Classic Poem

She is washing up dishes at home now
And cooking the dinner — all but.
She has no inclination to roam now
That her " world " and " the pictures " are shut.
No more may she stare at that other
False world, for her dummies are still;
Unmarried, she's helping her mother,
Or, married, she's mending for Bill.

No longer she wastes half her days now
In smothering darkness and heat,
Contemplating the Woman that Pays, now,
As shown on a Yankeefied sheet.
Where all life is pictured above her,
And nothing is true or alive —
Where the glory and shame of all lovers
Are aped that a showman may thrive.

(O the cunning impostors that screen them,
To work unspeakable harm!
" Jest as if yer jest ackshilly seen 'em! "
As squawked by the girl from the farm.
Ask hundreds of fathers and mothers
To show what such teaching has done —
The runaway girl with her story;
The runaway boy with the " gun " .)

She is mending a sheet or a curtain;
She finds it a novelty, too,
And she grows more uncertain — or certain —
As to what a " reel hero " would do.
She is cutting Bill's lunch in the morning;
She has brushed the brick-dust from his coat;
No more she regards him with scorning
As he plods down the hill to the boat.

He has stuck to his mates and the missis;
He has toiled in the city and bush —
Were the heroes of smoodging and kisses
Much nobler than Bill and his " push " ?
She is done with all flappers and friskers,
She is thinking of Mum in her prime;
She remembers that Dad, in his whiskers,
Was different once on a time.

No longer the handsome white-slaver
Lurks round where the shadows are still,
Just to drop on her sudden and save her
From washing up dishes — and Bill.
She arranges the plates on the dresser
She used to stick up anyhow.
Though she does not know it (God bless her!),
O she is a picture-girl now.