"All my soul is slowly melting, all my brain is softening fast, And I know that I'll be taken to the Yarr bend at last. For at night from fitful slumbers I awaken with a start, Murmuring of steak and onions, babbling of apple-tart. While to me the Poet's cloudland a gigantic kitchen seems, And those mislaid table-napkins haunt me even in my dreams Is this right? — Ye sages tell me! — Does a man live but to eat? Is there nothing worth enjoying but one's miserable meat? Is the mightiest task of genius but to swallow buttered beans, And has man but been created to demolish pork and greens? Is there no unfed Hereafter, where the round of chewing stops? Is the atmosphere of heaven clammy with perpetual chops?"
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Novelists from AustraliaPlaywrights from AustraliaShort story writers from AustraliaPoets from AustraliaEnglish emigrants to colonial Australia
Original Language: English
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Sources
"The Wail of the Waiter", ll. 29–40, in The Bulletin (29 September 1900)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Marcus_Clarke
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Marcus Clarke
Marcus Andrew Hislop Clarke FRSA (24 April 1846 – 2 August 1881) was an English-born Australian novelist, journalist, poet, editor, librarian, and playwright. He is best known for his 1874 novel ', about the convict system in Australia, and widely regarded as a classic of Australian literature. It has been adapted into many plays, films and a folk opera.
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