A Joy Mine. He told this tale while picking at a rock With a worn corkscrew near the rivers brim.

So sad a tale it was, I could not mock His errant fancy, though I pitied him. He had a pleasant, vacant sort of eye, Sagged at the knees and wore his collar high. I do not delve the earth for common gold. The girl is here. I heard her with these ears. These barren stones a precious treasure hold. Yet yield not to my prayers or oaths or tears. I dig for music, dimpled music fine With bright gold hair and lips that taste like wine. I heard the song come up from underground, A merry song with easy lilt and flow, And somehow reminiscent of the sound One fancies happy folk music long ago When Pan was with them, tramping the green wood With full-proofed cheeks to keep the music good. I stood just here upon a sandstone ledge, Oerlooking this broad river bright with sun, This merry river at whose rippling edge Loves yarn of starbeams had been lately spun, Where I had loitered mildly once or twice With a fair damsel whose pink lips were nice. Quite nice. And so, to pass to other rhymes, I listened to the music in the ground. Heard the same tune repeated forty times, And, wondering whence it came, I looked around To find some opening, mine, shaft, cave or drive Through which at its fine source I might arrive. The rock was solid as a balance-sheet When duly audited by men of skill. It rang quite hard beneath my brown-shod feet, Built in to form a portion of the hill. And yet I did not dream. My eyes were wide. The rock was there with that sweet sound inside. I hate all mystery and therefore shun A long description of the things I said. I felt like one who walks without a gun And sees a flight of ducks go overhead. Knowing that each, in happy gravy brown, Would make a dinner if he brought it down.

For catching music hidden under rocks Guns are no use, though cannon might be right. The stone might yield to large successive shocks Produced by hundredweights of dynamite. I searched my pockets hastily to find My high explosives were all left behind. What could I do? The music ebbed and sighed, Then rose again from where it seemed to fail. Helpless I stood as one who sees his bride Caught up and strangled in her snowy veil, While he looks on from some high mountain slope, Loving and fearing through a telescope. The nearest house was half a mile away. The sun was hot, the water seemed to blaze, Like some loose whisker of the god of day The distance melted into happy haze; And up and down that riftless rock I strode And, to relieve my feelings, said Im blowed! That airy word had been no sooner said Than forth she came, a dazzling girl in green, With wisps of saucy gold upon her head And all the bearing of a woodland queen. Lips! Those she carried were as bright As beetroot sliced in full electric light! This was the music, then, that pulsed and sighed, This was the melody of stream and wood. This girl with lashes curled whose eyes were wide With sunny laughter where she lightly stood. I said Good day. I think it will be fine. And then she slipped her little hand in mine. It seemed pathetic that fine trust in me. The hand was dimpled and without a ring. She was not shy; yet anyone could see Something quite modest in her walk and swing. I wondered in a happy sort of haste How beauty such as hers ran thus to waste. I did not waste it, you may feel quite sure. Her first kiss was a wonder in its way The sort of kiss to make a perfect cure For any heart with many loves grown grey. Even a bald heart might have felt it nice And owned its free and full Arcadian price.

We sat beneath three-quarters of a tree That gave us thirty inches of cool shade; And there, by placing her upon my knee, The best of that sparse shadow-veil I made. I lent her what support my arm could spare, My raptured nose half lost among her hair. And so, to tell the simple tale in brief, We really had a very pleasant time. The girl was merry beyond all belief. Gay as a bell that rings at dinner-time; And I, though young, beside the dimpled maid Was bright as sunbeams caught in lemonade. And then the music started underground, The selfsame music I had heard before. I started also as I heard the sound, Although I felt it had become a bore; And, as I started, I observed my knee And said The girl! Now where the deuce is she? Ask of the winds. Ask of the hollow sky. No dimple was there left of all my pearl; For that confounded music was a lie, In fact, to tell the truth, it was my girl. And there is piped my sweetest hopes to mock Somewhere inside a rugged sandstone rock! He ceased. He lifted up a wrathful hand And smote the wall of stone with all his might. I told him I could quite well understand How one might labor after lost delight. Love mines, I said, are worth their weight in gold, If opened up before the joy grows cold. I left him picking at the solid rock With a worn corkscrew by the rivers brim. No heart had I his frenzied toil to mock; In fact, I think, I rather envied him. Love, he declared, from this hill shall be won That goes ten thousands kisses to the ton!
Pat OMaori. Pseudonym of David McKee Wright. N.S.W. The Bulletin, 17 April 1924.