disserpation

Updated: May 26, 2025

An' suppose some poor devil of a new-chum black sheep comes along, staggerin' from one side of the track to the other, and spoutin' poetry; dyin' o' heat or fever, or heartbreak an' home-sickness, or a life o' disserpation he'd led in England, an' without a sprat on him, an' no claim on the bush; an' I ketches: him in me arms as he stumbles inter the bar, an' he wants me ter hold him up while he turns English inter Greek for me.

Henry Lawson - Children of the Bush