En.Citatepedia^®.ro

A Voice from the City

On western plain and eastern hill
Where once my fancy ranged,
The station hands are riding still
And they are little changed.
But I have lost in London gloom
The glory of the day,
The grand perfume of wattle bloom
Is faint and far away.
Brown faces under broad-brimmed hats
The grip of wiry hands,
The gallops on the frosty flats,
Seem dreams of other lands;
The camp fire and the stars that blaze
Above the mystic plain
Are but the thoughts of vanished days
That never come again.

The evening star I seldom view—
That led me on to roam—
I never see the morning star
That used to draw me home.
But I have often longed for day
To hide the few I see,
Because they only point and say
Most bitter things to me.

I wear my life on pavement stones
That drag me ever down,
A paltry slave to little things,
By custom chained to town.
I’ve lost the strength to strike alone,
The heart to do and dare—
I mind the day I’d roll my swag
And tramp to—God-knows-where.

When I should wait I wander out,
When I should go I bide—
I scarcely dare to think about
The days when I could ride.
I would not mount before his eyes,
‘Straight’ Bushman tall and tan—
I mind the day when I stood up
And fought him like a man.

I mind the time when I was shy
To meet the brown Bush girls—
I’ve lunched with lords since then and I
Have been at home with earls:
I learned to smile and learned to bow
And lie to ladies gay—
But to a gaunt Bushwoman now
I’d not know what to say.

And if I sought her hard bare home
From scenes of show and sham,
I’d sit all ill at ease and fell
The poor weak thing I am.
I could not meet her hopeless eyes
That look one through and through,
The haggard woman of the past
Who once thought I was true.

But nought on earth can last for aye,
And wild with care and pain,
Some day by chance I’ll break away
And seek the Bush again.
And find awhile from bitter years
The rest the Bush can bring,
And hear, perhaps, with truer ears
The songs it has to sing.

poem by Henry Lawson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Bard of Furthest Out

He longed to be a Back-Blocks Bard,
And fame he wished to win—
He wrote at night and studied hard
(He read The Bulletin);
He sent in “stuff” unceasingly,
But couldn’t get it through;
And so, at last, he came to me
To see what I could do.

The poet’s light was in his eye,
He aimed to be a man;
He bought a bluey and a fly,
A brand new billy-can.
I showed him how to roll his swag
And “sling it” with the best;
I gave him my old water-bag,
And pointed to the west.

“Now you can take the train as far
As Blazes if you like—
The wealthy go by motor-car
(Some travellers go by bike);
They race it through without a rest,
And find it very tame—
But if you tramp it to the west
You’ll get there just the same.

“(No matter if the hour is late,
The morning goes Out-Back),
You do not need a dog nor mate,
You’ll find them on the track.
You must avoid such deadly rhymes
As ‘self’ and ‘elf’ and ‘shelf’.
But were it as in other times,
I’d go with you myself.

“Those days are done for me, but ah!
On hills where you shall be,
The wattle and the waratah
Are good to smell and see.
But there’s a scent, my heart believes,
That ‘travellers’ set higher
Than wattle—’tis the dried gum leaves
That light the evening fire.

“The evening fire and morning fire
Are one fire in the Bush.
(You’ll find the points that you require
As towards the west you push.)
And as you pass by ancient ways,
Old camps, and mountain springs,
The spirits of the Roaring Days
Will whisper many things.

“The lonely ridge-and-gully belt—
The spirit of the whole
It must be seen; it must be felt—
Must sink into your soul!
The summer silence-creek-oaks’ sigh—
The windy, rainy “woosh”—
’Tis known to other men, and I—
The Spirit of the Bush!

“So on, and on, through dust and heat,
When past the spurs you be—
And you shall meet whom you shall meet,
And see what you shall see,
You need not claim the stranger’s due,
They yield it everywhere,
And mateship is a thing that you
Must take for granted there.

“And in the land of Lord-knows-where—
Right up and furthest out—
You find a new Australia there
That we know nought about.
Live as they live, fight as they fight,
Succeed as they succeed,
And then come back again and write
For all the world to read.”

I’ve got a note from Hungerford,
’Tis written frank and fair;
The bushman’s grim philosophy—
The bushman’s grin are there.
And tramping on through rain and drought—
Unlooked for and unmissed—
I may have sent to furthest out
The Great Bush Novelist.

poem by Henry Lawson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The House of Christmas

There fared a mother driven forth
Out of an inn to roam;
In the place where she was homeless
All men are at home.
The crazy stable close at hand,
With shaking timber and shifting sand,
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand
Than the square stones of Rome.

For men are homesick in their homes,
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay on their heads in a foreign land
Whenever the day is done.
Here we have battle and blazing eyes,
And chance and honour and high surprise,
But our homes are under miraculous skies
Where the yule tale was begun.

A Child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home;
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost - how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky's dome.

This world is wild as an old wives' tale,
And strange the plain things are,
The earth is enough and the air is enough
For our wonder and our war;
But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings
Round an incredible star.

To an open house in the evening
Home shall men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.

poem by G.K. Chesterton
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The House of Christmas

There fared a mother driven forth
Out of an inn to roam;
In the place where she was homeless
All men are at home.
The crazy stable close at hand,
With shaking timber and shifting sand,
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand
Than the square stones of Rome.

For men are homesick in their homes,
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay on their heads in a foreign land
Whenever the day is done.
Here we have battle and blazing eyes,
And chance and honour and high surprise,
But our homes are under miraculous skies
Where the yule tale was begun.

A Child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home;
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost - how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky's dome.

This world is wild as an old wives' tale,
And strange the plain things are,
The earth is enough and the air is enough
For our wonder and our war;
But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings
Round an incredible star.

To an open house in the evening
Home shall men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.

poem by Gilbert Keith Chesterton
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The Way Of The Bush

A night of storm and wind and rain,
Tall trees bowing beneath the blast
That shakes and rattles the window-pane,
And a thunderous roar as the creek goes past.

Inside there a pictures and flowers and books,
And a slim girl-wife with shingled hair;
The lamplight glimmers on cosy nooks,
And Desmond Keene in his easy chair

Thanks God for home and the days toil o’er;
When on the verandah a tramp of feet,
A frenzied knock on the kitchen door
Wondering he goes a neighbour to greet.

“The missus is dyin’ ” poor Simpson says,
‘Down in the ‘orspital-sent for me,
I gathered the kids, and brought ‘’em ‘ere,
I thought your missus might mind ‘em – see!”

“Mind them, of course, and I’ll go with you,
You’ll need a mate on a night like this.”
And soon the neighbours are ‘battling through’
Young Desmond cheered by his wife’s last kiss.

For this is the way of the bush my friends
Neighbourly service prompt at need
Freely given and freely sought,
For the bush recks nothing of caste or creed.

And the young wife’s hands are steady and firm
Though here soft lips tremble in voiceless prayer
As she smooths the wet and tangled curls
Of the young ones left in her gentle care.

There’s a solemn hush in the hospital ward
Where a grey-haired bushman bends in woe
Over the toil-worn face of one
Who has come to the journey we all must go.

But ‘Mother’ still has a smile for him,
And the kind grey eyes show a soul at rest,
While the poor thin hands that have toiled so long
Lie idly now on her quiet breast.

For this is the way of the bush my friends,
To struggle and strive year out year in,
And often to die and leave it all
When the lean years end and the good begin.

They brought her back to the home she loved,
And the neighbours came for miles around,
There were cars and buggies and horses ranged
Round the rough rail fence of the burying ground.

They smothered the children with gifts and tears
In the way of the bush that is dear to God,
And their homely kindness was pure and sweet
As the flowers they placed on the new-turned sod.

Courage and patience and sturdy toil
And kindness unstinted in others’ needs—
How the God that made them must love them all!
For the ‘way of the bush’ is His way indeed.

poem by Alice Guerin Crist
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The Last Review

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—
And I’m weary, very weary, of the
Faces in the Street
.

In the dens of Grind and Heartbreak, in the streets of Never-Rest,
I have lost the scent and colour and the music of the West:
And I would recall old faces with the memories they bring—
Where are Bill and Jim and Mary and the
Songs They used to Sing
?

They are coming! They are coming! they are passing through the room
With the smell of gum leaves burning, and the scent of
Wattle bloom!

And behind them in the timber, after dust and heat and toil,
Others sit beside the camp fire yarning while the billies boil.

In the Gap above the ridges there’s a flash and there’s a glow—
Swiftly down the scrub-clad siding come the
Lights of Cobb and Co
.:
Red face from the box-seat beaming—Oh, how plain those faces come!
From his ‘Golden-Hole’ ’tis Peter M’Intosh who’s going home.

Dusty patch in desolation, bare slab walls and earthen floor,
And a blinding drought is blazing from horizons to the door:
Milkless tea and ration sugar, damper junk and pumpkin mash—
And a
Day on our Selection
passes by me in a flash.

Rush of big wild-eyed store bullocks while the sheep crawl hopelessly,
And the loaded wool teams rolling, lurching on like ships at sea:
With his whip across his shoulder (and the wind just now abeam),
There goes
Jimmy Nowlett
ploughing through the dust beside his team!

Sunrise on the diggings! (Oh! what life and hearts and hopes are here)
From a hundred pointing forges comes a tinkle, tinkle clear—
Strings of drays with wash to puddle, clack of countless windlass boles,
Here and there
the red flag flying
, flying over golden holes.

Picturesque, unreal, romantic, chivalrous, and brave and free;
Clean in living, true in mateship—reckless generosity.
Mates are buried here as comrades who on fields of battle fall—
And—the dreams, the aching, hoping lover hearts beneath it all!

Rough-built theatres and stages where the world’s best actors trod—
Singers bringing reckless rovers nearer boyhood, home and God;
Paid in laughter, tears and nuggets in the play that fortune plays—
’Tis the palmy days of Gulgong—Gulgong in
the Roaring Days.

Pass the same old scenes before me—and again my heart can ache—
There the
Drover’s Wife
sits watching (not as Eve did) for a snake.
And I see the drear deserted goldfields when the night is late,
And the stony face of Mason watching by his
Father’s Mate.

And I see my
Haggard Women
plainly as they were in life,
’Tis the form of Mrs. Spicer and her friend,
Joe Wilson’s wife,

Sitting hand in hand
‘Past Carin
’,’ not a sigh and not a moan,
Staring steadily before her and the tears just trickle down.

It was
No Place for a Woman
—where the women worked like men—
From the Bush and Jones’ Alley come their haunting forms again.
And, let this thing be remembered when I’ve answered to the roll,
That I pitied haggard women—wrote for them with all my soul.

Narrow bed-room in the City in the hard days that are dead—
An alarm clock on the table, and a pale boy on the bed:
Arvie Aspinalls Alarm Clock with its harsh and startling call
Never more shall break his slumbers—I was Arvie Aspinall.

Maoriland
and
Steelman
, cynic, spieler, stiff-lipped, battler-through
(Kept a wife and child in comfort, but of course they never knew—
Thought he was an honest bagman)—Well, old man, you needn’t hug—
Sentimental; you of all men!—Steelman, Oh! I was a mug!

Ghostly lines of scrub at daybreak—dusty daybreak in the drought—
And a lonely swagman tramping on the track to
Further Out
:
Like a shade the form of Mitchell, nose-bag full and bluey up
And between the swag and shoulders lolls his foolish cattle-pup.

Kindly cynic, sad comedian! Mitchell! when you’ve left the Track,
And have shed your load of sorrow as we slipped our swags out back,
We shall have a yarn together in the land of
Rest Awhile
—
And across his ragged shoulder Mitchell smiles his quiet smile.

Shearing sheds and tracks and shanties—girls that wait at homestead gates—
Camps and stern-eyed Union leaders, and
Joe Wilson and his Mates

True and straight, and to my fancy, each one as he passes through
Deftly down upon the table slips a dusty ‘note’ or two.

So at last the end has found me—(end of all the human push)
And again in silence round me come my
Children of the Bush
!—
Listen, who are young, and let them—if I in late and bitter days
Wrote some reckless lines—forget them—there is little there to praise.

I was human, very human, and if in the days misspent
I have injured man or woman, it was done without intent.
If at times I blundered blindly—bitter heart and aching brow—
If I wrote a line unkindly—I am sorry for it now.

Days in London
like a nightmare—dreams of foreign lands and sea—
And
Australia
is the only land that seemeth real to me.
Tell the Bushmen to Australia and each other to be true—
‘Tell the boys to stick together!’ I have held my
Last Review.

poem by Henry Lawson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Bush Hay

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
And the bitter hard youth he had;
He thinks of a nearer and dearer past
In the bright land far away,
When the teams went up and the teams came down,
In the days when they made bush hay.

The fare was rough and the bush was grim
In the “years of his pilgrimage”,
But he gained the strength that is still with him
In his hale, late middle age.
He thinks of the girl at the halfway inn
They use as a barn to-day—
Oh, she was a dumpling and he was thin
In the days when they made bush hay.

The ration teams to the Bathurst Plains
Were often a fortnight full.
And they branched all ways in the early days
And back to the port with wool.
They watched for the lights of old Cobb & Co.
That flashed to the West away,
When drivers drove six on a twelve-mile stage
In the days when they made bush hay.

He has made enough, and he’s sold his claim,
And he goes by the morning train,
From the gold-field town in the sultry West
To his home by the sea again,
Where a bustling old body’s expecting him
Whose hair is scarcely grey,
And she was the girl of the halfway house
In the days when they made bush hay.

poem by Henry Lawson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Break o’ Day

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
When I know very well that I won’t?
I have journeyed long and my goal is far,
I love, but I cannot bide,
For as sure as rises the morning star,
With the break of day I’ll ride.
I was doomed to ruin or doomed to mar
The home wherever I stay,
But I’ll think of you as the morning star
And they call me Break o’ Day.

They well might have named me the Fall o’ Night,
For drear is the track I mark,
But I love fair girls and I love the light,
For I and my tribe were dark.
You may love me dear, for a day and night,
You may cast your life aside;
But as sure as the morning star shines bright
With the break of day I’ll ride.

There was never a lover so proud and kind,
There was never a friend so true;
But the song of my life I have left behind
In the heart of a girl like you.
There was never so deep or cruel a wrong
In the land that is far away,
There was never so bitter a broken heart
That rode at the break of day.

God bless you, dear, with your red-gold hair
And your pitying eyes of grey—
Oh! my heart forbids that a star so fair
Should be marred by the Break o’ Day.
Live on, my girl, as the girl you are,
Be a good and a true man’s bride,
For as sure as beckons the evening star
With the fall o’ night I’ll ride.

I was born to ruin or born to mar
The home wherever I light.
Oh! I wish that you were the Evening Star
And that I were the Fall o’ Night.

poem by Henry Lawson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Ballad of the Rousabout

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,
I rub the darkness from my eyes, roll up my swag, and go.
Some take the track for bitter pride, some for no pride at all—
(But—to us all the world is wide when driven to the wall)
Some take the track for gain in life, some take the track for loss—
And some of us take up the swag as Christ took up the Cross.

Some take the track for faith in men—some take the track for doubt—
Some flee a squalid home to work their own salvation out.
Some dared not see a mother’s tears nor meet a father’s face—
Born of good Christian families some leap, head-long, from Grace.

Oh we are men who fought and rose, or fell from many grades;
Some born to lie, and some to pray, we’re men of many trades;
We’re men whose fathers were and are of high and low degree—
The sea was open to us and we sailed across the sea.

And—were our quarrels wrong or just?—has no place in my song—
We seared our souls in puzzling as to what was right or wrong;
We judge not and we are not judged—’tis our philosophy—
There’s something wrong with every ship that sails upon the sea.

From shearing shed to shearing shed we tramp to make a cheque—
Jack Cornstalk and the ne’er-do-weel—the tar-boy and the wreck.
We learn the worth of man to man—and this we learn too well—
The shanty and the shearing shed are warmer spots in hell!

I’ve humped my swag to Bawley Plain, and further out and on;
I’ve boiled my billy by the Gulf, and boiled it by the Swan—
I’ve thirsted in dry lignum swamps, and thirsted on the sand,
And eked the fire with camel dung in Never-Never Land.

I know the track from Spencer’s Gulf and north of Cooper’s Creek—
Where falls the half-caste to the strong, ‘black velvet’ to the weak—
(From gold-top Flossie in the Strand to half-caste and the gin—
If they had brains, poor animals! we’d teach them how to sin.)

I’ve tramped, and camped, and ‘shore’ and drunk with many mates Out Back—
And every one to me is Jack because the first was Jack—
A ‘lifer’ sneaked from jail at home—the ‘straightest’ mate I met—
A ‘ratty’ Russian Nihilist—a British Baronet!

I know the tucker tracks that feed—or leave one in the lurch—
The ‘Burgoo’ (Presbyterian) track—the ‘Murphy’ (Roman Church)—
But more the man, and not the track, so much as it appears,
For ‘battling’ is a trade to learn, and I’ve served seven years.

We’re haunted by the past at times—and this is very bad,
And so we drink till horrors come, lest, sober, we go mad—
So much is lost Out Back, so much of hell is realised—
A man might skin himself alive and no one be surprised.

A rouseabout of rouseabouts, above—beneath regard,
I know how soft is this old world, and I have learnt, how hard—
A rouseabout of rouseabouts—I know what men can feel,
I’ve seen the tears from hard eyes slip as drops from polished steel.

I learned what college had to teach, and in the school of men
By camp-fires I have learned, or, say, unlearned it all again;
But this I’ve learned, that truth is strong, and if a man go straight
He’ll live to see his enemy struck down by time and fate!

We hold him true who’s true to one however false he be
(There’s something wrong with every ship that lies beside the quay);
We lend and borrow, laugh and joke, and when the past is drowned,
We sit upon our swags and smoke and watch the world go round.

poem by Henry Lawson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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I Dreamt A Dream

I dreamt a dream
But now I lay awake
Sleep far gone
But the dream goes on
Sweeter than sleep
More tender
Than a poem
Through eternity
Like an epic poem
Our love
Our home
All boundaries gone
Together
A second
A breath
A whisper
A chance
A moment
A blessing
A kiss
A prayer answered
Never spoken
Somehow from my heart
It strayed
Precious spirit
Teaching
Listening
Answering
C aring
The Spirit Moves between
Earth and Heavenly realms
Communicating with
You and me
The perfect seed
Faith
Hope
Charity
Virtue
Grace
And Love
Heaven on earth
Heaven above
Finding
Striving
Improving
Movi ng
Upon wings of a dove
From star to star
From light to light
Songs of worship
Songs of praise
Fill our nights
Fill our days
With dreams for you
With dreams for me
With dreams for us
With dreams of life
From a whisper
From a star
From a book
Never opened
From a book
Never Read
Words streaming now
Between heaven and earth
Between now and eternity
To your ears
To touch a place
Never touched
To bring you home to me
To break this grip
That locks your spirit
The dream is awake
For us to live
You have waited
And stayed awake
Share the hope
Share the dream
Stay free
Stay open
Dare to give
Dare to care
Dare to move
Dare to roam
Dare to live
Dare to dare
Life is where
Ever I go
I open doors
I overflow
With heavenly sweetness
With a heavenly glow

poem by Brian Kilpatrick
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Millworker

(james taylor)
Now my grandfather was a sailor,
He blew in off the water
My father was a farmer
I, his only daughter,
Took up with a no-good millworking man from massachusetts
Who dies from too much whiskey
And leaves me these three faces to feed
Millwork aint easy; mill-work aint hard
Millwork, it aint nothing but an awful boring job
Im waiting for a day dream
To take me through the morning
And put me in my coffee break
Where I can have a sandwich and remember
Then its me and my machine
For the rest of the morning
For the rest of the afternoon
And the rest of my life
Now my mind begins to wander
To the days back on the farm
I can see my father smiling at me,
Swingin on his arm
I can hear my grand-dads stories
Of the storms out on lake erie
Where vessels and cargos and fortunes
And sailors lives were lost
Yes, but its my life has been wasted,
And I have been the fool
To let this manufacture use my body for a tool.
I can ride home in the evening,
Staring at my hands
Swearing by my sorrow that a young girl
Ought to stand a better chance
So may I work the mills
Just as long as I am able
And never meet the man whose
Name is on the label
It be me and my machine
For the rest of the morning
For the rest of the afternoon
And the rest of my life

song performed by by Emmylou Harris
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Soldier Birds

I mind the river from Mount Frome
To Ballanshantie’s Bridge,
The Mudgee Hills, and Buckaroo,
Lowe’s Peak, and Granite Ridge.
The “tailers” in the creek beneath,
The rugged she-oak boles,
The river cod where shallows linked,
The willowed water-holes.
I mind the blacksoil river flats,
The red soil levels, too,
The sidings where below the scrub
The golden wattles grew;
The track that ran by Tierney’s Gap,
The dusk and ghost alarms,
The glorious morning on the hills,
And all the German farms.

I mind the blue-grey gully bush,
The slab-and-shingle school,
The “soldier birds” that picked the crumbs
Beneath the infants’ stool.
(Ah! did those little soldier birds,
That whispered, ever know
That one of us should rise so high
And sadly sink so low?)

I mind the lessons that we droned
In books from Irish schools,
The canings and the keepings-in
For breaking bounds and rules.
Ah! little did the teacher dream
That one of us, perchance,
Might write in London to be read
In Germany and France.

I mind the days we played at camp
With billy-can and swag,
I mind the notes sent home by girls
When someone “played the wag.”
Ah! little did the master think
(Who’d lost the roving star)
What truants in their after years
Would play the wag so far.

I mind when first he gave to me
A pen and ink to write,
And, last, the “Fourth Class Forms” he made
I shared with Lucy White.
The other boys were other boys,
With cricket ball and bat,
They had a fine contempt for girls,
But they got over that.

The “rounders” where the girls came in—
The Tomboy and the rest—
The earnest game of Pris’ners’ Base—
The game that I liked best.
The kangarooing on the ridge,
And in the brown moonlight,
The “possuming” across the flats,
With dogs and gun at night.

The “specking” in old diggers’ heaps
For “colours” after rain,
The horse-shoes saved against the time
The circus came again,
And sold to Jimmy Siver-right—
The blacksmith on the flat;
The five-corners, the swimming hole—
Oh! I remember that!

I mind the holland “dinner bags”—
A book bag of green baize—
The bread and dripping, bread and meat,
And bread and treacle days.
The bread and butter swopped for meat,
The crumb we swopped for crust—
We’ve married—and divorced—since then,
And most old homes are dust.

It was the time, it was the place—
Australia’s hardest page—
When boys were cast for farming work
At fourteen years of age.
It was the time, it was the place,
The latter “Early Day,”
When boys ride home from old bark schools
And to the world away.

I’ve drifted through Port Said since then,
Naples and Leicester Square,
And Collins and Macquarie Streets—
I know the secrets there.
Ah me! The country boy and girl,
The country lass and lad,
As innocent as soldier birds,
Though we thought we were bad!

But, spite of all their daring truth,
And some work that shall last,
The bitter years of my brave youth
Are better in the past.
This does not call for bitterness,
Nor does it call for tears,
The purest little thing perhaps
I’ve printed here for years.

The railway runs by Mudgee Hills,
Old farms are lost or lone,
And children’s children sadly go
To schools of brick and stone.
Yet are the same. The Mudgee Hills
And Mudgee skies as fair—
And the little grey-clad soldier birds
Are just as busy there.

poem by Henry Lawson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Millworker

Now my grandfather was a sailor
He blew in off the water
My father was a farmer
And i, his only daughter
Took up with a no good millworking man
From massachusetts
Who dies from too much whiskey
And leaves me these three faces to feed
Millwork aint easy
Millwork aint hard
Millwork it aint nothing
But an awful boring job
Im waiting for a daydream
To take me through the morning
And put me in my coffee break
Where I can have a sandwich
And remember
Then its me and my machine
For the rest of the morning
For the rest of the afternoon
And the rest of my life
Now my mind begins to wander
To the days back on the farm
I can see my father smiling at me
Swinging on his arm
I can hear my granddads stories
Of the storms out on lake eerie
Where vessels and cargos and fortunes
And sailors lives were lost
Yes, but its my life has been wasted
And I have been the fool
To let this manufacturer
Use my body for a tool
I can ride home in the evening
Staring at my hands
Swearing by my sorrow that a young girl
Ought to stand a better chance
So may I work the mills just as long as I am able
And never meet the man whose name is on the label
It be me and my machine
For the rest of the morning
And the rest of the afternoon
Gone for the rest of my life

song performed by by James Taylor
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Passing of Scotty

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,
For we’re tired—too tired to rest.
Darker and denser the shadows fall
That are cramping each aching brow—
Scotty the Wrinkler! you’ve solved it all,
Give us a wrinkle now.

But no one lieth so still in death
As the rover who never could rest;
And he’s free of thought as he’s free of breath—
And his hands are crossed on his breast.
You have earned your rest—you brave old tramp—
As I hope in the end we will.
Ah me! ’Twas a long, long way to camp
Since the days when they called you “Phil’.

What have they done with your quaint old soul
Now they have passed you through?
But we can’t but think, as our swags we roll,
That it’s right, old man, with you;
You learned some truth in the storm and strife
Of the outcast battler’s ways;
And you left some light in the vagabond’s life
Ere you vanished beyond the haze.

One by one in the far ahead,
In the smothering haze of drought—
Where hearts are loyal and hopes are dead—
The forms of our mates fade out.
’Tis a distant goal and a weary load,
But we follow the Wrinkler home,
As, staggering into the short, straight road,
From the blind branch tracks we come.

We leave our mark and we play our part
In the nation’s pregnant days,
And we find a place in the Bushman’s heart
Ere we vanish beyond the haze.

poem by Henry Lawson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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In Defence of the Bush

So you're back from up the country, Mister Lawson, where you went,
And you're cursing all the business in a bitter discontent;
Well, we grieve to disappoint you, and it makes us sad to hear
That it wasn't cool and shady -- and there wasn't whips of beer,
And the looney bullock snorted when you first came into view --
Well, you know it's not so often that he sees a swell like you;
And the roads were hot and dusty, and the plains were burnt and brown,
And no doubt you're better suited drinking lemon-squash in town.
Yet, perchance, if you should journey down the very track you went
In a month or two at furthest, you would wonder what it meant;
Where the sunbaked earth was gasping like a creature in its pain
You would find the grasses waving like a field of summer grain,
And the miles of thirsty gutters, blocked with sand and choked with mud,
You would find them mighty rivers with a turbid, sweeping flood.
For the rain and drought and sunshine make no changes in the street,
In the sullen line of buildings and the ceaseless tramp of feet;
But the bush has moods and changes, as the seasons rise and fall,
And the men who know the bush-land -- they are loyal through it all.
*

But you found the bush was dismal and a land of no delight --
Did you chance to hear a chorus in the shearers' huts at night?
Did they 'rise up William Riley' by the camp-fire's cheery blaze?
Did they rise him as we rose him in the good old droving days?
And the women of the homesteads and the men you chanced to meet --
Were their faces sour and saddened like the 'faces in the street'?
And the 'shy selector children' -- were they better now or worse
Than the little city urchins who would greet you with a curse?
Is not such a life much better than the squalid street and square
Where the fallen women flaunt it in the fierce electric glare,
Wher the sempstress plies her needle till her eyes are sore and red
In a filthy, dirty attic toiling on for daily bread?
Did you hear no sweeter voices in the music of the bush
Than the roar of trams and buses, and the war-whoop of 'the push'?
Did the magpies rouse your slumbers with their carol sweet and strange?
Did you hear the silver chiming of the bell-birds on the range?
But, perchance, the wild birds' music by your senses was despised,
For you say you'll stay in townships till the bush is civilized.
Would you make it a tea-garden, and on Sundays have a band
Where the 'blokes' might take their 'donahs', with a 'public' close at hand?
You had better stick to Sydney and make merry with the 'push',
For the bush will never suit you, and you'll never suit the bush.

poem by Andrew Barton Paterson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Lead Them Home My Dreams

Intro:
Lead them home
Lead them home my dreams,
My dreams
Verse 1:
Some people stand
Some choose not to understand
Some people fight (fight, fight)
Some people dream
Some people wake up
In the middle of the night
With the eyes of a tiger and a childs curiosity
Cant turn from my conscience when its starin at me
Chorus:
Lead them home
Lead them home my dreams
You can hear
When you disguise whispers as screams
(lead them home my, lead them home my...dreams)
Verse 2:
Some people climb
Some people wait for time to pass
Looking for a miracle (a miracle)
Some people could care less
Some people dwell on the impossible
And I always remember the times I let myself slide
And I put all the bad things like money
Far lower on the list than pride
Bring me home
Bring them home my dreams (lead the home)
Bring them home my dreams
(bring the home my, lead them home my)
You can hear, you can hear (you can hear)
When you disguise whispers as screams
(lead them home my, lead them home my)
Bring them home (bring them home, bring them home)
Bring them home my dreams
(lead them home my, bring them home my)
You can hear, you can hear when you
Disguise whispers as screams
(lead them home my, bring them home my...dreams)
Verse 3:
Wait a lifetime
Then my wish will drag on slowly
Come into ones own
At the time of conception (ooooo...)
Give in over time
You may as well change your mind
Now is when I see the light (I see it)
Im gonna touch it, grab it -
Make it mine.....
Bring them home.....
Bring them home.....
Lead them home (lead the home)
(bring them home my, lead the home my)
(lead the home, lead them home, lead them home)
Lead the home (lead them home)
Lead them home my dreams
(lead them home my, lead them home my)
Disguise whispers as screams - yeah!
Lead them home (lead them home)
Lead them home (lead them home)
Lead them home (lead them home)
Lead them home (ooooo...)
Lead them home
Lead them home my, my, my dreams.....
Lead them home my dreams
Bring them back to me
Lead them home my dreams
Oh-whoa-whoa-whoa.....

song performed by by Debbie Gibson
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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To Jim

I gaze upon my son once more,
With eyes and heart that tire,
As solemnly he stands before
The screen drawn round the fire;
With hands behind clasped hand in hand,
Now loosely and now fast—
Just as his fathers used to stand
For generations past.
A fair and slight and childish form,
And big brown thoughtful eyes—
God help him! for a life of storm
And stress before him lies:
A wanderer and a gipsy wild,
I’ve learnt the world and know,
For I was such another child—
Ah, many years ago!

But in those dreamy eyes of him
There is no hint of doubt—
I wish that you could tell me, Jim,
The things you dream about.
Dream on, my son, that all is true
And things not what they seem—
’Twill be a bitter day for you
When wakened from your dream.

You are a child of field and flood,
But with the gipsy strains
A strong Norwegian sailor’s blood
Is running through your veins.
Be true, and slander never stings,
Be straight, and all may frown—
You’ll have the strength to grapple things
That dragged your father down.

These lines I write with bitter tears
And failing heart and hand,
But you will read in after years,
And you will understand:
You’ll hear the slander of the crowd,
They’ll whisper tales of shame,
But days will come when you’ll be proud
To bear your father’s name.

But oh! beware of bitterness
When you are wronged, my lad—
I wish I had the faith in men
And women that I had!
’Tis better far (for I have felt
The sadness in my song)
To trust all men and still be wronged
Than to trust none and wrong.

Be generous and still do good
And banish while you live
The spectre of ingratitude
That haunts the ones who give.
But if the crisis comes at length
That your future might be marred,
Strike hard, my son, with all your strength!
For your own self’s sake, strike hard!

poem by Henry Lawson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Never-Never Country

By homestead, hut, and shearing-shed,
By railroad, coach, and track --
By lonely graves of our brave dead,
Up-Country and Out-Back:
To where 'neath glorious the clustered stars
The dreamy plains expand --
My home lies wide a thousand miles
In the Never-Never Land.

It lies beyond the farming belt,
Wide wastes of scrub and plain,
A blazing desert in the drought,
A lake-land after rain;
To the sky-line sweeps the waving grass,
Or whirls the scorching sand --
A phantom land, a mystic land!
The Never-Never Land.

Where lone Mount Desolation lies,
Mounts Dreadful and Despair --
'Tis lost beneath the rainless skies
In hopeless deserts there;
It spreads nor'-west by No-Man's-Land --
Where clouds are seldom seen --
To where the cattle-stations lie
Three hundred miles between.

The drovers of the Great Stock Routes
The strange Gulf country know --
Where, travelling from the southern drought
The big lean bullocks go;
And camped by night where plains lie wide,
Like some old ocean's bed,
The watchmen in the starlight ride
Round fifteen hundred head.

And west of named and numbered days
The shearers walk and ride --
Jack Cornstalk and the Ne'er-do-well
And the grey-beard side by side;
They veil their eyes -- from moon and stars,
And slumber on the sand --
Sad memories steep as years go round
In Never-Never Land.

By lonely huts north-west of Bourke,
Through years of flood and drought,
The best of English black-sheep work
Their own salvation out:
Wild fresh-faced boys grown gaunt and brown --
Stiff-lipped and haggard-eyed --
They live the Dead Past grimly down!
Where boundary-riders ride.

The College Wreck who sank beneath,
Then rose above his shame,
Tramps west in mateship with the man
Who cannot write his name.
'Tis there where on the barren track
No last half-crust's begrudged --
Where saint and sinner, side by side,
Judge not, and are not judged.

Oh rebels to society!
The Outcasts of the West --
Oh hopeless eyes that smile for me,
And broken hearts that jest!
The pluck to face a thousand miles --
The grit to see it through!
The communion perfected! --
And -- I am proud of you!

The Arab to true desert sand,
The Finn to fields of snow,
The Flax-stick turns to Maoriland,
While the seasons come and go;
And this old fact comes home to me --
And will not let me rest --
However barren it may be,
Your own land is the best!

And, lest at ease I should forget
True mateship after all,
My water-bag and billy yet
Are hanging on the wall;
And if my fate should show the sign
I'd tramp to sunsets grand
With gaunt and stern-eyed mates of mine
In the Never-Never Land.

poem by Henry Lawson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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When the Bush Begins to Speak

They know us not in England yet, their pens are overbold;
We're seen in fancy pictures that are fifty years too old.
They think we are a careless race - a childish race, and weak;
They'll know us yet in England, when the bush begins to speak;
When the bush begins to speak,
When the bush begins to speak,
When the west by Greed's invaded, and the bush begins to speak.

'The leaders that will be', the men of southern destiny,
Are not all found in cities that are builded by the sea;
They learn to love Australia by many a western creek,
They'll know them yet in England, when the bush begins to speak;
When the bush begins to speak,
When the bush begins to speak,
When the west by Greed's invaded, and the bush begins to speak.

All ready for the struggle, and waiting for the change,
The army of our future lies encamped beyond the range;
Australia, for her patriots, will not have far to seek;
They'll know her yet in England when the bush begins to speak;
When the bush begins to speak,
When the bush begins to speak,
When the west by Greed's invaded, and the bush begins to speak.

We'll find the peace and comfort that our fathers could not find,
Or some shall strike the good old blow that leaves a mark behind.
We'll find the Truth and Liberty our fathers came to seek,
Or let them know in England when the bush begins to speak;
When the bush begins to speak,
When the bush begins to speak,
When the west by Greed's invaded, and the bush begins to speak.

poem by Henry Lawson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Bush Beyond the Range

FROM Crow’s Nest here by Sydney town
Where crows had nests of old
I see the Range where day goes down—
The dim blue in the gold.
And sometimes wonder, half in doubt,
Has there been so much change
As pictured in the prints about
The Bush beyond the Range.

There’s motor car and all the “frills”
But none of my old mates—
The Bush seems run by Buff’lo Bills
And Hayseeds from the States.
I miss the homesteads and the scrub,
The stock and fences too,
The horse and swagmen and the pub.
That Minns and Mahoney drew.

I miss the drivers, diggers, sheep,
And—lots of things—Ah, well!
I wonder if the Kellys keep
The Carrier’s Camp Hotel—
If that still stands by hill and plain
As old man Kelly’s pride—
Or if he did pull round again
When Mary Kelly died?

And Andy Kelly took to drink,
And Barney took a horse
(And two years’ hard without a blink)
And each one took his course.
And what became of Andy Mack,
Tom Browne, and Pat “O’Brine”?
It must be twenty seasons back
Since last I had a line.

I wonder if—but I forget
And wonder like a fool,
Is Bertha Lambert teaching yet
A wretched, half-time school?
I hope—ah! how the memories come,
To bother and defer,
I only hope my boyhood’s chum,
Fred Spencer, married her.

I wonder if the farms we had
Are scrub or ploughed ground now?
A fence by Harry Dare or “Dad”
Would last it, anyhow.
I wonder if the cemet’ry,
Fenced in by Dad and Dare,
Is lonely as it used to be
When they were buried there.

I wonder, and the more it seems
So far away and strange,
For I have lost, except in dreams,
The Bush beyond the Range.
I wonder too, in fear and shame,
Do they, like me, forget—
I wonder if they mind the name
Of “Henry Lawson” yet.

poem by Henry Lawson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Wrangell Mountain Song

Sunday, and it's raining in Alaska. Seven days, I haven't seen the sun.
Flying bush, flying low along the shoreline, doing everything I can to make it home.
I can't wait to see the Wrangell Mountains. I can't wait to do what I will do.
Honey, did I never say how time goes by so slowly
when I can't wait to get back home to you.
Three years from the war, settled down now.
I did my time and served my country well.
In the freedom I defended, I fly beneath the North Star,
And I just don't know a better way to feel.
I can't wait to see the Wrangell Mountains. I can't wait to do what I will do.
Honey, did I never say how time goes by so slowly
when I can't wait to get back home to you.
It's a quiet life out here among the mountains
in a cabin that was built with these two hands.
McCarthy lies asleep beside the glacier. It's colder now, winter's in the air.
If you think they're wild, it's just because they can't be broken,
it's a strong and gentle people living there.
I can't wait to see the Wrangell Mountains. I can't wait to do what I will do.
Honey, did I never say how time goes by so slowly
when I can't wait to get back home to you.
Honey, did I never say how time goes by so slowly
when I can't wait to get back home to you.

song performed by by John Denver
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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