The Tale of Steven by Edward Dyson

'Tis the tale of Simon Steven, braceman at the / Odd-and-Even, / At The Nations, in the gully. They were sinking in / the rock. / Sim was small and wiry rather, and a husband and a / father, / But he's gone and left his family as a consequence / of shock.

Shock was Sim's disease, we reckoned, for it took / him in a second, / And no doctor born could dognose what the / symptoms were, I think, / But we're missin' Sim completely -- he could play / the whistle sweetly, / And was always very sociable and brotherly in / drink.

That was how poor Steven drifted into trouble- / being gifted, / He was hungry for an audience, and it led him up / to Coy's; / But his wife made no deductions for the artist, and / the ructions / What she raised around that public were just / fireworks for the boys.

When she caught him on the liquor, being stronger / like and quicker, / She would hammer him in company, which, I take / it, wasn't right; / Yet he bore it like a martyr while his wife played up / the tartar, / And she gave her straight opinion of each mother's / son in sight.

Sim had marks of her corrections scattered round / in all directions / On his features and his figure, but he didn't seem / to care- / For he thought his missus clearly did her duty by / him merely / When she pommelled him for boosing with a poker / or a chair.

'Twas a Wednesday, boss, I'm thinking. There'd been / much promiscuous drinking / Up the gully, where some city chaps were / christening Spooner's mill; / Sim was dayshift at The Nations, and he / missed the grand orations, / But, with help from men and brothers, he con- / trived to get his fill.

They'd been shooting holes, an' Steven, when he / left the Odd-and-Even, / Carried with him in his pocket here a plug of / dynamite. / Sim had put it there to soften-which is done by / miners often, / But it's not the sort of practice that I'd recom- / mend as right.

Well, the braceman didn't worry after tea that day, / nor hurry / To the bosom of his family, but took drink for / drink with Mack; / When they aimed him homewards kindly, Steven / went the distance blindly, / And his feet performed the lockstitch all the way / along the track.

Mrs. Sim was primed and ready, and she met him / with a neddy, / And she passed no vain remarks, but aimed an / awful blow at him; / Came a sound of roaring thunder-Mrs. Sim was / blown from under, / And the universe was ruined, and the sun went out / for Sim.

After search in all directions, we found very few / selections / Of the widow's dear departed, but we did the / best we could. / For, you see, by passion goaded, and not knowing / Sim was loaded, / She'd concussed that plug of dynamite, and blown / him up for good.

There was room for no reproaches 'bout the hearse / and mourning coaches; / Though we only buried samples, yet we 'lowed for / style and tone- / Man's-size coffin, grave, and preacher for a broken / fellow creature, / And we wrote 'In Death Divided' at the bottom / of the stone.