No Choice

William Thomas Goodge 1862 – 1909



'When I was a kiddy and away out-back,'
  Said the man with the salt-bush lingo.
'My dogs, two cattle-dogs, grey and black,
They gets fair on to the blinded track
  Of a walloping great big dingo!
The savagest beast in all the pack -
  Oh, he was the real old stingo!'

'They rounded him up till he climbs a tree
  And of course he was mighty glad to.'
'Hold on,' says I, 'for I never did see
A dingo yet as could climb a tree
  And I've seen 'em run real bad, too!'
'You can say that beast can't climb a tree?
  By the holy smoke he had to!'

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

33 sec read
118

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABAABAA CDCCDCD
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 536
Words 117
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 7, 7

William Thomas Goodge

William Thomas Goodge (28 September 1862 – 28 November 1909) was an English writer and journalist, who arrived in Australia in 1882, after jumping ship in Sydney. He worked in various jobs in New South Wales, including as a coal-miner, until he was engaged to write for "The Tribune" in North Sydney, a small weekly associated with the "Daily Telegraph". From there he was chosen by Harry Newman (Member of Parliament and newspaper proprietor) to edit "The Leader" newspaper in Orange, NSW. Goodge remained in Orange, becoming part-owner of "The Leader" at some point, until in the early 1900s he returned to Sydney and began writing for that city's newspapers, especially "The Sunday Times". Goodge was first married on 21 January 1892. His wife died 3 January 1895 of typhoid, leaving behind two children. Sometime later he remarried and had another child. Goodge died on 28 November 1909 in North Sydney. During his writing career, Goodge wrote mainly light-verse poems and short stories. Although he did have one novel, The Fortunes of Fenchurch, serialised in the pages of The Sunday Times, the book was never published separately. His best known works were "The Great Australian Adjective", and "The Oozlum Bird". Norman Lindsay, who illustrated the reprint volume of Goodge's only poetry collection, considered the poet better than C. J. Dennis. "Goodge, with his Hits! Skits! and Jingles!, is a much better light-verse writer than Dennis, and his book should be reprinted."  more…

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