A STRAIGHT old fossicker was Lanky Mann,
Who clung to that in spite of friends- advising:
A grim and grizzled worshipper of -pan,-
All other arts and industries despising.

Bare-boned and hard, with thin long hair and beard,
With horny hands that gripped like iron pliers;
A clear, quick eye, a heart that nothing feared,
A soul full simple in its few desires.

No hot, impatient amateur was Jo,
Sweating to turn the slides up every minute-
He knew beforehand how his stuff would go,
Could tell by instinct almost what was in it.

I-ve known him stand for hours, and rock, and rock,
A-swinging now the shovel, now the ladle,
So sphinx-like that at Time he seemed to mock,
Resolved to run creation through his cradle.

No sun-shafts pricked him through his seasoned hide,
Nor cold nor damp could bend his form heroic;
Bare-breasted Jo the elements defied,
And met all fortunes like a hoary Stoic.

Where there were tailings, tips, and mangled fields,
And sluggish, sloven creeks meandering slowly,
Where puddlers old and sluice-sites promised yields,
There Lanky might be found, contented wholly.

Even though they-d worked the field, as Chinkies do,
Had -bulled- each shaft, and scraped out every gutter,
Burnt every stick, and put the ashes through-
Yet Jo contrived to knock out bread and butter,

And something for a dead-broke mate-such men
As he have little love for filthy lucre;
His luxury was a whisky now and then,
And now and then a friendly game of euchre.

They tell me he is dead: -On top? That-s so,
Died at the handle, mate, which is accordin-
As he should die and if you-re good, you-ll know
Jo pannin- prospects in the River Jordan.-