Sam Holt

(Air: Ben Bolt.)     Oh! dont you remember Black Alice, Sam Holt         Black Alice, so dusky and dark,     The Warrego gin, with the straw through her nose,         And teeth like a Moreton Bay shark.     The terrible sheepwash tobacco she smoked         In the gunyah down there by the lake,     And the grubs that she roasted, and the lizards she stewed,         And the damper you taught her to bake.     Oh! dont you remember the moons silver sheen,         And the Warrego sand-ridges white?     And dont you remember those big bull-dog ants         We caught in our blankets at night?     Oh! dont you remember the creepers, Sam Holt,         That scattered their fragrance around?     And dont you remember that broken-down colt         You sold me, and swore he was sound?     And dont you remember that fiver, Sam Holt,         You borrowed so frank and so free,     When the publican landed your fifty-pound cheque         At Tambo your very last spree?     Luck changes some natures, but yours, Sammy Holt,         Was a grand one as ever I see,     And I fancy Ill whistle a good many tunes         Ere you think of that fiver or me.     Oh! dont you remember the cattle you duffed,         And your luck at the Sandy Creek rush,     And the poker you played, and the bluffs that you bluffed,         And your habits of holding a flush?     And dont you remember the pasting you got         By the boys down in Callaghans store,     When Tim Hooligan found a fifth ace in his hand,         And you holding his pile upon four?     You were not the cleanest potato, Sam Holt,         You had not the cleanest of fins.     But you made your pile on the Towers, Sam Holt,         And that covers the most of your sins.     They say youve ten thousand per annum, Sam Holt,         In England, a park and a drag;     Perhaps you forget you were six months ago         In Queensland a-humping your swag.     But whod think to see you now dining in state         With a lord and the devil knows who,     You were flashing your dover, six short months ago,         In a lambing camp on the Barcoo.     Whens my time coming?    Perhaps never, I think,         And its likely enough your old mate     Will be humping his drum on the Hughenden-road         To the end of the chapter of fate.