Poem by Henry Kendall

Songs from the Mountains (1880). Peter the Piccaninny

He has a name which can't be brought
 Within the sphere of metre;
But, as he's Peter by report,
 I'll trot him out as Peter.

I call him mine; but don't suppose
 That I'm his dad, O reader!
My wife has got a Norman nose—
 She reads the tales of Ouida.

I never loved a nigger belle—
 My tastes are too aesthetic!
The perfume from a gin is—well,
 A rather strong emetic.

But, seeing that my theme is Pete,
 This verse will be the neater
If I keep on the proper beat,
 And stick throughout to Peter.

We picked him up the Lord knows where!
 At noon we came across him
Asleep beside a hunk of bear—
 His paunch was bulged with 'possum.

(Last stanza will not bear, I own,
 A pressure analytic;
But bard whose weight is fourteen stone,
 Is apt to thump the critic.)

We asked the kid to give his name:
 He didn't seem too willing—
The darkey played the darkey's game—
 We tipped him with a shilling!

We tipped him with a shining bob—
 No Tommy Dodd, believe us.
We didn't "tumble" to his job—
 Ah, why did Pete deceive us!

I, being, as I've said, a bard,
 Resolved at once to foster
This mite whose length was just a yard—
 This portable impostor!

"This babe"—I spoke in Wordsworth's tone—
 (See Wordsworth's "Lucy", neighbour)
"I'll make a darling of my own;
 And he'll repay my labour.

"He'll grow as gentle as a fawn—
 As quiet as the blossoms
That beautify a land of lawn—
 He'll eat no more opossums.

"The child I to myself will take
 In a paternal manner;
And ah! he will not swallow snake
 In future, or 'goanna'.

"Will you reside with me, my dear?"
 I asked in accents mellow—
The nigger grinned from ear to ear,
 And said, "All right, old fellow!"

And so my Pete was taken home—
 My pretty piccaninny!
And, not to speak of soap or comb,
 His cleansing cost a guinea.

"But hang expenses!" I exclaimed,
 "I'll give him education:
A 'nig' is better when he's tamed,
 Perhaps, than a Caucasian.

"Ethnologists are in the wrong
 About our sable brothers;
And I intend to stop the song
 Of Pickering and others."

Alas, I didn't do it though!
 Old Pickering's conclusions
Were to the point, as issues show,
 And mine were mere delusions.

My inky pet was clothed and fed
 For months exceeding forty;
But to the end, it must be said,
 His ways were very naughty.

When told about the Land of Morn
 Above this world of Mammon,
He'd shout, with an emphatic scorn,
 "Ah, gammon, gammon, gammon!"

He never lingered, like the bard,
 To sniff at rose expanding.
"Me like," he said, "em cattle-yard—
 Fine smell—de smell of branding!"

The soul of man, I tried to show,
 Went up beyond our vision.
"You ebber see dat fellow go?"
 He asked in sheer derision.

In short, it soon occurred to me
 This kid of six or seven,
Who wouldn't learn his A B C,
 Was hardly ripe for heaven.

He never lost his appetite—
 He bigger grew, and bigger;
And proved, with every inch of height,
 A nigger is a nigger.

And, looking from this moment back,
 I have a strong persuasion
That, after all, a finished black
 Is not the "clean"—Caucasian.

Dear Peter from my threshold went,
 One morning in the body:
He "dropped" me, to oblige a gent—
 A gent with spear and waddy!

He shelved me for a boomerang—
 We never had a quarrel;
And, if a moral here doth hang,
 Why let it hang—the moral!

My mournful tale its course has run—
 My Pete, when last I spied him,
Was eating 'possum underdone:
 He had his gin beside him.

1. Early Poems (1859-70). In Memoriam—Nicol Drysdale Stenhouse
2. Other Poems (1871-82). How the Melbourne Cup was Won
3. Early Poems (1859-70). Cui Bono?
4. Other Poems (1871-82). Aboriginal Death-Song
5. Other Poems (1871-82). Sydney Exhibition Cantata

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