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Project Gutenberg Australia HomeReturn to Index of Poems
You ask me what a “wowser” is; well, I can hardly say;
Ask me to tell you what he’s not, and then perhaps I may.
Does he through drink a beggar stand in tattered coat and trouser,
A drunken sot, sans home and friends? be sure he’s not a “wowser.”
Is he his wife and children’s shame?—then all men will allow, sir,
Though they may call him what they will, he’s surely not a “wowser.”
You see one in the bar-bound dock, with sullen, scowling brow, sir;
The judge who passes sentence knows the prisoner’s not a “wowser.”
I passed two men upon the block, where decent people meet;
To call their language “beastly” would scandalise a sow, sir;
I said: “Such language isn’t nice upon the public street.”
He grimaced like a Cheshire cat, and answered only, “Wowser.”
So now I come to think of it, I’ll lift my hat and bow, sir,
If you should pass the compliment of calling me a “wowser.”
A paper strangely known as “Truth”—it got the name somehow, sir,
To designate a decent man, just coined the phrase, “a wowser.”
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