not a sixteenth in the thick.
We're expectin' a sensational explosion,
   An' a subserquent excursion after Mick.

From the feed --- which chokes --- to quite the smallest ripple,
   From the bed-logs to the guides, she's mighty queer,
An' she joggles like an agitated cripple
   With St. Viter's darnce intensified by beer.
She stops short, an' starts with most unearthly rumbles,
   An', distracted by the silence an' the din,
Through the sleepless night the weary miner grumbles,
   An' eaps curses on the family of Finn.

But the owner's much too cute a man to wrangle.
   He is crushin' fer the public, understand,
An' each ton of stuff that's hammered through the mangle
   Adds its tribet to the value of his land.
For she leaks the raw amalgam, an' he's able
   To see daylight 'twixt the ripples an' the plates,
An' below the an' 'neath the shakin'-table
   There are nest-eggs 'cumulatin' while he waits.

      She goes biff, puff, bang, bump, clitter-clatter, smash,
      An' she rattles on fer half a shift, an' lets up with a crash,
      An' then silence reigns a little while, an' all the land is still
      While they're tinkerin' awkward patches on the tin-pot mill.

First published in The Bulletin, 16 May 1896, and again in the same magazine on 23-30 December 1980;
and later in
Rhymes from the Mines and Other Lines by Edward Dyson, 1896.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library

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