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Victoria University College Capping Carnival, 1921. "Done to Death"

4. Solo

4. Solo.

Morton.
I roamed this way from over the seas
From far Archipelagoes;
I played the candle in Kingdoms of Greece,
And Mary in "Mary Rose."
I've acted Hamlet many a time,
At after dinner snooze;
But now I chase the wild-cat rhyme,
And dip deep in praise of booze.
Sad is the lot of a Morton,
Roses and rue and ruth;
Oh, if my name'd been Norton,

Now I'd have told the truth!
I would have penned no word of Jour nalese,
Or of chimpanzeeze,
Nor of Diction'ries;
Sad is the lot of a Morton,
Oh, for my vanished youth!
When I was young I felt very sure
The world would resound my name.
That my message would long endure,
Written in words of flame;
But Whistler now, alas, feels no more,
And Lindsay I know I am not;
Sad the heart and dreary and sore.
The maudlin Morton's lot.
Bad is the life of a jotter,
Worse it grows from day today;
Now if I had been a potter,
Thumping at his wet clay,
I would have written not a sonnet,
Bought not a bonnet,
Take my word on it.
Sad is the life of a jotter,
With printer's devils to pay.