Our Mcenas

What! Don't you our Mcenas know     The man who started, years ago,     Our Wild Australian Author show?     You don't? Your ignorance sublime     Exceeds - to use a Boston rhyme     The taciturnity of time.     Well, there he is, across the way     Tall, thin, and growing somwhat grey     He has good reason, you will say.     He's entering a bookshop. Fine!     He buys a book. Don't make a sign!     Don't speak! Don't breathe! It may be mine!     Alas! The cover isn't blue;     It's green - it's Quinn's - I always knew     His taste was never sound and true!     We all have hobbies. Some endure,     Some pass. Australian Literature     Is his. He likes it straight and pure.     Those breezy gentlemen you see     Walk up the street so spaciously,     He started them; he started me.     My word! My oath, if that you wish!     I would have now been selling fish,     Or something hot and sausageish     And friends of mine, with names renowned     Would now be driving picks in ground,     And hoisting New South Wales around,     If he - the Lord of the Event     Had not appeared, pre-subsequent,     And given us encouragement.     He's now, you see, just skin and bone,     Yet once he weighed quite fourteen stone     When he left coves like us alone.     And he was - breathe it hoarse and low     A man of substance. This I know     But that was several years ago.     Now was he thus to leanness brought?     What tragic Fate his sorrow wrought?     Alas! he read the books he bought!     And now he's growing grey and old:     But while he lives, we'll say: "Behold!     One copy of our works is sold!"     He is the apple of our eye;     His health to us is precious. Why?     We have to live; he dare not die.