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Within my boarding-house select,
  There pass along the passage~way
Women in strange apparel decked,
   Who seldom for a fortnight stay,
I see them from the cab descend;
   A perfume gathers as of beer;
Then kitchenward their way they wend ---
   But in a week they reappear.

   They are not hoarders --- oh, dear, no!
   They are the cooks that come and go.

The widow-dame, whose punctual hand
   Each week my hard-earned cash receives,
Smiles on the world with visage bland --
   Except on days when cooky leaves;
Then in the kitchen battle roars,
   And kettles spill, and tongues grow bold,
And broken saucers dot the floors,
   And dinner is a banquet cold.

   No need upon your hash to blow,
   When cook makes up her mind to go!

How many of them I have seen -
   Engaged one week, and gone the next!
Some short and stout, some long and lean,
   Some cheery, some with visage vexed,
Some clean (but these were very few),
   Some sober (these were fewer yet),
Some on whose faces whiskers grew --
   Not one whose face you could forget.

   They pass in weird procession slow
   The cooks --- the cooks who come and go.

Jane was a creature long and hard --
   Bones like a horse, face like an owl;
The butcher saw her in the yard,
   And dropped the meat with awful howl.
The baker viewed her face with fear,
   The milkman wouldn't cross the lane;
I fancy no one shed a tear
   The day the bobby called for Jane.

   She had escaped from Kew, you know;
   That's why poor Janie had to go.

Kate was an Irish matron, who
   Sought for a husband who had fled;
Her eyes were an unholy blue,
   Her hair a most unholy red.
And though she shunned a stranger's stare
   (The kitchen was her constant coop);
We knew the colour of her hair
   From wisps that floated in the soup.

   But hairpins came as well, and so
   We swore that Kate would have to go.

Mord had a voice --- you hardly knew,
   when curses drifted through the air,
Whether it was a cockatoo
   Or Mord, who had begun to swear.
We used to blame that harmless bird,
   And chide him for the oaths he screamed,
Until the scullery-maid averred
   She could not sleep when Mord blasphemed.

   Then Mord, with language very low
   Rejoined the ranks that come and go.

And there were others --- Gwendoline
   (Dry gin was Gwenny's heart's desire);
Gertrude, who drank the kerosene,
   And Ann, who set the house on fire;
Bridget, who stole the boarders' hats,
   Bought gloves and ribbons with the loot;
Bess (with no teeth), and Lize (with rats)
   Were other cooks who "didn't suit."

   They swelled the melancholy row
   Of lady cooks that come and go.

Through servants' agencies galore
   My much-distressed landlady seeks;
Her tale of woe she will out-pour
   (If once she gets a start) for weeks.
But 'tis an ancient tale, indeed;
   You may, if so your wish occurs,
In "Situations Vacant" read
   A thousand tragedies like hers.

   Newspaper columns overflow
   With tales of cooks that come and go.

First published in Melbourne Punch, 31 May 1906

Author reference site: Austlit

See also.

The Woman at the Washtub,
   She works till fall of night;
With soap and suds and soda
   Her hands are wrinkled white.
Her diamonds are the sparkles
   The copper-fire supplies;
Her opals are the bubbles
   That from the suds arise.

The Woman at the Washtub
   Has lost the charm of youth;
Her hair is rough and homely,
   Her figure is uncouth;
Her temper is like thunder,
   With no one she agrees --
The children of the alley
   They cling around her knees.

The Woman at the Washtub,
   She too had her romance;
There was a time when lightly
   Her feet flew in the dance.
Her feet were silver swallows,
   Her lips were flowers of fire;
Then she was Bright and Early,
   The Blossom of Desire.

O Woman at the Washtub,
   And do you ever dream
Of all your days gone by in
   Your aureole of steam?
From birth till we are dying
   You wash our sordid duds,
O Woman of the Washtub!
   O Sister of the Suds!

One night I saw a vision
   That filled my soul with dread,
I saw a Woman washing
   The grave-clothes of the dead;
The dead were all the living,
   And dry were lakes and meres,
The Woman at the Washtub
   She washed them with her tears.

I saw a line with banners
   Hung forth in proud array --
The banners of all battles
   From Cam to judgment Day.
And they were stiff with slaughter
   And blood, from hem to hem,
And they were red with glory,
   And she was washing them.

"Who comes forth to the judgment,
   And who will doubt my plan?"
"I come forth to the judgment
   And for the Race of Man.
I rocked him in his cradle,
   I washed him for his tomb,
I claim his soul and body,
   And I will share his doom."

First published in The Bulletin, 29 November 1902;
and later in
Wine and Roses by Victor J. Daley, 1911;
The Worker, 23 April 1914;
The Register, 26 May 1925 and 26 June 1928;
Freedom on the Wallaby: Poems of the Australian People edited by Marjorie Pizer, 1953;
The New Oxford Book of Australian Verse edited by Les Murray, 1986;
Australian Verse: An Oxford Anthology edited by John Leonard, 1998;
An Australian Treasury of Popular Verse edited by Jim Haynes, 2002;
Our Country: Classic Australian Poetry: From the Colonial Ballads to Paterson & Lawson edited by Michael Cook, 2004;
Two Centuries of Australian Poetry edited by Kathrine Bell, 2007; and
The Puncher & Wattmann Anthology of Australian Poetry edited by John Leonard, 2009.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library

See also.