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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=408797" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The City Bushman</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">It was pleasant up the country, City Bushman, where you went, <br>For you sought the greener patches and you travelled like a gent; <br>And you curse the trams and buses and the turmoil and the push, <br>Though you know the squalid city needn't keep you from the bush; <br>But we lately heard you singing of the `plains where shade is not', <br>And you mentioned it was dusty -- `all was dry and all was hot'. <br> <br>True, the bush `hath moods and changes' -- and the bushman hath 'em, too, <br>For he's not a poet's dummy -- he's a man, the same as you; <br>But his back is growing rounder -- slaving for the absentee -- <br>And his toiling wife is thinner than a country wife should be. <br>For we noticed that the faces of the folks we chanced to meet <br>Should have made a greater contrast to the faces in the street; <br>And, in short, we think the bushman's being driven to the wall, <br>And it's doubtful if his spirit will be `loyal thro' it all'. <br> <br>Though the bush has been romantic and it's nice to sing about, <br>There's a lot of patriotism that the land could do without -- <br>Sort of BRITISH WORKMAN nonsense that shall perish in the scorn <br>Of the drover who is driven and the shearer who is shorn, <br>Of the struggling western farmers who have little time for rest, <br>And are ruined on selections in the sheep-infested West; <br>Droving songs are very pretty, but they merit little thanks <br>From the people of a country in possession of the Banks. <br> <br>And the `rise and fall of seasons' suits the rise and fall of rhyme, <br>But we know that western seasons do not run on schedule time; <br>For the drought will go on drying while there's anything to dry, <br>Then it rains until you'd fancy it would bleach the sunny sky -- <br>Then it pelters out of reason, for the downpour day and night <br>Nearly sweeps the population to the Great Australian Bight. <br>It is up in Northern Queensland that the seasons do their best, <br>But it's doubtful if you ever saw a season in the West; <br>There are years without an autumn or a winter or a spring, <br>There are broiling Junes, and summers when it rains like anything. <br> <br>In the bush my ears were opened to the singing of the bird, <br>But the `carol of the magpie' was a thing I never heard. <br>Once the beggar roused my slumbers in a shanty, it is true, <br>But I only heard him asking, `Who the blanky blank are you?' <br>And the bell-bird in the ranges -- but his `silver chime' is harsh <br>When it's heard beside the solo of the curlew in the marsh. <br> <br>Yes, I heard the shearers singing `William Riley', out of tune, <br>Saw 'em fighting round a shanty on a Sunday afternoon, <br>But the bushman isn't always `trapping brumbies in the night', <br>Nor is he for ever riding when `the morn is fresh and bright', <br>And he isn't always singing in the humpies on the run -- <br>And the camp-fire's `cheery blazes' are a trifle overdone; <br>We have grumbled with the bushmen round the fire on rainy days, <br>When the smoke would blind a bullock and there wasn't any blaze, <br>Save the blazes of our language, for we cursed the fire in turn <br>Till the atmosphere was heated and the wood began to burn. <br>Then we had to wring our blueys which were rotting in the swags, <br>And we saw the sugar leaking through the bottoms of the bags, <br>And we couldn't raise a chorus, for the toothache and the cramp, <br>While we spent the hours of darkness draining puddles round the camp. <br> <br>Would you like to change with Clancy -- go a-droving? tell us true, <br>For we rather think that Clancy would be glad to change with you, <br>And be something in the city; but 'twould give your muse a shock <br>To be losing time and money through the foot-rot in the flock, <br>And you wouldn't mind the beauties underneath the starry dome <br>If you had a wife and children and a lot of bills at home. <br> <br>Did you ever guard the cattle when the night was inky-black, <br>And it rained, and icy water trickled gently down your back <br>Till your saddle-weary backbone fell a-aching to the roots <br>And you almost felt the croaking of the bull-frog in your boots -- <br>Sit and shiver in the saddle, curse the restless stock and cough <br>Till a squatter's irate dummy cantered up to warn you off? <br>Did you fight the drought and pleuro when the `seasons' were asleep, <br>Felling sheoaks all the morning for a flock of starving sheep, <br>Drinking mud instead of water -- climbing trees and lopping boughs <br>For the broken-hearted bullocks and the dry and dusty cows? <br> <br>Do you think the bush was better in the `good old droving days', <br>When the squatter ruled supremely as the king of western ways, <br>When you got a slip of paper for the little you could earn, <br>But were forced to take provisions from the station in return -- <br>When you couldn't keep a chicken at your humpy on the run, <br>For the squatter wouldn't let you -- and your work was never done; <br>When you had to leave the missus in a lonely hut forlorn <br>While you `rose up Willy Riley' -- in the days ere you were born? <br> <br>Ah! we read about the drovers and the shearers and the like <br>Till we wonder why such happy and romantic fellows strike. <br>Don't you fancy that the poets ought to give the bush a rest <br>Ere they raise a just rebellion in the over-written West? <br>Where the simple-minded bushman gets a meal and bed and rum <br>Just by riding round reporting phantom flocks that never come; <br>Where the scalper -- never troubled by the `war-whoop of the push' -- <br>Has a quiet little billet -- breeding rabbits in the bush; <br>Where the idle shanty-keeper never fails to make a draw, <br>And the dummy gets his tucker through provisions in the law; <br>Where the labour-agitator -- when the shearers rise in might -- <br>Makes his money sacrificing all his substance for The Right; <br>Where the squatter makes his fortune, and `the seasons rise and fall', <br>And the poor and honest bushman has to suffer for it all; <br>Where the drovers and the shearers and the bushmen and the rest <br>Never reach the Eldorado of the poets of the West. <br> <br>And you think the bush is purer and that life is better there, <br>But it doesn't seem to pay you like the `squalid street and square'. <br>Pray inform us, City Bushman, where you read, in prose or verse, <br>Of the awful `city urchin who would greet you with a curse'. <br>There are golden hearts in gutters, though their owners lack the fat, <br>And we'll back a teamster's offspring to outswear a city brat. <br>Do you think we're never jolly where the trams and buses rage? <br>Did you hear the gods in chorus when `Ri-tooral' held the stage? <br>Did you catch a ring of sorrow in the city urchin's voice <br>When he yelled for Billy Elton, when he thumped the floor for Royce? <br>Do the bushmen, down on pleasure, miss the everlasting stars <br>When they drink and flirt and so on in the glow of private bars? <br> <br>You've a down on `trams and buses', or the `roar' of 'em, you said, <br>And the `filthy, dirty attic', where you never toiled for bread. <br>(And about that self-same attic -- Lord! wherever have you been? <br>For the struggling needlewoman mostly keeps her attic clean.) <br>But you'll find it very jolly with the cuff-and-collar push, <br>And the city seems to suit you, while you rave about the bush. <br> <br> . . . . . <br> <br>You'll admit that Up-the Country, more especially in drought, <br>Isn't quite the Eldorado that the poets rave about, <br>Yet at times we long to gallop where the reckless bushman rides <br>In the wake of startled brumbies that are flying for their hides; <br>Long to feel the saddle tremble once again between our knees <br>And to hear the stockwhips rattle just like rifles in the trees! <br>Long to feel the bridle-leather tugging strongly in the hand <br>And to feel once more a little like a native of the land. <br>And the ring of bitter feeling in the jingling of our rhymes <br>Isn't suited to the country nor the spirit of the times. <br>Let us go together droving, and returning, if we live, <br>Try to understand each other while we reckon up the div.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Henry+Lawson">Henry Lawson</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=408797" data-title="The City Bushman de Henry Lawson" data-description="It was pleasant up the country, City Bushman, 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, 
Though you know the squalid city needn't keep you fr..."></div>
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