Page:Backblock Ballads and Later Verses (C.J. Dennis, 1918).djvu/140

    Bland, unfaithful politicians
        Long had said this bridge should be.
    Some soared on to high positions.
        Some sank to obscurity;
Still the bridge had been denied it by its unrelenting foes—
By the foes of patient Wombat, where the Muddy River flows.

    Up at Wombat Peter Dawking
        Held a meeting in the hall,
    And he'd spent an hour in talking
        On the far-flung Empire's Call,
When a local greybeard, rising, smote him with this verbal brick:
"Are or are yeh not in favour of the bridge across the crick?"

    Peter just ignored the question,
        Proudly patriotic man;
    Understand a mean suggestion
        Men like Peter never can,
Or that free enlightened voters look on all Great Things as rot,
While a Burning Local Question fires each local patriot.