Classic Poem

The Rotten Egg is a pub condemned for the sake of the souls it damned,
And ghosts have haunted its gloomy bar since last the front door slammed —
Cobwebs and dirt and never a sign of cask, or bottle or keg —
They are going to build a warehouse soon on the site of the Rotten Egg.

The Landlord's wife was a stout ladye, with a cold, cold eye on the Cash,
But a motherly heart for the Down-and-Out (though to answer her back was rash).
The boss was a man with a patch on his eye, one arm and a wooden leg:
An old Imperial pensioner, he was Boss of the Rotten Egg.

The sign outside was yellow and green and a sort of a sickly blue,
And more than one of the Wrecks inside had much of the colours too.
They were bad eggs all, but they heard the Call, and seven put in the peg;
'Twas a sorrowful day when they marched away from the Sign of the Rotten Egg.

The heart of the City is granite hard, and the weather is cold and damp;
So I camped last night in the Rotten Egg (I had nowhere else to camp.)
With a rusty key and a ragged rug I'd saved from the day that was done.
I lay awake till the Ghosts came in; and I questioned them, one by one:

" Ghost Number One, with the bandaged brow and the ugly blotch on your breast,
Who leans to the right of the khakied shades, and a pace in front of the rest,
Why did you die? " And the Spectre spoke (a ghost of the hard-faced dead):
" I died that the mother, whose heart I broke, might hold up her old grey head. "

" Pass, friend, " I said (and I'll say no more.) " Now, speak, Ghost Number Two! "
" I died for a dream, " the Shade replied; " and they say that my dream came true;
Sitting here with a pal, and beer, and all the ruin it brings;
I was a drunkard down and out who dreamed of heroic things. "

" Pass, friend! " I cried, " I have had that dream. Now, speak, Ghost Number Three! "
" I was a writer who could not live on the writer's wretched fee!
I died for the sake of a bit of land, and a two-roomed house and a shed,
Where the wife and children might live in peace and comfort when I was dead. "

" Pass, friend, " I said, " and let those who can and let those who may , forgive.
I died a death, though another death, that the wife and children might live.
Shall the Landlords die, or the Wowsers die, or Politics be no more?
Shall the writer's or drunkard's dream come true? — Speak now, Ghost Number Four. "

" No matter my Class, " said Number Four, " nor my profession or trade;
I died for the sake of the work I'd done; for the sake of the name I'd made.
I died unknown and I died alone; and I think that the death was grand;
A bringer of bombs and tucker up — a Runner in No-Man's-Land. "

" Pass, friend, " said I; " I was there myself, and I came out grey, but alive;
Runners were we in No-Man's-Land. Speak now, Ghost Number Five! "
" I come of a tribe from the nearer Bush, thievish, and sullen, and sly;
Outcast all, like the Kelly Gang — so one of us had to die. "

" Pass, friend, " I said; " 'Tis the Family Pride — and now remains but two:
West o' the Darling! I know you both; now answer, You and You! "
" Why do you ask? " said one of the Shades. " 'Tis written in many a book.
'Twas Mateship — one of us died for a mate and one of us died for a crook. "

I woke; and a beam from the rising sun streamed in through a broken pane
And gilded a patch on the plastered wall where the pencilled names were plain —
A sketch of a man with a patch on his eye, one arm, and a wooden leg —
'Twas the Roll of Honour we wrote the night they shut up the Rotten Egg.