They whine o’ lost an’ wasted lives in idleness and crime—
I’ve wasted mine for twenty years, and grafted all the time
And never drunk the stuff I earned, nor gambled when I shore—
But somehow when yer on the track yer life seems wasted more.

A long dry stretch of thirty miles I’ve tramped this broilin’ day,
All for the off-chance of a job a hundred miles away;
There’s twenty hungry beggars wild for any job this year,
An’ fifty might be at the shed while I am lyin’ here.

The sinews in my legs seem drawn, red-hot—’n that’s the truth;
I seem to weigh a ton, and ache like one tremendous tooth;
I’m stung between my shoulder-blades—my blessed back seems broke;
I’m too knocked out to eat a bite—I’m too knocked up to smoke.

The blessed rain is comin’ too—there’s oceans in the sky,
An’ I suppose I must get up and rig the blessed fly;
The heat is bad, the water’s bad, the flies a crimson curse,
The grub is bad, mosquitoes damned—but rheumatism’s worse.

I wonder why poor blokes like me will stick so fast ter breath,
Though Shakespeare says it is the fear of somethin’ after death;
But though Eternity be cursed with God’s almighty curse—
What ever that same somethin’ is I swear it can’t be worse.