Jack Cornstalk as a Poet

“Not from the seas does he draw inspiration,
Not from the rivers that croon on their bars;
But a wide, a world-old desolation –
On a dead land alone with the stars.

The long hot day gone over,
And starlight come again;
And I, weary rover,
Lie camped on One Tree Plain.

My saddle for a pillow,
I lie beneath the tree,
That softens to a willow,
In the moonlight over me.

I dream that I remember
A dim and distant day,
Beyond yon misty timber,
In the Home-world far away.

poem by Henry Lawson
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I'll tell you what you Wanderers

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-
It's hard to travel steerage when your tastes are more refined-
To reach a place when times are bad, and to be standing there,
No money in your pocket nor a decent rag to wear.
But be forced from that fond clasp, from that last clinging kiss-
By poverty! There is on earth no harder thing than this.

poem by Henry Lawson
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The Rose

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

And none to tell us, and none to teach
By the western hedge or the shelving beach,
But all of us know what everyone knows,
We love the Rose. Oh! we love the Rose.

We love the rose when our day is dead,
And they lay their roses upon our bed;
Too late! Too late! in our last repose!
But we love the Rose. Ah! we love the Rose.

poem by Henry Lawson
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The Country Girl

The Country Girl reflects at last –
And well in her young days –
For she is learning very fast,
The worth of City ways.
The emptiness of Tailors men
The women’s paltry strife
The Sham of ‘Smart Society’
Compared with Country Life.

The novelty wore off at length,
And flattered at the Ball,
She things of one who has the strength
And brains above them all.
She things of men who Live and Work
For sweetheart and for wife.
And though it be as far as Bourke’
Are true to Country Life

poem by Henry Lawson
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That Pretty Girl in the Army

“Now I often sit at Watty’s, when the night is very near
With a head that’s full of jingles – and the fumes of bottled beer;
For I always have a fancy that, if I am over there
When the Army prays for Watty, I’m included in the prayer.

“It would take a lot of praying, lots of thumping on the drum,
To prepare our sinful, straying, erring souls for Kingdom Come,
But I love my fellow-sinners! And I hope upon the whole,
That the Army gets a hearing when it prays for Watty’s soul.

poem by Henry Lawson
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Rain in the Mountains

The Valley's full of misty cloud,
Its tinted beauty drowning,
The Eucalypti roar aloud,
The mountain fronts are frowning.
The mist is hanging like a pall
From many granite ledges,
And many a little waterfall
Starts o’er the valley’s edges.

The sky is of a leaden grey,
Save where the north is surly,
The driven daylight speeds away,
And night comes o’er us early.

But, love, the rain will pass full soon,
Far sooner than my sorrow,
And in a golden afternoon
The sun may set to-morrow.

poem by Henry Lawson
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Poverty

I hate this grinding poverty—
To toil, and pinch, and borrow,
And be for ever haunted by
The spectre of to-morrow.
It breaks the strong heart of a man,
It crushes out his spirit—
Do what he will, do what he can,
However high his merit!

I hate the praise that Want has got
From preacher and from poet,
The cant of those who know it not
To blind the men who know it.
The greatest curse since man had birth,
An everlasting terror:
The cause of half the crime on earth,
The cause of half the error.

poem by Henry Lawson
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The Wattle

I saw it in the days gone by,
When the dead girl lay at rest,
And the wattle and the native rose
We placed upon her breast.

I saw it in the long ago
(And I've seen strong men die),
And who, to wear the wattle,
Hath better right than I?

I've fought it through the world since then,
And seen the best and worst,
But always in the lands of men
I held Australia first.

I wrote for her, I fought for her,
And when at last I lie,
Then who, to wear the wattle, has
A better right than I?

poem by Henry Lawson
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Harry Stephens

So the world of odds and evens ceased to trouble Harry Stephens,
and the niggard road no longer echoes to his lonely tread.
For another bushman found him with his ‘bluey’ wrapped around him, sleeping like a bushman, only sleeping with the mighty dead.
And the shadows were upon him, and they found a ticket on him – just a relic of a battle that was lately lost and won.
And it told the stray Camboonian he’d been loyal to his union (right or wrong) – he had been loyal to the strike of ‘91’.

poem by Henry Lawson
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Untitled

When his heart is growing bitter and his hair is growing grey,
And he hears the debt-collector knocking several times a day,
And the shrill voice of the Missus, blame, reiterate, accuse—
Then the poet who was famous feels inclined to damn the muse— .....

When he hears a sudden rapping—rapping at his chamber door,
Then he knows it's no good trying to write poems any more,
Then he bursts from out his chamber and he grabs his battered hat,
And he cadges Two Bob somewhere and gets beered up on his pat.

poem by Henry Lawson
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