Explore "Collected Poetry" by Andrew Barton Paterson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
We read in the press that Lord Northcote is here / To take up Lord Tennyson's mission. / 'Tis pleasant to find they have sent us a Peer, / And a man of exalted position. / It's his business to see that the Radical horde / From loyalty's path does not swerve us; / But his tastes, and the task, don't seem quite in accord / For they say that His Lordship is nervous.
Does he think that wild animals walk in the street, / Where the wary marsupial is hopping? / Does he think that the snake and the platypus meet / And "bail up" the folk who go shopping? / And that boomerangs fly round the scared passer-by / Who has come all this way to observe us. / While the blackfellow launches a spear at his eye? / --No wonder His Lordship is nervous.