774 The life a man  (La vita dell'Omo)
Translated by Peter Nicholas Dale

Nine munths in the stench: then swaddlen ban’s,
An smoochy kisses n’ cradlecap n’ whingy tears:
Then jolly jumpers n’ strollers ta ged’em off their han’s,
Dressed up in frippery, hedpads, britches an gear.

Then school starts up, an with it the torchure:
The alfabet, the canens an the chillblains,
German measles n’ poopen on a potty chair,
Scarlet fever, chickenpox, mumps an sprains.

Then learnen a trade, fasts, n’ the sheer brun’
A life - the rent, the prisons, the hospiddul,
The gum’ment athoridies, dets an cun’.
 
Sun over summer: snow fru the win’er spell . . .
An then, at long last, God bless us all,
Deth bowls on in, an it all en’s up with hell.
 
1/9/2000
The sonnet is translated into "Strine", the dialect spoken in Australia down to the 1960s.