Australian Bards And Bush Reviewers
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 --
You're a clever southern writer, scarce inferior to Bret Harte.
If you sing of waving grasses when the plains are dry as bricks,
And discover shining rivers where there's only mud and sticks;
If you picture `mighty forests' where the mulga spoils the view --
You're superior to Kendall, and ahead of Gordon too.
If you swear there's not a country like the land that gave you birth,
And its sons are just the noblest and most glorious chaps on earth;
If in every girl a Venus your poetic eye discerns,
You are gracefully referred to as the `young Australian Burns'.
But if you should find that bushmen -- spite of all the poets say --
Are just common brother-sinners, and you're quite as good as they --
You're a drunkard, and a liar, and a cynic, and a sneak,
Your grammar's simply awful and your intellect is weak.
poem by Henry Lawson
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The Lily of St Leonards
’TIS sunrise over Watson,
Where I sailed out to sea,
On that wild run to London
That wrecked and ruined me.
The beauty of the morning
On bluff and point and bay,
But the Lily of St Leonards
Was fairer than the day.
O Lily of St Leonards!
And I was mad to roam—
She died with loving words for me
Three days ere I came home.
As fair as lily whiteness,
As pure as lily gold,
And bright with childlike brightness
And wise as worlds of old.
Her heart for all was beating
And all hearts were her own—
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poem by Henry Lawson
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Heed Not!
Heed not the cock-sure tourist,
Seeing with English eyes;
Stroked at the banquet table
Still, with the old stock lies—
Pet of a social circle,
Guest in a garden fair—
Free of the first-class carriage—
He learns no Australia there.
Heed not the Southern humbugs
By the first saloons who come—
From his work in the wide, hot scrub-lands
The Australian goes not home.
Give them the toadies’ knighthood,
Fit for the souls they’ve got;
Fear not to shame Australia
For Australia knows them not.
Heed not the Sydney ‘dailies,’
Naught for the land they do;
Heed not the Melbourne street crowd,
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poem by Henry Lawson
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As it was in the Beginning
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,
When weak women hug their babies, and strong men go out to die.
As ’tis written now, or spoken, so we’ll find it yet in deed—
For their State, or for their Country, for their Honour or their Creed;
For the love of Right, or hatred for the Everlasting Lie,
When the women think of some things, and strong men go out to die.
As it used to be in past times, in the future so it must,
We shall find him stretching forward with his face down in the dust,
All his wounds in front, and hidden—blood to earth, and back to sky,
When pale women pray in private, and strong men go out to die.
Rebels all we are, and brothers—rebels to the laws we make—
Rich or poor, or fat or lean man, fighting for another’s sake;
It is all as God decreed it—we shall find it by-and-bye,
When our girls, disguised in boys’ clothes, go to die where strong men die.
poem by Henry Lawson
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A Derry on a Cove
’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—
‘It’s orfal when the p’leece has got a derry on a chap.
‘I am a honest workin’ cove, as any bloke can see,
‘It’s just because the p’leece has got a derry, sir, on me;
‘Oh, yes, the legal gents can grin, I say it ain’t no joke—
‘It’s cruel when the p’leece has got a derry on a bloke.’
‘Why don’t you go to work?’ he said (he muttered, ‘Why don’t you?’).
‘Yer honer knows as well as me there ain’t no work to do.
‘And when I try to find a job I’m shaddered by a trap—
‘It’s awful when the p’leece has got a derry on a chap.’
I sigh’d and shed a tearlet for that noble nature marred,
But, ah! the Bench was rough on him, and gave him six months’ hard.
He only said, ‘Beyond the grave you’ll cop it hot, by Jove!
‘There ain’t no angel p’leece to get a derry on a cove.’
poem by Henry Lawson
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Waratah and Wattle
Though poor and in trouble I wander alone,
With rebel cockade in my hat,
Though friends may desert me, and kindred disown,
My country will never do that!
You may sing of the Shamrock, the Thistle, the rose,
Or the three in a bunch, if you will;
But I know of a country that gathered all those,
And I love the great land where the Waratah grows.
And the Wattle-bough blooms on the hill.
Australia! Australia! so fair to behold-
While the blue sky is arching above;
The stranger should never have need to be told,
That the Wattle-bloom means that her heart is of gold.
And the Waratah's red with her love.
Australia! Australia! most beautiful name,
Most kindly and bountiful land;
I would die every death that might save her from shame,
If a black cloud should rise on the stand;
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poem by Henry Lawson
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Trouble on the Selection
You lazy boy, you’re here at last,
You must be wooden-legged;
Now, are you sure the gate is fast
And all the sliprails pegged
And all the milkers at the yard,
The calves all in the pen?
We don’t want Poley’s calf to suck
His mother dry again.
And did you mend the broken rail
And make it firm and neat?
I s’pose you want that brindle steer
All night among the wheat.
And if he finds the lucerne patch,
He’ll stuff his belly full;
He’ll eat till he gets ‘blown’ on that
And busts like Ryan’s bull.
Old Spot is lost? You’ll drive me mad,
You will, upon my soul!
She might be in the boggy swamps
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poem by Henry Lawson
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On The Night Train
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?
Have you heard the still voice calling – yet so warm, and yet so cold:
"I'm the Mother-Bush that bore you! Come to me when you are old"?
Did you see the Bush below you sweeping darkly to the Range,
All unchanged and all unchanging, yet so very old and strange!
While you thought in softened anger of the things that did estrange?
(Did you hear the Bush a-calling, when your heart was young and bold:
"I'm the Mother-bush that nursed you; Come to me when you are old"?)
In the cutting or the tunnel, out of sight of stock or shed,
Did you hear the grey Bush calling from the pine-ridge overhead:
"You have seen the seas and cities – all is cold to you, or dead –
All seems done and all seems told, but the grey-light turns to gold!
I'm the Mother-Bush that loves you – come to me now you are old"?
poem by Henry Lawson
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Knockin' Around
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—
‘Boys will be boys, and he’s gone with the rest!’
Grief without tears and grief without sound;
‘Somewhere up-country he’s knocking around.’
Knocking around with a vagabond crew,
Does for himself what a mother would do;
Maybe in trouble and maybe hard-up,
Maybe in want of a bite or a sup;
Dead of the fever, or lost in the drought,
Lonely old mother! he’s knocking about.
Wiry old man at the tail of the plough,
‘Heard of Jack lately? and where is he now?’
Pauses a moment his forehead to wipe,
Drops the rope reins while he feels for his pipe,
Scratches his grey head in sorrow or doubt:
‘Somewheers or others he’s knocking about.’
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poem by Henry Lawson
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Lay Your Ears Back and Fight
WHEN you drink of what the poets rave about as “sorrer’s cup”,
And yer mouth, in spite of laughin’, gits a curve the wrong way up,
Do not whine for help or pity; never cringe at fortunes frown—
Lay yer list’ners back and fight until you fight yer sorrers down!
Though the world on empty pockets is at times a little harsh
And the weights of care are clinging to the ends of your mustarsh,
Never let yer grief boil over; it is nothing to the town—
Lay yer list‘ners back and battle till you fight yer sorres down!
When the law of gravitation lays a hand upon yer heart,
An’ the “slings an’ arrers” fetch yer and you feel ’em pretty smart,
When you cannot find a billet, and you haven’t half-a-crown—
Lay yer list’ners hack and fight until you fight yer sorrers down!
When the gilt upon the future wears in places very thin,
Look as if there’s nothink crooked, try an’ summon up a grin;
There’s a mask that you must always wear the other way about—
Lay yer list’ners back and battle till you knock yer sorrers out.
poem by Henry Lawson
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