Henry Lawson

He has notions of Australia from the tales that he's been told, Land of leggings and revolvers, land of savages and gold; So he begs old shirts, and someone patches up his worn-out duds.

Now, Yankee inventors can beat a retreat, And German professors may take a back seat, For their colours we're going to lower:

I only woke this morning To find the world is fair, I'm going on for forty,

It is well when you've lived in clover, To mourn for the days gone by, Would I live the same life over

She's milking in the rain and dark, As did her mother in the past. The wretched shed of poles and bark,

I wish I'd never gone to board In that house where I met The touring lady from abroad,

'Twas in the felon's dock he stood, his eyes were black and blue; His voice with grief was broken, and his nose was broken, too; He muttered, as that broken nose he wiped upon his cap,

From Australia. Oh, tell me, God of Battles! Oh, say what is to come! The King is in his trenches, the millionaire at home;

'Tis a yarn I heard of a new-chum 'trap' On the edge of the Never-Never, Where the dead men lie and the black men lie,

We learnt the creed at Hungerford, We learnt the creed at Bourke; We learnt it in the good times

'Tis a wonderful time when these hours begin, These long 'small hours' of night, When grass is crisp, and the air is thin,

Lo! the Boar's tail is salted, and the Kangaroo's exalted, And his right eye is extinguished by a man-o'-warsman's cap; He is flying round the fences where the Southern Sea commences,

A tall, slight, English gentleman, With an eyeglass to his eye; He mostly says 'Good-Bai' to you,

If you fancy that your people came of better stock than mine, If you hint of higher breeding by a word or by a sign, If you're proud because of fortune or the clever things you do,

Oh, do you hear the argument, far up above the skies? The voice of old Saint Peter, in expostulation rise? Growing shrill, and ever shriller, at the thing that's being done;

Sing the strong, proud song of Labour, Toss the ringing music high; Liberty's a nearer neighbour

Man, is the Sea your master? Sea, and is man your slave?, This is the song of brave men who never know they are brave: Ceaselessly watching to save you, stranger from foreign lands,

Man, is the Sea your master? Sea, and is man your slave?, This is the song of brave men who never know they are brave: Ceaselessly watching to save you, stranger from foreign lands,

Sons of the South, awake! arise! Sons of the South, and do. Banish from under your bonny skies

Sons of the South, awake! arise! Sons of the South, and do. Banish from under your bonny skies

He was bare we don't want to be rude (His condition was owing to drink) They say his condition was nood,

On western plain and eastern hill Where once my fancy ranged, The station hands are riding still

It is New Year's Day and I rise to state that here on the Sydney side The Bards have commenced to fill out of late and they're showing their binjies with pride They're patting their binjies with pride, old man, and I want you to understand,

Texas Jack, you are amusin'. By Lord Harry, how I laughed When I seen yer rig and saddle with its bulwarks fore-and-aft; Holy smoke! In such a saddle how the dickens can yer fall?

A blanket low and leaden, Though rent across the west, Whose darkness seems to deaden

There are scenes in the distance where beauty is not, On the desolate flats where gaunt appletrees rot. Where the brooding old ridge rises up to the breeze

'Tis glorious morning everywhere Save where the alleys lie, I see the fleecy steam jets bid

The brooding ghosts of Australian night have gone from the bush and town; My spirit revives in the morning breeze, though it died when the sun went down; The river is high and the stream is strong, and the grass is green and tall,

I. We wrote and sang of a bush we never Had known in youth in the Western land;

I. We wrote and sang of a bush we never Had known in youth in the Western land;

So you've seen at last what we have seen so long through scalding tears: You have found what we, the People, we have known for twenty years: And Australia's hymn is swelling till the furthest fence-wires hum,

I mind the days when ladies fair Helped on my overcoat, And tucked the silken handkerchief

Our Andy's gone to battle now 'Gainst Drought, the red marauder; Our Andy's gone with cattle now

With pannikins all rusty, And billy burnt and black, And clothes all torn and dusty,

Over there, above the jetty, stands the mansion of the Vardens, With a tennis ground and terrace, and a flagstaff in the gardens: They are gentlemen and ladies, they've been 'toffs' for generations,

Oh, this is a song of the old lights, that came to my heart like a hymn; And this is a song for the old lights, the lights that we thought grew dim, That came to my heart to comfort me, and I pass it along to you;

By right of birth in southern land I send my warning forth. I see my country ruined by the wrongs that damned the North. And shall I stand with fireless eyes and still and silent mouth

As it was in the beginning, so we'll find it in the end, For a lover, or a brother, or a sweetheart, or a friend; As it was in the beginning, so we'll find it by-and-bye,

Do you think, you slaves of a thousand years to poverty, wealth and pride, You can crush the spirit that has been free in a land that's new and wide? When you've scattered the last of the farmer bands, and the war for a while is over,

Fear ye not the stormy future, for the Battle Hymn is strong, And the armies of Australia shall not march without a song; The glorious words and music of Australia's song shall come

'Twas in a tug-of-war where I, the guvnor's hope and pride, Stepped proudly on the platform as the ringer on my side; Old dad was in his glory there, it gave the old man joy

We must suffer, husband and father, we must suffer, daughter and son, For the wrong we have taken part in and the wrong that we have seen done. Let the bride of frivolous fashion, and of ease, be ashamed and dumb,

While you use your best endeavour to immortalise in verse The gambling and the drink which are your country's greatest curse, While you glorify the bully and take the spieler's part,

Ah, well! but the case seems hopeless, and the pen might write in vain; The people gabble of old things over and over again. For the sake of the sleek importer we slave with the pick and the shears,

Across the stony ridges, Across the rolling plain, Young Harry Dale, the drover,

Wide solemn eyes that question me, Wee hand that pats my head, Where only two have stroked before,

Beaten back in sad dejection, After years of weary toil On that burning hot selection

Blacksoil plains were grey soil, grey soil in the drought. Fifteen years away, and five hundred miles out; Swag and bag and billy carried all our care

Ben Boyd's Tower is watching, Watching o'er the sea; Ben Boyd's Tower is waiting

Jack Denver died on Talbragar when Christmas Eve began, And there was sorrow round the place, for Denver was a man; Jack Denver's wife bowed down her head, her daughter's grief was wild,

Bill and Jim are mates no longer, they would scorn the name of mate, Those two bushmen hate each other with a soul-consuming hate; Yet erstwhile they were as brothers should be (tho' they never will):

Queensland,' he heads his letters, that's all: The date, and the month, and the year in brief; He often sends me a cheerful scrawl,

Long Bill, the captain of the push, was tired of his estate, And wished to change his life and win the love of something 'straight'; 'Twas rumour'd that the Gory B.'s had heard Long Bill declare

A day of seeming innocence, A glorious sun and sky, And, just above my picket fence,

Grown tired of mourning for my sins, And brooding over merits, The other night with aching heart

It surely cannot be too soon, and never is too late, It tones with all Australia's tune to praise one's native State, And so I bring an old refrain from days of posts and rails,

They were 'ratty' they were hooted by the meanest and the least, When they woke the Drum of Glory long ago in London East. They were often mobbed by hoodlums, they were few, but unafraid,

Opening salvo in "The Bush Controversy". I am back from up the country, very sorry that I went, Seeking for the Southern poets' land whereon to pitch my tent;

'Where are you going with your horse and bike, And the townsfolk still at rest? Where are you going, with your swag and pack,

I've followed all my tracks and ways,from old bark school to Leicester Square, I've been right back to boyhood's days, and found no light or pleasure there. But every dream and every track, and there were many that I knew,

You love me, you say, and I think you do, But I know so many who don't, And how can I say I'll be true to you

At a point where the old road crosses The river, and turns to the right, I'd camped with the team; and the hosses

On the Track of Grand Endeavour, on the long track out to Bourke, Past the Turn-Back, and past Howlong, and the pub at Sudden Jerk, Past old Bullock-Yoke and Bog Flat, and the 'Pinch' at Stick-to-me,

Not to the sober and staid, Leading a quiet life, But to men whose paths are laid

The stamp of Scotland is on his face, But he sailed to the South a lad, And he does not think of the black bleak hills

But what's the use of writing 'bush', Though editors demand it, For city folk, and farming folk,

By hut, homestead and shearing shed, By railroad, coach and track, By lonely graves where rest the dead,

The diggings were just in their glory when Alister Cameron came, With recommendations, he told me, from friends and a parson `at hame'; He read me his recommendations, he called them a part of his plant,

Of his    beauty, or stature, or colour of hair I hadn't the slightest hint, But he comes to me as a little man, with a scrubby beard and a squint, With a heart somewhere if it wasn't there, and an Irish terrier nose,

The rafters are open to sun, moon, and star, Thistles and nettles grow high in the bar, The chimneys are crumbling, the log fires are dead,

A lonely child, with toil o'ertaxed, Sits Cinderella by the fire; Her limbs in weariness relaxed,

When you see a man come walking down through George Street loose and free, Suit of saddle tweed and soft shirt, and a belt and cabbagetree, With the careless swing and carriage, and the confidence you lack,

Most unpleasantly adjacent to the haunts of lower orders Stood a 'terrace' in the city when the current year began, And a notice indicated there were vacancies for boarders

There's a pretty little story with a touch of moonlit glory Comes from Beenleigh on the Logan, but we don't know if it's true; For we scarcely dare to credit ev'rything they say who edit

His old clay pipe stuck in his mouth, His hat pushed from his brow, His dress best fitted for the South,

They took dead Cromwell from his grave, And stuck his head on high; The Merry Monarch and his men,

The nearer camp fires lighted, The distant beacons bright, The horsemen on the skyline

They say he was thrown and run over, But that is sheer nonsense, of course: I taught him to ride when a kiddy,

Tall, and stout, and solid-looking, Yet a wreck; None would think Death's finger's hooking

Comes the British bulldog first, solid as a log, He's so ugly in repose that he's a handsome dog; Full of mild benevolence as his years increase;

The breezes waved the silver grass, Waist-high along the siding, And to the creek we ne'er could pass

Two couples are drifting the self-same way (Men of the world know well) From the ballroom glare as the night grows grey

They say that I never have written of love, As a writer of songs should do; They say that I never could touch the strings

I've done with joys an' misery, An' why should I repine? There's no one knows the past but me

Roll up, Eureka's heroes, on that grand Old Rush afar, For Lalor's gone to join you in the big camp where you are; Roll up and give him welcome such as only diggers can,

There are scenes in the distance where beauty is not, On the desolate flats where gaunt appletrees rot. Where the brooding old ridge rises up to the breeze

So I sit and write and ponder, while the house is deaf and dumb, Seeing visions "over yonder" of the war I know must come. In the corner, not a vision, but a sign for coming days

'Nobody's enemy save his own', (What shall it be in the end?), Still by the nick-name he is known,

They lie, the men who tell us in a loud decisive tone That want is here a stranger, and that misery's unknown; For where the nearest suburb and the city proper meet

The short hour's halt is ended, The red gone from the west, The broken wheel is mended,

Rolling out to fight for England, singing songs across the sea; Rolling North to fight for England, and to fight for you and me. Fighting hard for France and England, where the storms of Death are hurled;

Sons of Australia, be loyal and true to her, Fling out the flag of the Southern Cross! Sing a loud song to be joyous and new to her,

The cross-cut and the crowbar cross, and hang them on the wall, And make a greenhide rack to fit the wedges and the maul, The 'done' long-handled shovel and the thong-bound axe that fell,

Now, with the wars of the world begun, they'll listen to you and me, Now while the frightened nations run to the arms of democracy, Now, when our blathering fools are scared, and the years have proved us right,

They cheered him from the wharf, it was a glorious day: His hand went to his scarf, his thoughts were far away. Oh, he was 'Jolly Good', they sang it long and loud,

It is stuffy in the steerage where the second-classers sleep, For there's near a hundred for'ard, and they're stowed away like sheep,, They are trav'lers for the most part in a straight 'n' honest path;

You may roam the wide seas over, follow, meet, and cross the sun, Sail as far as ships can sail, and travel far as trains can run; You may ride and tramp wherever range or plain or sea expands,

Australia's a big country An' Freedom's humping bluey, An' Freedom's on the wallaby

Our fathers toiled for bitter bread While idlers thrived beside them; But food to eat and clothes to wear

The Channel fog has lifted, And see where we have come! Round all the world we've drifted,

The crescent moon and clock tower are fair above the wall Across the smothered lanes of 'Loo, the stifled vice and all, And in the shadow yonder, like cats that wait for scraps,

A long farewell to Genoa That rises to the skies, Where the barren coast of Italy

If they missed my face in Farmers' Arms When the landlord lit the lamp, They would grin and say in their country way,

To my fellow sinners all, who, in hope and doubt, Through the Commonwealth to-night watch the Old Year out, New Year's Resolutions are jerry-built I know,

No one lives in Golden Gully, for its golden days are o'er, And its clay shall never sully blucher-boots of diggers more, For the diggers long have vanished, nought but broken shafts remain,

I hate the pen, the foolscap fair, The poet's corner, and the page, For Grief and Death are written there,

The Russian march is soft and slow, Through dust and heat, or slush and snow, When the Russian skies hang grey and low

They lifted her out of a story Too sordid and selfish by far, They left me the innocent glory

Tell a simple little story of a settler in the West, Where the soldier birds and farmers, and selectors never rest While the sun shines, and they often work in rainy weather, too:

INTRODUCTION The theme is ancient as the hills, With all their prehistoric glory;

He's gone to England for a wife Among the ladies there; And yet I know a lass he deemed

Heed not the cock-sure tourist, Seeing with English eyes; Stroked at the banquet table

There's many a schoolboy's bat and ball that are gathering dust at home, For he hears a voice in the future call, and he trains for the war to come; A serious light in his eyes is seen as he comes from the schoolhouse gate;

Old Time is tramping close to-day, you hear his bluchers fall, A mighty change is on the way, an' God protect us all; Some dust'll fly from beery coats, at least it's been declared.

The future was dark and the past was dead As they gazed on the sea once more, But a nation was born when the immigrants said

By the bodies and minds and souls that rot in a common sty In the city's offal-holes, where the dregs of its horrors lie; By the prayers that bubble out, but never ascend to God,

She's not like an empress, And crowned with raven hair, She is not 'pert an' bonny,'

I'll tell you what you wanderers, who drift from town to town; Don't look into a good girl's eyes, until you've settled down. It's hard to go away alone and leave old chums behind,

When you've managed with the tailor for a rig-out of a sort And you find the coat or trousers are an inch or so too short, Do not fret and swear and worry, make the tailor see you through,

Part of "The Bush Controversy". It was pleasant up the country, Mr. Banjo, where you went, For you sought the greener patches and you travelled like a gent.,

In Possum Land the nights are fair, the streams are fresh and clear; no dust is in the moonlit air;

Listen! The end draws nearer, Nearer the morning, or night, And I see with a vision clearer

The world is narrow and ways are short, and our lives are dull and slow, For little is new where the crowds resort, and less where the wanderers go; Greater, or smaller, the same old things we see by the dull road-side,

So at last a toll they'll levy For the passing fool who sings, Take the harp grown dull and heavy

By our place in the midst of the furthest seas we were fated to stand alone, When the nations fly at each other's throats let Australia look to her own; Let her spend her gold on the barren west, let her keep her men at home;

Where the needle-woman toils Through the night with hand and brain, Till the sickly daylight shudders like a spectre at the pain,

Oh! this is a joyful dirge, my friends, and this is a hymn of praise; And this is a clamour of Victory, and a p'an of Ancient Days. It isn't a Yelp of the Battlefield; nor a Howl of the Bounding Wave,

There's the same old coaching stable that was used by Cobb and Co., And the yard the coaches stood in more than sixty years ago; And the public-private parlour, where they serve the passing swell,

Whenever I'm moving my furniture in Or shifting my furniture out, Which is nearly as often and risky as Sin

Oh! this is a joyful dirge, my friends, and this is a hymn of praise; And this is a clamour of Victory, and a p'an of Ancient Days. It isn't a Yelp of the Battlefield; nor a Howl of the Bounding Wave,

There's the same old coaching stable that was used by Cobb and Co., And the yard the coaches stood in more than sixty years ago; And the public-private parlour, where they serve the passing swell,

Whenever I'm moving my furniture in Or shifting my furniture out, Which is nearly as often and risky as Sin

While tyrants rule the land, Beneath the Irish skies; While e'er the iron hand

I met with Jack Cornstalk in London to-day, He saw me and coo-eed from over the way. Oh! the solemn-faced Londoners stared with surprise

It chanced upon the very day we'd got the shearing done, A buggy brought a stranger to the West-o'-Sunday Run; He had a round and jolly face, and he was sleek and stout,

How oft in public meetings past, Where sense was not and talk was loud, We caught a glimpse of long white hair

John Cornstalk lives in the Southern Land, What says Cornstalk John? Jack Cornstalk says in a loud firm voice:

I'd been right round by overlands to see the world and life, And on the boat at Plymouth I met Johnson and his wife; He was a man who knew the world and wore the know-all smile,

CHAPTER I I cannot blame old Israel yet, For I am not a sage,

It's oh! for a rivet in marriage bonds, And a splice in the knot untied, The sanctity of the marriage tie

I'm lyin' on the barren ground that's baked and cracked with drought, And dunno if my legs or back or heart is most wore out; I've got no spirits left to rise and smooth me achin' brow,

Weary old wife, with the bucket and cow, 'How's your son Jack? and where is he now?' Haggard old eyes that turn to the west,

Region of damper and junk and tea, Region of pastures wide! The fairest spots in the world to me

The sand was heavy on our feet, A Christmas sky was o'er us, And half a mile through dust and heat

What though the world does me ill turns And cares my life environ; I'd sooner laugh with Bobbie Burns

We, three men of commerce, Striving wealth to raise, See but little promise

I scorn the man, a fool at most, And ignorant and blind, Who loves to go about and boast

MaCleay Street looks to Mosman, Across the other side, With brave asphalted pavements

You almost heard the surface bake, and saw the gum-leaves turn, You could have watched the grass scorch brown had there been grass to burn. In such a drought the strongest heart might well grow faint and weak,

They'd parted but a year before, she never thought he'd come, She stammer'd, blushed, held out her hand, and called him 'Mister Gum.' How could he know that all the while she longed to murmur 'John.'

Jim Duff was a 'native,'as wild as could be; A stealer and duffer of cattle was he, But back in his youth he had stolen a pearl

Tall and freckled and sandy, Face of a country lout; This was the picture of Andy,

I. Peter Michaelov It was Peter the Barbarian put an apron in his bag And rolled up the honoured bundle that Australians call a swag;

Only one old post is standing, Solid yet, but only one, Where the milking, and the branding,

My Army, O, my army! The time I dreamed of comes! I want to see your colours; I want to hear your drums! I heard them in my boyhood when all men's hearts seemed cold;

My father-in-law is a careworn man, And a silent man is he; But he summons a smile as well as he can

They have eaten their fill at your tables spread, Like friends since the land was won; And they rise with a cry of "Australia's dead!"

Once I wrote a little poem which I thought was very fine, And I showed the printer's copy to a critic friend of mine, First he praised the thing a little, then he found a little fault;

The world goes round, old fellow, And still I'm in the swim, While my wife's second husband

It is night-time when the saddest and the darkest memories haunt, When outside the printing office the most glaring posters flaunt, When the love-wrong is accomplished. And I think of things and mark

By hut, homestead and shearing shed, By railroad, coach and track, By lonely graves where rest the dead,

The breezes blow on the river below, And the fleecy clouds float high, And I mark how the dark green gum trees match

There's a light out there in the nearer east In the dawn of Nineteen Nine; There's the old ghost light in the salty yeast

Arming down along the stream, Along the sparkling water, And past the pool where lilies gleam,

James Patrick O'Hara the Justice of Peace, He bossed the P.M. and he bossed the police; A parent, a deacon, a landlord was he,

They're shifting old North Sydney, Perhaps 'tis just as well, They're carting off the houses

The rising moon on the peaks was blending Her silver light with the sunset glow, When a swagman came as the day was ending

When friends are listening round me, Jack, to hear my dying breath, And I am lying in a sleep they say will end in death, Don't notice what the doctor says, and let the nurse complain,

So the time seems come at last, And the drums go rolling past, And above them in the sunlight Labour's banners float and flow;

Have you seen the bush by moonlight, from the train, go running by? Blackened log and stump and sapling, ghostly trees all dead and dry; Here a patch of glassy water; there a glimpse of mystic sky?

On the summit of Mount Clarence rotting slowly in the air Stands a tall and naked flagstaff, relic of the Russian scare, Russian scare that scares no longer, for the cry is 'All is well',

Now the tent poles are rotting, the camp fires are dead, And the possums may gambol in trees overhead; I am humping my bluey far out on the land,

With the frame of a man, and the face of a boy, and a manner strangely wild, And the great, wide, wondering, innocent eyes of a silent-suffering child; With his hideous dress and his heavy boots, he drags to Eternity,

'ONE-MAN-ONE-VOTE!' You hear the people shouting. The walls of Mammon tremble ere they fall. ONE-MAN-ONE-VOTE! Is this a time for doubting?

It's only a sod, but 'twill break me ould heart Nigh hardened wid toilin' and carin', And make the ould wounds in it tingle and smart.

We set no right above hers, No earthly light nor star, She hath had many lovers,

Sing us a song in this cynical age, Sing us a song, my friend, While the Flesh and the Devil are all the rage

The old year went, and the new returned, in the withering weeks of drought, The cheque was spent that the shearer earned, and the sheds were all cut out; The publican's words were short and few, and the publican's looks were black,

I want to be lighting my pipe on deck, With my baggage safe below, I want to be free of the crowded quay,

Let others sing praise of their sea-girted isles, But give me the bush with its limitless miles; Then it's over the ranges and into the West,

Now up and down the siding brown The great black crows are flyin', And down below the spur, I know,

When at first in foreign parts Was her flag unfurled, England was a Gipsy lass

He had offices in Sydney, not so many years ago, And his shingle bore the legend `Peter Anderson and Co.' But his real name was Careless, as the fellows understood,

A dusty clearing in the scrubs Of barren, western lands, Where, out of sight, or sign of hope

So yer trav'lin' for yer pleasure while yer writin' for the press? An' yer huntin' arter 'copy'? well, I've heer'd o' that. I guess You are gorn ter write a story that is gorn ter be yer best,

I hate this grinding poverty, To toil, and pinch, and borrow, And be for ever haunted by

I Queen Hilda rode along the lines, And she was young and fair;

The Valley's full of misty cloud, Its tinted beauty drowning, The Eucalypti roar aloud,

Ten miles down Reedy River A pool of water lies, And all the year it mirrors

She says she's very sorry, as she sees you to the gate; You calmly say 'Good-bye' to her while standing off a yard, Then you lift your hat and leave her, walking mighty stiff and straight,

We're marching along, we're gath'ring strong' We place on our right reliance, We fling in the air, for all who care,

Dust and smoke against the sunrise out where grim disaster lurks And a broken sky-line looming like unfinished railway works, And a trot, trot, trot and canter down inside the belt of mines:

Rise Ye! rise ye! noble toilers! claim your rights with fire and steel! Rise ye! for the cursed tyrants crush ye with the hiron 'eel! They would treat ye worse than sl-a-a-ves! they would treat ye worse than brutes!

Grown tired of mourning for my sins, And brooding over merits, The other night with bothered brow

All is well, in a prison, to-night, and the warders are crying 'All's Well!' I must speak, for the sake of my heart, if it's but to the walls of my cell. For what does it matter to me if to-morrow I go where I will?

Oh, the wild black swans fly westward still, While the sun goes down in glory, And away o'er lonely plain and hill

Said Grenfell to my spirit, "You've been writing very free Of the charms of other places, and you don't remember me. You have claimed another native place and think it's Nature's law,

'Now tell me what can England do?' Said the Kaiser to the Spy. 'She can do nought, your Majesty,

Now, I think there is a likeness 'twixt St Peter's life and mine For he did a lot of trampin' long ago in Palestine He was 'union' when the workers first began to organize

Now this is a rhyme that might well be carried Gummed in your hat till the end of things: Say Good-bye when your chum is married;

The boy cleared out to the city from his home at harvest time, They were Scots of the Riverina, and to run from home was a crime. The old man burned his letters, the first and last he burned,

Emblems of storm and danger, Spindrift and mountain stern, Plants that welcome the stranger,

At suburban railway stations, you may see them as you pass, there are signboards on the platform saying "Wait here second class," And to me the whirr and thunder and the cluck of running-gear

Now this is the creed from the Book of the Bush, Should be simple and plain to a dunce: "If a man's in a hole you must pass round the hat,

When the heavy sand is yielding backward from your blistered feet, And across the distant timber you can SEE the flowing heat; When your head is hot and aching, and the shadeless plain is wide,

"Like clouds o'er the South are the nations who reign On fair islands that we would command; But clouds that are darker and denser than these

No church-bell rings them from the Track, No pulpit lights their blindness, 'Tis hardship, drought and homelessness

Why are the sheoaks forever sighing? (Sheoaks that sigh when the wind is still), Why are the dead hopes forever dying?

Fools can parrot-cry the prophet when the proof is close at hand, And the blind can see the danger when the foe is in the land! Truth was never cynicism, death or ruin's not a joke,

I met Jack Ellis in town to-day, Jack Ellis, my old mate, Jack, Ten years ago, from the Castlereagh,

While they struggle on exhausted, While they plough through bog and flood, While they drag their sick and wounded

Here's never a bough to be tossed in the breeze, For it's long since the forest was green; And round all the trunks of the naked white trees

He's somewhere up in Queensland, The old folks used to say; He's somewhere up in Queensland,

The Wireless tells and the cable tells How our boys behaved by the Dardanelles. Some thought in their hearts 'Will our boys make good?'

The wireless tells and the cable tells How our boys behaved by the Dardanelles. Some thought in their hearts 'Will our boys make good?'

Far back in the days when the blacks used to ramble In long single file 'neath the evergreen tree, The wool-teams in season came down from Coonamble,

Far back in the days when the blacks used to ramble In long single file 'neath the evergreen tree, The wool-teams in season came down from Coonamble,

On the moonlighted decks there are children at play, While smoothly the steamer is holding her way; And the old folks are chatting on deck-seats and chairs,

Did you see that man riding past, With shoulders bowed with care? There's failure in his eyes to last,

It was somewhere in September, and the sun was going down, When I came, in search of `copy', to a Darling-River town; `Come-and-have-a-drink' we'll call it, 'tis a fitting name, I think,

She sits beside the tinted tide, That's reddened by the tortured sand; And through the East, to ocean wide,

Let us sing a song as not a Solitary poet sings, For our seething brain has got a

Where's the steward?, Bar-room steward? Berth? Oh, any berth will do, I have left a three-pound billet just to come along with you. Brighter shines the Star of Rovers on a world that's growing wide,

When you've got no chance at all, Take it fightin'. When you're driven to the wall,

They stood by the door of the Inn on the Rise; May Carney looked up in the bushranger's eyes: `Oh! why did you come?, it was mad of you, Jack;

He never drew a sword to fight a dozen foes alone, Nor gave a life to save a life no better than his own. He lived because he had been born, the hero of my song,

Where shall we go for prophecy? Where shall we go for proof? The holiday street is crowded, pavement, window and roof; Band and banner pass by us, and the old tunes rise and fall,

Macquarie the shearer had met with an accident. To tell the truth, he had been in a drunken row at a wayside shanty, from which he had escaped with three fractured ribs, a cracked head, and various minor abrasions. His dog, Tally, had been a sober but savage participator in the drunken row, and had escaped with a broken leg. Macquarie afterwards shouldered his swag and staggered and struggled along the track ten miles to the Union-Town Hospital. Lord knows how he did it. He didn't exactly know himself. Tally limped behind all the way on three legs. The doctors examined the man's injuries and were surprised at his endurance. Even doctors are surprised sometimes, though they don't always show it. Of course they would take him in, but they objected to Tally. Dogs were not allowed on the premises. 'You will have to turn that dog out,' they said to the shearer, as he sat on the edge of a bed.

They towed the Seabolt down the stream, And through the harbour's mouth; She spread her wings and sailed away

I mind the river from Mount Frome To Ballanshantie's Bridge, The Mudgee Hills, and Buckaroo,

Oh, for the fire that used to glow In those my days of old! I never thought a man could grow

I was welcome in a palace when the ball was at my feet, I was petted in a garden and my triumph was complete. But for me above the alleys there forever shone a star,

I listened through the music and the sounds of revelry, And all the hollow noises of that year of Jubilee; I heard beyond the music and beyond the local cheer,

Sing the strong, proud song of Labour, Toss the ringing music high; Liberty's a nearer neighbour

Some carry their swags in the Great North-West, Where the bravest battle and die, And a few have gone to their last long rest,

Two little girls aged six and nine, the daughters of a lengthsman on the railway at Walloon, near Ipswich, Queensland, were sent on an errand by their parents and it is supposed they were attracted by some water-lilies in a pool near their home. They were found drowned in six feet of water. He was lengthsman on the railway, and his station scarce deserved That 'pre-eminence in sorrow' of the Majesty he served,

Ye children of the Land of Gold, I sing a song to you, And if the jokes are somewhat old,

Across the stony ridges, Across the rolling plain, Young Harry Dale, the drover,

A son of elder sons I am, Whose boyhood days were cramped and scant, Through ages of domestic sham

A Rouseabout of rouseabouts, from any land, or none, I bear a nick-name of the bush, and I'm, a woman's son; I came from where I camp'd last night, and, at the day-dawn glow,

He longed to be a Back-Blocks Bard, And fame he wished to win, He wrote at night and studied hard

The camp of high-class spielers, Who sneered in summer dress, And doo-dah dilettante,

So, sit you down in a straight-backed chair, with your pipe and your wife content, And cross your knees with your wisest air, and preach of the 'days mis-spent;' Grown fat and moral apace, old man! you prate of the change 'since then',

A fresh sweet-scented beauty Came tripping down the street; She was as fair a vision

He shall live to the end of this mad old world, he has lived since the world began, He never has done any good for himself, but was good to every man. He never has done any good for himself, and I'm sure that he never will,

An' SO 'e's dead in London, An' answered to the call, An' trotted through the Long Street,

There was a tracker in the force Of wondrous sight (the story ran):, He never failed to track a horse,

Above the ashes straight and tall, Through ferns with moisture dripping, I climb beneath the sandstone wall,

The lovely Port of Sydney Lies laughing to the sky, The bonny Port of Sydney,

When he's over a rough and unpopular shed, With the sins of the bank and the men on his head; When he musn't look black or indulge in a grin,

The Shearers squint along the pens, they squint along the 'shoots;' The shearers squint along the board to catch the Boss's boots; They have no time to straighten up, they have no time to stare,

'Tis a legend of the bushmen from the days of Cunningham, When he opened up the country and the early squatters came. Tis the old tale of a fortune missed by men who did seek,

You wonder why so many would be buried in the sea, In this world of froth and bubble, But I don't wonder, for it seems to me

I was drifting in the drizzle past the Cecil in the Strand, Which, I'm told, is very tony, and its front looks very grand; And I somehow fell a-thinking of a pub I know so well,

The shipping-office clerks are 'short,' the manager is gruff, 'They cannot make reductions,' and 'the fares are low enough.' They ship us West with cattle, and we go like cattle too;

From Crow's Nest here by Sydney town Where crows had nests of old I see the Range where day goes down,

Ah, better the thud of the deadly gun, and the crash of the bursting shell, Than the terrible silence where drought is fought out there in the western hell; And better the rattle of rifles near, or the thunder on deck at sea,

So you rode from the range where your brothers 'select,' Through the ghostly grey bush in the dawn You rode slowly at first, lest her heart should suspect

The crescent moon and clock tower are fair above the wall Across the smothered lanes of 'Loo, the stifled vice and all, And in the shadow yonder, like cats that wait for scraps,

So you're writing for a paper? Well, it's nothing very new To be writing yards of drivel for a tidy little screw; You are young and educated, and a clever chap you are,

As the night was falling slowly down on city, town and bush, From a slum in Jones's Alley sloped the Captain of the Push; And he scowled towards the North, and he scowled towards the South,

The Captains sailed from all the World, from all the world and Spain; And each one for his country's ease, her glory and her gain; The Captains sailed to Southern Seas, and sailed the Spanish Main;

At a point where the old road crosses The river, and turns to the right, I'd camped with the team; and the hosses

The Plains lay bare on the homeward route, And the march was heavy on man and brute; For the Spirit of Drought was on all the land,

With eyes that are narrowed to pierce To the awful horizons of land, Through the blaze of hot days, and the fierce

It was pleasant up the country, Mr. Banjo, where you went, For you sought the greener patches and you travelled like a gent; And you curse the trams and buses and the turmoil and the push,

They sing of the grandeur of cliffs inland, But the cliffs of the ocean are truly grand; And I long to wander and dream and doubt

From Woolwich and Brentford and Stamford Hill, from Richmond into the Strand, Oh, the Cockney soul is a silent soul, as it is in every land! But out on the sand with a broken band it's sarcasm spurs them through;

Once more I write a line to you, While darker shadows fall; Dear friends of mine who have been true,

They sunk a post into the ground Where their leaders bade them stop; It was a man's height, and they spiked

There's such a lot of work to do, for such a troubled head! I'm scribbling this against a book, with foolscap round, in bed. It strikes me that I'll scribble much in this way by and by,

The breezes waved the silver grass, Waist-high along the siding, And to the creek we ne'er could pass

Republicans! the time is coming! Listen to the distant drumming! Hearken to the whispers humming

The Eagle screams at the beck of trade, so Spain, as the world goes round, Must wrestle the right to live or die from the sons of the land she found; For, as in the days when the buccaneer was abroad on the Spanish Main,

An hour before the sun goes down Behind the ragged boughs, I go across the little run

Shrivelled leather, rusty buckles, and the rot is in our knuckles, Scorched for months upon the pommel while the brittle rein hung free; Shrunken eyes that once were lighted with fresh boyhood, dull and blighted,

They can't hear in West o' London, where the worst dine with the best, Deaf to all save lies and laughter, they can't hear in London West, Tailored brutes and splendid harlots, and the parasites that be,

They can't hear in West o' London, where the worst dine with the best, Deaf to all save lies and laughter, they can't hear in London West, Tailored brutes and splendid harlots, and the parasites that be,

A public parlour in the slums, The haunt of vice and villainy, Where things are said unfit to hear,

There are three lank bards in a borrowed room, Ah! The number is one too few, They have deemed their home and the bars unfit

Oh! the folly, the waste, and the pity! Oh, the time that is flung behind! They are seeking a site for a city, whose eyes shall be always blind, Whose love for their ease grows greater, and whose care for their country less,

"Was I at Eureka?" His figure was drawn to a youthful height, And a flood of proud recollections made the fire in his grey eyes bright; With pleasure they lighted and glisten'd, tho' the digger was grizzled and old,

The squatter saw his pastures wide Decrease, as one by one The farmers moving to the west

They are creeping on through the cornfields yet, and they clamber amongst the rocks, Ere they rush to stab with the bayonet and smash with the rifle-stocks. And many are wounded, many are dead, some reel as if drunk with wine,

By Lawson's Hill, near Mudgee, On old Eurunderee, The place they called "New Pipeclay",

When you get tight in foreign lands You never need go slinking, No female neighbours lift their hands

I met her on the Lachlan Side, A darling girl I thought her, And ere I left I swore I'd win

The battlefield behind us, And night loomed on the track; The Friends of Fallen Fortunes

The brown eyes came from Asia, where all mystery is true, Ere the masters of Soul Secrets dreamed of hazel, grey, and blue; And the Brown Eyes came to Egypt, which is called the gypsies' home,

The gentlemen of Dickens Were mostly very poor, And innocent of grammar,

Down the street as I was drifting with the city's human tide, Came a ghost, and for a moment walked in silence by my side, Now my heart was hard and bitter, and a bitter spirit he,

You'd call the man a senseless fool, A blockhead or an ass, Who'd dare to say he saw the ghost

Three bushmen one morning rode up to an inn, And one of them called for the drinks with a grin; They'd only returned from a trip to the North,

PAT M'DURMER brought the tidings to the town of God-Forgotten : 'There are lively days before ye, commin Parlymint's dissolved!' And the boys were all excited, for the State, of course, was 'rotten,'

'Twas merry when the hut was full Of jolly girls and fellows. We danced and sang until we burst

He comes from out the ages dim, The good Samaritan; I somehow never pictured him

Out West, where the stars are brightest, Where the scorching north wind blows, And the bones of the dead gleam whitest,

Call this hot? I beg your pardon. Hot!, you don't know what it means. (What's that, waiter? lamb or mutton! Thank you, mine is beef and greens. Bread and butter while I'm waiting. Milk? Oh, yes, a bucketful.)

'Twixt the coastline and the border lay the town of Grog-an'-Grumble In the days before the bushman was a dull 'n' heartless drudge, An' they say the local meeting was a drunken rough-and-tumble,

When the wars of the world seemed ended, and silent the distant drum, Ten years ago in Australia, I wrote of a war to come: And I pictured Australians fighting as their fathers fought of old

Oh, the track through the scrub groweth ever more dreary, And lower and lower his grey head doth bow; For the swagman is old and the swagman is weary,

It was old Jerry Brown, Who'd an office in town, And he used to get jocular, very;

By the bodies and minds and souls that rot in a common stye In the city's offal-holes, where the dregs of its horrors lie, By the prayers that bubble out, but never ascend to God,

The Blue Sky arches o'er mountain and valley, The scene is as fair as a scene can be, But I'm breaking my heart for a London alley,

In these days of peace and money, free to all the Commonweal, There are ancient dames in Buckland wearing wedding rings of steel; Wedding rings of steel and iron, worn on wrinkled hands and old,

If I ever be worthy or famous, Which I'm sadly beginning to doubt, When the angel whose place 'tis to name us

Among the sons of Englishmen Full many feel like real tears, For, though he reigned but scarcely ten,

Oh, Scotty, have you visited the Picture Gallery, And did you see the portraits of the King and Queen and me? The portraits made by Longstaff, and the pictures done by Jack,

He is coming! He is coming! without heralds, without cheers. He is coming! He is coming! and he's been with us for years: And, if you should pause to wonder who's the man of whom I sing,

Let the liar call me liar, And the robber call me thief. They can only fan the fire

The Lady of the Motor-car she stareth straight ahead; Her face is like the stone, my friend, her face is like the dead; Her face is like the stone, my friend, because she is 'well-bred',

Turn the light down, nurse, and leave me, while I hold my last review, For the Bush is slipping from me, and the town is going too: Draw the blinds, the streets are lighted, and I hear the tramp of feet,

Because he had sinned and suffered, because he loved the land, And because of his wonderful sympathy, he held men's hearts in his hand. Born and bred of the people, he knew their every whim,

Light on the towns and cities, and peace for evermore! The Big Five met in the world's light as many had met before, And the future of man is settled and there shall be no more war.

The night came down thro' Deadman's Gap, Where the ghostly saplings bent Before a wind that tore the fly

In the days that will be olden after many years are gone, Ere the world emerged from darkness floating out into the dawn, On a mountain rising steeply from the depth of marsh and wood

Out there by the rocks, at the end of the bank, In the mouth of the river, the Wanderer sank. She is resting where meet the blue water and green,

Fire lighted; on the table a meal for sleepy men; A lantern in the stable; a jingle now and then; The mail-coach looming darkly by light on moon and star;

I Looked upon the lilies When the morning sun was low, And the sun shone through a lily

'Tis sunrise over Watson, Where I sailed out to sea, On that wild run to London

Oh, Great White Czar of Russia, who hid your face and ran, You've flung afar the grandest chance that ever came to man! You might have been, and could have been, ah, think it to your shame!,

There is a lasting little flower, That everybody knows, Yet none has thought to think about

I'm glad that the Bushmen can't see me now A-doing it tall in the town; I've an inch-brimmed hat on my sun-burnt brow,

I long for the streets but the Lord knoweth best, For there I am never a saint; There are lovable characters out in the West,

It was the Man from Waterloo, When work in town was slack, Who took the track as bushmen do,

They were hanging men in Buckland who would not cheer King George, The parson from his pulpit and the blacksmith from his forge; They were hanging men and brothers, and the stoutest heart was down,

Are you coming, Ivan, coming?, Ah, the ways are long and slow, In the vast land that we know not, and we never sought to know. We are watching through the daybreak, when the anxious night is done,

I would never waste the hours Of the time that is mine own, Writing verses about flowers

When God's wrath-cloud is o'er me, Affrighting heart and mind; When days seem dark before me,

There's a class of men (and women) who are always on their guard, Cunning, treacherous, suspicious, feeling softly, grasping hard, Brainy, yet without the courage to forsake the beaten track,

I have sinned, like others, blindly, without thought and without fear, And my best friends say it kindly, 'You should go away from here.' Shall I fly the paltry spirit of a narrow little town,

There'll be royal times in Sydney for the Cuff and Collar Push, There'll be lots of dreary drivel and clap-trap From the men who own Australia, but who never knew the Bush,

'Tis the song of many husbands, and you all must understand That you cannot call me coward now that women rule the land; I have written much for women, where I thought that they were right,

The men who camp with Danger Are mostly quiet men: And one may use a rifle,

They were men of many nations, they were men of many stations, They were men in many places, and of high and low degree; Men of many types and faces, but, alike in all the races,

The motor car is sullen, like a thing that should not be; The motor car is master of Smart Society. 'Twas born of sweated genius and collared by a clown;

He works in the glen where the waratah grows, And the gums and the ashes are tall, 'Neath cliffs that re-echo the sound of his blows

The rooster is a brainless dude, although he sports a crest, The hen's an awful fool we know, though hen-eggs are the best; She'll flutter, cackling, anywhere save through a gate or door,

By homestead, hut, and shearing-shed, By railroad, coach, and track, By lonely graves of our brave dead,

Let bushmen think as bushmen will, And say whate'er they choose, I hate to hear the stupid sneer

It was built of bark and poles, and the floor was full of holes Where each leak in rainy weather made a pool; And the walls were mostly cracks lined with calico and sacks,

The old Jimmy Woodser comes into the bar Unwelcomed, unnoticed, unknown, Too old and too odd to be drunk with, by far;

Old coach-road West by Nor'-ward, Old mile-tree by the track: A dead branch pointing forward,

Wrap me up in me stockwhip and blanket, And bury me deep down below, Where this piffle and sham won't disgust me,

They proved we could not think nor see, They proved we could not write, They proved we drank the day away

They proved we could not think nor see, They proved we could not write, They proved we drank the day away

There were ten of us there on the moonlit quay, And one on the for'ard hatch; No straighter mate to his mates than he

It was a week from Christmas-time, As near as I remember, And half a year since, in the rear,

We throw us down on the dusty plain When the gold has gone from the west, But we rise and tramp on the track again,

Behold! the biased foes of Right Are conscious of their danger, They're startled by the dawning light,

From over the leagues of ice and snow, and the miles of scorching sand; From back of the days of long ago, and the lonely sea and land, To the end of the world and our Gipsy race, to the death of our dark-eyed line,

When first I came to town, resolved To fight my way alone, No prouder foot than mine e'er trod

It has a 'point' of neither sex But comes in guise of both, And, doubly dangerous complex,

Last salvo in "The Bush Controversy". The later poem "A Voice From the Town" (Banjo Patterson) continues the theme. The world has had enough of bards who wish that they were dead,

Our hull is seldom painted, Our decks are seldom stoned; Our sails are patched and cobbled

Down here where the ships loom large in The gloom when the sea-storms veer, Down here on the south-west margin

It knows it all, it knows it all, The world of groans and laughter, It sneers of pride before a fall,

Oh, the strength of the toil of those twenty years, with father, and master, and men! And the clearer brain of the business man, who has held his own for ten: Oh, the glorious freedom from business fears, and the rest from domestic strife!

When you've knocked about the country, been away from home for years; When the past, by distance softened, nearly fills your eyes with tears, You are haunted oft, wherever or however you may roam,

He'd been for years in Sydney "a-acting of the goat", His name was Joseph Swallow, "the Great Australian Pote", In spite of all the stories and sketches that he wrote.

The night too quickly passes And we are growing old, So let us fill our glasses

We love the land when the world goes round, And deep, deep down in her thorny ground, Where nobody comes, and nobody knows,

Did you hear the children singing, O my brothers? Did you hear the children singing as our troops went marching past? In the sunshine and the rain,

Some born of homely parents For ages settled down, The steady generations

You're off away to London now, Where no one dare ignore you, With Southern laurels on your brow,

Of home, name and wealth and ambition bereft, We are children of fortune and luck: They deny there's a shred of our characters left,

Black Scots and red Scots, Red Scots and black; I hae dealt wi' the red Scot,

'Tis no tale of heroism, 'tis no tale of storm and strife, But of ordinary boozing, and of dull domestic life, Of the everlasting friction that most husbands must endure,

The Separated Women Go lying through the land, For they have plenty dresses,

We knew too little of the world, And you and I were good, 'Twas paltry things that wrecked our lives

Set me back for twenty summers, For I'm tired of cities now, Set my feet in red-soil furrows

When you've come to make a fortune and you haven't made your salt, And the reason of your failure isn't anybody's fault, When you haven't got a billet, and the times are very slack,

When the caravans of wool-teams climbed the ranges from the West, On a spur among the mountains stood `The Bullock-drivers' Rest'; It was built of bark and saplings, and was rather rough inside,

No church-bell rings them from the Track, No pulpit lights their blindness, 'Tis hardship, drought and homelessness

O I dreamt I shore in a shearing shed and it was a dream of joy For every one of the rouseabouts was a girl dressed up as a boy Dressed up like a page in a pantomime the prettiest ever seen

'The ladies are coming,' the super says To the shearers sweltering there, And 'the ladies' means in the shearing-shed:

We hear a great commotion 'Bout the ship that comes to grief, That founders in mid-ocean,

Against the light of a dawning white My Skyline Riders stand, There is trouble ahead for a dark year dead

'Call that a yarn!' said old Tom Pugh, 'What rot! I'll lay my hat I'll sling you a yarn worth more nor two

The colours of the setting sun Withdrew across the Western land, He raised the sliprails, one by one,

The creek went down with a broken song, 'Neath the sheoaks high; The waters carried the song along,

Now this is the song of a prison, a song of a gaol or jug, A ballad of quod or of chokey, the ultimate home of the mug. The yard where the Foolish are drafted; Hell's school where the harmless are taught;

The centuries found me to nations unknown, My people have crowned me and made me a throne; My royal regalia is love, truth, and light,

When I was up the country in the rough and early days, I used to work along ov Jimmy Nowlett's bullick-drays; Then the reelroad wasn't heered on, an' the bush was wild an' strange,

The skies are brass and the plains are bare, Death and ruin are everywhere, And all that is left of the last year's flood

O bard of fortune, you deem me nought But a mark for your careless scorn. For I am the echo-less grave of thought

When I tell a tale of virtue and of injured innocence, Then my publishers and lawyers are the densest of the dense: With the blank face of an image and the nod of keep-it-dark

I have written, long years I have written, For the sake of my people and right, I was true when the iron had bitten

There's a wind that blows out of the South in the drought, And we pray for the touch of his breath When siroccos come forth from the North-West and North,

We come with peace and reason, We come with love and light, To banish black self-treason

The spirits of our fathers rise not from every wave, They left the sea behind them long ago; It was many years of 'slogging,' where strong men must be brave,

Out in the west, where runs are wide, And days than ours are hotter, Not very far from Lachlan Side

(A Dirge of Sin and Sorrow, Sung by Joe Swallow) There was a Squatter in the land, So runs the truthful tale I tell,

We boast no more of our bloodless flag, that rose from a nation's slime; Better a shred of a deep-dyed rag from the storms of the olden time. From grander clouds in our `peaceful skies' than ever were there before

Pride, selfishness in every line, And on its face a frown, It stands, a sceptre in its hand,

'Twas the glowing log of a picnic fire where a red light should not be, Or the curtained glow of a sick room light in a window that faced the sea. But the Manly lights seemed the Sydney lights, and the bluffs as the 'Heads' were seen;

The strangest things and the maddest things, that a man can do or say, To the chaps and fellers and coves Out Back are matters of every day; Maybe on account of the lives they lead, or the life that their hearts discard,

There's the whitebox and pine on the ridges afar, Where the iron-bark, blue-gum, and peppermint are; There is many another, but dearest to me,

From north to south throughout the year The shearing seasons run, The Queensland stations start to shear

A cloud of dust on the long white road, And the teams go creeping on Inch by inch with the weary load;

The fields are fair in autumn yet, and the sun's still shining there, But we bow our heads and we brood and fret, because of the masks we wear; Or we nod and smile the social while, and we say we're doing well,

The fields are fair in autumn yet, and the sun's still shining there, But we bow our heads and we brood and fret, because of the masks we wear; Or we nod and smile the social while, and we say we're doing well,

Trio East is dead and the West is done, and again our course lies thus South-east by Fate and the Rising Sun where the Three Kings* wait for us. When our hearts are young and the world is wide, and the heights seem grand to climb,

We, three men of commerce, Striving wealth to raise, See but little promise

There is a quiet gentleman a-motoring in France (Oh, don't you hear the honking of a British motor-car?), Like any quiet gentleman that you may meet by chance,

Now this is not a dismal song, like some I've sung of late, When I've been brooding all day long about my muddled fate; For though I've had a rocky time I'll never quite forget,

Oh, I never felt so wretched, and things never looked so blue Since the days I gulped the physic that my Granny used to brew; For a friend in whom I trusted, entering my room last night,

Lo, the gods of Vice and Mammon from their pinnacles are hurled By the workers' new religion, which is oldest in the world; And the earth will feel her children treading firmly on the sod,

A tramp was trampin' on the road, The afternoon was warm an' muggy, And by-and-by he chanced to meet

Fight through ignorance, want, and care, Through the griefs that crush the spirit; Push your way to a fortune fair,

The President to Kingdoms, As in the Days of Old; The King to the Republic,

White handkerchiefs wave from the short black pier As we glide to the grand old sea, But the song of my heart is for none to hear

While the crippled cruisers stagger where the blind horizon dips, And the ocean ooze is rising round the sunken battle-ships, While the battered wrecks, unnoticed, with their mangled crews drift past,

They say, in all kindness, I'm out of the hunt, Too old and too deaf to be sent to the Front. A scribbler of stories, a maker of songs,

'Did she care as much as I did When our paths of Fate divided? Was the love, then, all onesided,

The other night I got the blues and tried to smile in vain. I couldn't chuck a chuckle at the foolery of Twain; When Ward and Billings failed to bring a twinkle to my eye,

And they heard the tent-poles clatter, And the fly in twain was torn, 'Tis the soiled rag of a tatter

It watched me in the cradle laid, and from my boyhood's home It glared above my shoulder-blade when I wrote my first 'pome'; It's sidled by me ever since, with greeny eyes aslant,

Night-Lights are falling; Girl of the street, Go to your calling

Let others make the songs of love For our young struggling nation; But I will sing while e'er I live

A lonely young wife In her dreaming discerns A lily-decked pool

I saw it in the days gone by, When the dead girl lay at rest, And the wattle and the native rose

When fairer faces turn from me, And gayer friends grow cold, And I have lost through poverty

It is up from out the alleys, from the alleys dark and vile, It is up from out the alleys I have struggled for a while, Just to breathe the breath of Heaven ere my devil drags me down,

The World is full of kindness, And not the poor alone; We Christians in our blindness

Day of ending for beginnings! Ocean hath another innings, Ocean hath another score;

A writer wrote of the hearts of men, and he followed their tracks afar; For his was a spirit that forced his pen to write of the things that are. His heart grew tired of the truths he told, for his life was hard and grim;

Old Ivan McIvanovitch, with knitted brow of care, Has climbed up from the engine-room to get a breath of air; He slowly wipes the grease and sweat from hairy face and neck.

By blacksoil plains burned grey with drought Where desert shrubs and grasses grow, Along the Land of Furthest Out

Though doctors may your name discard And say you physicked vilely, I would I were as good a bard

Old acquaintance unforgotten, Though you may be 'ugly brutes', Though your leather's cracked and rotten,

Old Mate! In the gusty old weather, When our hopes and our troubles were new, In the years spent in wearing out leather,

You ask me to be gay and glad While lurid clouds of danger loom, And vain and bad and gambling mad,

Spirit girl to whom 'twas given To revisit scenes of pain, From the hell I thought was Heaven

So, I've battled it through on my own, Jack, I have done with all dreaming and doubt. Though 'stoney' to-night and alone, Jack,

I gaze upon my son once more, With eyes and heart that tire, As solemnly he stands before

These are songs of the Friends I neglected, And the Foes, too, in part; These are songs that were mostly rejected,

There has been many a grander deed since man had life to give, And thousands have gone to certain death, eyes open, that men might live; And many have gone for their country's sake, when their numbers were all too few,

Farewell! The gold we send shall be a token Of that which in our hearts is growing strong; You asked our sympathy, and we have spoken,

O had you tracked where Kendall trod I think you would be kneelin' Three times a week and thankin' God

I thought that silence would be best, But I a call have heard, And, Victor, after all the rest,

When you're suffering hard for your sins, old man, When you wake to trouble and sleep ill, Oh, this is the clack of the middle class,

One day old Trooper Campbell Rode out to Blackman's Run, His cap-peak and his sabre

You lazy boy, you're here at last, You must be wooden-legged; Now, are you sure the gate is fast

Oh, never let on to your own true love That ever you drank a drop; That ever you played in a two-up school

Oh, the wild black swans fly westward still, While the sun goes down in glory, And away o'er lonely plain and hill

I am back from up the country, very sorry that I went, Seeking for the Southern poets' land whereon to pitch my tent; I have lost a lot of idols, which were broken on the track,

And his death came in December, When our summer was aglow, Like a song that we remember,

The schools marched in procession in happiness and pride, The city bands before them, the soldiers marched beside; Oh, starched white frocks and sashes and suits that high schools wear,

Though poor and in trouble I wander alone, With rebel cockade in my hat, Though friends may desert me, and kindred disown,

A bushman got lost in a scrub in the North, And all the long morning the searchers went forth. They swore at the rain that had washed out the tracks

What have we all forgotten, at the break of the seventh year? With a nation born to the ages and a Bad Time borne on its bier! Public robbing, and lying that death cannot erase,

When hopes ran high the world was young, We thought that we would never die, And glorious were the songs we sung

The second time I lived on earth Was several hundred years ago; And, royal by my second birth,

On a lonely selection far out in the West An old woman works all the day without rest, And she croons, as she toils 'neath the sky's glassy dome,

Let us sing in tear-choked numbers how the Duke of Clarence went, Just to make a royal sorrow rather more pre-eminent. Ladies sighed and sobbed and drivelled, toadies spoke with bated breath,

'The ladies are coming,' the super says To the shearers sweltering there, And 'the ladies' means in the shearing shed:

When the kindly hours of darkness, save for light of moon and star, Hide the picture on the signboard over Doughty's Horse Bazaar; When the last rose-tint is fading on the distant mulga scrub,

I remarked that man is saddest, and his heart is filled with woe, When he hasn't any money, and his pants begin to go; But I think I was mistaken, and there are many times I find

When you wear a cloudy collar and a shirt that isn't white, And you cannot sleep for thinking how you'll reach to-morrow night, You may be a man of sorrows, and on speaking terms with Care,

When you fear the barber's mirror when you go to get a crop, Or in sorrow every morning comb your hair across the top: When you titivate and do the little things you never used,

Oh, the scene is wide an' dreary an' the sun is settin' red, An' the grey-black sky of winter's comin' closer overhead. Oh, the sun is settin' bloody with a blood-line on the snow,

Who'll wear the beaten colours, and cheer the beaten men? Who'll wear the beaten colours, till our time comes again? Where sullen crowds are densest, and fickle as the sea,

O my prow vas plack mit curses, Ven I dries to write dose verses; Ven I dries to write dot boem,

There was a tracker in the force Of wondrous sight (the story ran):, He never failed to track a horse,

Wide lies Australia! The seas that surround her Flow for her unity, all states in one. Never has Custom nor Tyranny bound her,

When my last long-beer has vanished and the truth is left unsaid; When each sordid care is banished from my chair and from my bed, And my common people sadly murmur: "'Arry Lawson dead,"

In the parlour of the shanty where the lives have all gone wrong, When a singer or reciter gives a story or a song, Where the poet's heart is speaking to their hearts in every line,

'Tis William Street, the link street, That seems to stand alone; 'Tis William Street, the vague street,

In Windsor Terrace, number four, I've taken my abode, A little crescent from the street,

Clerk, corresponding, 'Rooster and Comb', Here I sit idle

So the days of my tramping are over, And the days of my riding are done, I'm about as content as a rover

Sing the song of the reckless, who care not what they do; Sing the song of a sinner and the song of a writer, too, Down in a pub in the alleys, in a dark and dirty hole,

The Big rough boys from the runs out back were first where the balls flew free, And yelled in the slang of the Outside Track: 'By God, it's a Christmas spree!' 'It's not too rusty', and 'Wool away!', 'stand clear of the blazing shoots!',

The Young King fights in the trenches and the Old King fights in the rear, Because he is old and feeble, and not for a thought of fear. The Young King fights for the Future, and the Old King fights for the Past,