The Ballad of the Elder Son

A SON of Elder Sons I am,
 * Whose boyhood days were cramped and scant,

Through ages of domestic sham
 * And family lies and family cant.

Come, elder brothers mine, and bring
 * Dull loads of care that you have won,

And gather round me while I sing
 * The ballad of the Elder Son.

'Twas Christ who spake in parables—
 * To picture man was his intent;

A simple tale He simply tells,
 * And He Himself makes no comment.

A morbid sympathy is felt
 * For prodigals—the selfish ones—

The crooked world has ever dealt
 * Unjustly by the Elder Sons.

The Elder Son on barren soil,
 * Where life is crude and lands are new,

Must share the father's hardest toil,
 * And share the father's troubles too.

With no child-thoughts to meet his own
 * His childhood is a lonely one:

The youth his father might have known
 * Is seldom for the Eldest Son.

But let me to the parable
 * With eyes on facts but fancy free;

And don't belie me if I tell
 * The story as it seems to me—

For, mind, I do not mean to sneer
 * (I was religious when a child),

I wouldn't be surprised to hear
 * That God himself had sometimes smiled.

A certain squatter had two sons
 * Up Canaan way some years ago.

The graft was hard on those old runs,
 * And it was hot and life was slow.

The younger brother coolly claimed
 * The portion that he hadn't earned,

And sought the 'life' for which untamed
 * And high young spirits always yearned.

A year or so he knocked about,
 * And spent his cheques on girls and wine,

And, getting stony in the drought,
 * He took a job at herding swine,

And though he is a hog that swigs
 * And fools with girls till all is blue—

'Twas rather rough to shepherd pigs
 * And have to eat their tucker too.

When he came to himself he said
 * (I take my Bible from the shelf):

"There's nothing like a feed of husks
 * To bring a young man to himself.

And when you're done with wine and girls—
 * Right here a moral seems to shine—

And are hard up, you'll find no pearls
 * Are cast by friends before your swine."

When he came to himself, he said—
 * He reckoned pretty shrewdly, too—

"The rousers at my father's shed
 * Have got more grub than they can chew;

I've been a fool, but such is fate—
 * I guess I'll talk the guv'nor round:

I've acted cronk—I'll tell him straight
 * (He's had his time too, I'll be bound).

"I'll tell him straight I've had my fling,
 * I'll tell him I've been on the beer,

But put me on at anything,
 * I'll graft with any bounder here."

He rolled his swag and struck for home
 * (He was by this time pretty slim),

And, when the old man saw him come—
 * Well, you know how he welcomed him.

They've brought the best robe in the house,
 * The ring, and killed the fatted calf,

And now they hold a grand carouse,
 * And eat and drink and dance and laugh:

And from the field the Elder Son,
 * Whose character is not admired

Comes plodding home when work is done,
 * And very hot and very tired.

He asked the meaning of the sound
 * Of such unwonted revelry,

They said his brother had been "found"
 * (He'd found himself it seemed to me);

'Twas natural in the Elder Son
 * To take the thing a little hard

And brood on what was past and done
 * While standing outside in the yard.

Now he was hungry and knocked out
 * And would, if they had let him be,

Have rested and cooled down, no doubt,
 * And hugged his brother after tea,

And welcomed him and hugged his dad
 * And filled the wine cup to the brim—

But, just when he was feeling bad
 * The old man came and tackled him.

He well might say with bitter tears
 * While music swelled and flowed the wine,

"Lo, I have served thee many years
 * Nor caused thee one grey hair of thine,

Whate'er thou bad'st me do I did
 * And for my brother made amends;

Thou never gavest me a kid
 * That I might make merry with my friends."

(He was no honest clod and glum
 * Who could not trespass, sing nor dance—

He could be merry with a chum,
 * It seemed, if he had half a chance;

Perhaps, if further light we seek,
 * He knew—and herein lay the sting—

His brother would clear out next week
 * And promptly pawn the robe and ring).

The father said, "The wandering one,
 * The lost is found, this son of mine,

But thou art always with me, son—
 * Thou knowest all I have is thine."

(It seemed the best robe and the ring,
 * The love and fatted calf were not;

But this was just a little thing
 * The old man in his joy forgot.)

The father's blindness in the house,
 * The mother's "fond and foolish way"

Have caused no end of ancient rows
 * Right back to Cain and Abel's day.

The world will blame the eldest born—
 * But—well, when all is said and done,

No coat has ever yet been worn
 * That had no colour more than one.

"And all I have"—the paltry bribe
 * That he might slave contented yet,

While envied by his selfish tribe
 * The birthright he might never get—

The worked-out farm and endless graft,
 * The mortgaged home, the barren run—

The heavy, hopeless overdraft—
 * The portion of the Elder Son.

He keeps his parents when they're old,
 * He keeps a sister in distress,

His wife must work and care for them
 * And bear with all their pettishness.

The mother's moan is ever heard,
 * And, whining for the worthless one,

She seldom has a kindly word
 * To say about her Eldest Son.

'Tis he, in spite of sneer and jibe,
 * Who stands the friend when others fail:

He bears the burdens of his tribe
 * And keeps his brother out of jail.

He lends the quid and pays the fine,
 * And for the family pride he smarts—

For reasons I cannot divine
 * They hate him in their heart of hearts.

A satire on this world of sin—
 * Where parents seldom understand—

That night the angels gathered in
 * The firstborn of that ancient land.

Perhaps they thought, in those old camps,
 * While suffering for the blow that fell,

They might have better spared the scamps
 * And Josephs that they loved so well.

Sometimes the Eldest takes the track
 * When things at home have got too bad—

He comes not crawling, canting back
 * To seek the blind side of his dad.

He always finds a knife and fork
 * And meat between on which to dine,

And, though he sometimes deals in pork,
 * You'll never catch him herding swine.

The happy home, the overdraft,
 * His birthright and his prospects gay,

And likewise his share of the graft,
 * He leaves the rest to grab. And they—

Who'd always do the thing by halves,
 * If anything for him was done—

Would kill a score of fatted calves
 * To welcome home the Elder Son.