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Mostly Slavonic

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;
And he tramped from Darkest Russia, that it might be dark no more,
Dreaming of a port, and shipping, as no monarch dreamed before.
Of a home, and education, and of children staunch and true,
Like my father in the fifties—and his name was Peter, too.
(He could build a ship—or fiddle, out of wood, or bark, or hide—.
Sail one round the world and play the other one at eventide.)

Russia’s Peter (not my father) went to Holland in disguise,
Where he laboured as a shipwright underneath those gloomy skies;
Later on he went to England (which the Kaiser now—condemns)
Where he studied as a ship-smith by old Deptford on the Thames—
And no doubt he knew the rope-walk—(and the rope’s end too, he knew)—
Learned to build a ship and sail it—learned the business through and through.
And I’d like to say my father mastered navigation too.
(He was born across in Norway, educated fairly well,
And he grafted in a ship-yard by the Port of Arundel.)

“Peter Michaelov” (not Larsen) his work was by no means done;
For he learned to make a ploughshare, and he learned to make a gun.
Russian soldiers must have clothing, so he laboured at the looms,
And he studied, after hours, building forts and building booms.
He would talk with all and sundry, merchants and adventurers—
Whaling men from Nova Scotia, and with ancient mariners.
Studied military systems (of which Austria’s was the best).
Hospitals and even bedlams—class distinctions and the rest.

There was nothing he neglected that was useful to be known—
And he even studied Wowsers, who had no creed of his own.
And, lest all that he accomplished should as miracles appear,
It must always be remembered he’d a secret Fund for Beer.
When he tramped to toil and exile he was only twenty-five,
With a greater, grander object than had any man alive.
And perhaps the lad was bullied, and was sad for all we know—
Though it isn’t very likely that he’d take a second blow.
He had brains amongst the brainless, and, what that thing means I knew,
For before I found my kingdom, I had slaved in workshops too.

But they never dreamed, the brainless, boors that used to sneer and scoff,
That the dreamy lad beside them—known as “Dutchy Mickyloff”—
Was a genius and a poet, and a Man—no matter which—
Was the Czar of all the Russias!—Peter Michaelovich.

Sweden struck ere he was ready—filled the land with blood and tears—
But he broke the power of Sweden though it took him nine long years.
For he had to train his army—He was great in training men—
And no foreign foe in Russia have had easy times since then.

Then the Port, as we must have one—His a work of mighty drains—
(Ours of irrigation channels—or it should be, on the plains).
So he brought from many countries strong adventures with brains.
It was marshes to horizons, it was pestilential bogs;
It was stoneless, it was treeless, so he brought Norwegian logs.
’Twas a land without a people, ’twas a land without a law;
But the lonely Gulf of Finland heard the axe and heard the saw;
He compelled the population to that desert land and lone—
Shifted them by tens of thousands as we’ll have to shift our own.
He imported stone and mortar (he supplied the labouring gang),
Brought his masons from all Russia—let the other towns go hang;
Brought his carpenters from Venice—they knew how to make a port!
Till he heard the church bells ringing in the town of Petersfort!
Brought his shipbuilders from Holland, built his navy feverishly—
Till the Swedish fleet was shattered and the Baltic routes were free,
And his Port was on the Neva and his Ships were on the sea!

Petrograd upon the Neva! and the Man who saw it through!—
Stately Canberra on the Cotter!—and the men who build it too!

Russian Peter was “inhuman,” so the wise historians say—
What’s the use of being human in a land like ours to-day,
Till a race of stronger people wipe the Sickly Whites away?
Let them have it, who will have it—those who do not understand—
“Peter lived and died a savage”—but he civilized the land.
And, as it is at present, so ’twas always in the past—
’Twas his nearest and his dearest that broke Peter’s heart at last.

He was more than half a heathen, if historians are true;
But he used to whack his missus as a Christian ought to do—
And he should have done it sooner—but that trouble isn’t new.
We’d have saved a lot of bother had we whacked our women, too.
Peter more than whacked his subjects, ere the change was brought about.
And, in some form or another, we shall have to use the knout,
If we wish to build a nation—else we’ll have to do without.
And be wretched slaves and exiles, homeless in the Southern Sea,
When an Asiatic Nation hath “rough hewn” our destiny.

II.—
The Brandenburgers

Things have been mixed up in Europe till there’s nothing in a name,
So it doesn’t really matter whence the Brandenburgers came;
But they did no pioneering as our fathers did of old—
Only bullied, robbed and murdered till they bought the land with gold.
And they settled down in Prussia to the bane of Germany,
With a spike upon the helmet where three brazen balls should be.
And they swaggered, swigged and swindled, and by bullying held sway,
And they blindly inter-married till they’re madmen to this day.
And the lovely nights in Munich are as memories of the dead;
Night is filled with nameless terrors, day is filled with constant dread.
But Bavaria the peaceful, ere the lurid star is set,
She shall lead her neighbours on to pluck the Prussian Eagles yet.

We’ll pass over little Denmark, as the brave historians can,
Austria suffered at Sadowa, France was sorry at Sedan.
And for England’s acquiescence in the crime she suffers too.
Meanwhile Denmark drained her marshes, planted grain and battled through.
(We, who never knew what war is—who had gold without the pain—
Never locked a western river that might save a western plain.)
You may say the Danes were pirates, and so leave them on the shelf?
Given youth and men and money, I would pirate some myself!
Why should I be so excited for another nation’s pains?
I am prejudiced and angry, for my forefathers were Danes.
What have I to do with nations? Or the battle’s lurid stars?—
I am Henry, son of Peter, who was Peter, son of Lars;
Lars the son of Nils—But never mind from whence our lineage springs—
Yes, my forefathers wore helmets, but their helmets wore the wings—
(There’s a feather for your bonnet, there is unction for your souls!)
And the wings bore us to England, and Australia and the Poles.
What did we for little Denmark? Well, we sent our thousands through;
But, without the guns or money, what could Scandinavia do?
(It is true of some Australians, by the sea or sandwaste lone,
That they hold their father’s country rather dearer than their own.
But the track is plain before them, and they know who blazed the track,
To the work our Foreign Fathers did in Early Days, Out Back.
As a mate can do no mean thing in the bushman’s creed and song,
So a fellow’s father’s country [seems to me] can do no wrong.)

Where was I? The Wrong of Denmark—or the chastening of her soul?
And perhaps her rulers “got it” where ’twas needed, on the whole.
’Twas the gentlemen of Poland crushed the spirit of the Pole,
Till he didn’t care which nation he was knouted by, and served;
So the gentlemen of Poland got wiped out, as they deserved.
Freedom shrieked (where was no freedom), and perhaps she shrieked for shame.
But let Kosciusko slumber—we’ve immortalised his name.
By the poets and the tenors have our tender souls been wrenched;
And, on many a suffering Christian, Polish Jews have been avenged.

III.—
The Blue Danube

Where the skies are blue in winter by the Adriatic Sea,
And the summer skies are bluer even than our own can be;
In the shadow of a murder, weak from war and sore afraid;
By the ocean-tinted Danube stood the city of Belgrade.
Danube of the love-lit starlight, Danube of the dreamy waltz—
And Belgrade bowed down in ashes for her crimes and for her faults.
And the Prussian-driven Austrians who’d been driven oft before,
From Vienna’s cultured city marched reluctantly to war.

Just to clear a path for Prussia, and her bloodhounds to the sea;
To the danger of the white world and the shame of Germany.
And a blacker fate than Belgium’s stared the Servians in the face.
But Belgrade had many soldiers of the old Slavonic race,
And her gun-crews manned the Danube, small and weak, but undismayed—
And Belgrade remembered Russia, and she called on her for aid.

And there came a secret message and a sign from Petrograd,
And the Servian arm was strengthened and the Servian heart was glad.
For the message in plain English, from the City of Snow,
Simply said: “I’m sending Ivan by the shortest route I know.”
So then Servia bid defiance, for she knew her friend was true;
And her guns along the Danube added blue smoke to the blue.

IV.—
The Peasantry

Who are these in rags and sheepskin, mangy fur-caps, matted hair?
Who are these with fearsome whiskers, black and wiry everywhere?
Who are these in blanket putties—canvas, rag, or green-hide shoes?
These with greasy bags and bundles grimy as the Russian flues?
Never song nor cheer amongst them, never cry of “What’s the News?”
Packed on cattle-trains and ox-carts, from the north and south and east;
Trudging from the marsh and forest, where the man is like the beast?
On the lonely railway platforms, bending round the village priest;
Here and there the village scholar, everywhere the country clowns?
They’re reservists of old Russia pouring in to Russian towns!

Women’s faces, gaunt and haggard, start and startle here and there,
White and whiter by the contrast to the shawls that hide their hair.
Black-shawled heads—the shrouds of sorrow! Eyes of Fear without a name!
Through the length and breadth of Europe, God! their eyes are all the same!
Famous Artist of the Present, wasting Art and wasting Life,
With your daughters for your models, or your everlasting wife—
With your kids for nymphs and fairies, or your Studies in “the Nood”—
Exercise imagination, and forget your paltry brood!
Take an old Bulgarian widow who has lost her little store,
Who has lost her sons in battle, paint her face, and call it “War.”

V.—
The Russian March

Russian mist, and cold, and darkness, on the weary Russian roads;
And the sound of Russian swear-words, and the whack of Russian goads;
There’s the jerk of tightened traces and of taughtened bullock-chains—
’Tis the siege guns and the field guns, and the ammunition trains.
There’s the grind of tires unceasing, where the metal caps the clay;
And the “clock,” “clock,” “clock” of axles going on all night and day.
And the groaning undercarriage and the king pin and the wheel,
And the rear wheels, which are fore wheels, with their murd’rous loads of steel.

Here and there the sound of cattle in the mist and in the sleet,
And the scrambling start of horses, and the ceaseless splosh of feet.
There’s the short, sharp, sudden order such as drivers give to slaves,
And a ceaseless, soughing, sighing, like the sound of sea-worn caves
When a gale is slowly dying and the darkness hides the waves,
And the ghostly phosphorescence flashes past the rocky arch
Like the wraiths of vanished armies. . . . It is Ivan on the march!
’Tis an army that is marching over other armies’ graves.

“Halt!”
Clamp of bits and gathering silence—here and there a horse’s stamp;
Sounds of chains relaxed, and harness, like the teamsters come to camp.
Sounds of boxes moved in waggons, and of axes on a log—
And the wild and joyous barking of the regimental dog!
Sounds of pots and pans and buckets, and the clink of chain and hook—
And the blasphemous complaining of the Universal Cook.
Mist and mist and mellowed moonlight—night in more than ghostly robes;
And the lanterns and the camp fires like dim lights in frosted globes.
Silence deep of satisfaction. Sounds of laughter murmuring—
And the fragrance of tobacco! Are you Ivan? Ivan! Sing!

“I am Ivan! Yes, I’m Ivan, from the mist and from the mirk;
From the night of “Darkest Russia” where Oppression used to lurk—
And it’s many weary winters since I started Christian work;
But you feared the power of Ivan, and you nursed the rotten Turk.
Nurse him now! Or nurse him later, when his green-black blood hath laved
Wounds upon your hands and “honour” that his gratitude engraved;
Poison teeth on hands that shielded, poison fangs on hands that saved.

“No one doubted Ivan’s honour, no one doubted Ivan’s vow,
And the simple word of Ivan, none would dream of doubting now;
Yet you cherished, for your purpose, lies you heard and lies you spread,
And you triumphed for a Spectre over Ivan’s murdered dead!
You were fearful of my power in the rolling of my drums—
Now you tremble lest it fail me when To-morrow’s Morrow comes!

I had sought to conquer no land save what was by right my own—
I took Finland, I took Poland, but I left their creeds alone.
I, the greater, kindlier Tyrant, bade them live and showed them how—
They are free, and they are happy, and they’re marching with me now—
Marching to the War of Ages—marching to the War of Wars—
Hear the rebel songs of Warsaw! Hear the hymn of Helsingfors!
From the Danube to Siberia and the northern lights aflame.
Many freed and peaceful millions bless the day when Ivan came.
Travel through the mighty Russland—study, learn and understand
That my people are contented, for my people have their land.

“It was spring-time in Crimea, coming cold and dark and late,
When I signed the terms you offered, for I knew that I could wait;
When I bowed to stronger nations or to Universal Fate.
And the roofs of guiltless kinsmen blazed across my frontiers still,
Where the bloody hordes of Islam came to ravish, rob and kill;
And the lands were laid in ashes over many a field and hill;
And the groans of tortured peasants (dreaming yet and sullen-mad)—
And the shrieks of outraged daughters echoed still in Petrograd;
So we taught and trained and struggled, and we cursed the Western Powers,
While we suffered in the awful silence of your God, and ours.

“For the safety of the White Race and the memory of Christ,
Once again I marched on Turkey, only to be sacrificed,
To the Sea-Greed of the Nations, by the pandering of the weak,
And the treachery in Athens of the lying, cheating Greek.
Once again I forced the Balkans over snow and rock and moss,
Once again I saw the passes stormed with unavailing loss;
Once again I saw the Crescent reeling back before the Cross,
And the ships of many nations on the billows dip and toss.

Once again my grey battalions, that had come with Christian aid,
Stood before Constantinople! Ah, you wish that we had stayed!
But the Powers raised their fingers, fearful even once again,
With the jealous fear that lingers even now (and shall remain);
Frigid as the polar regions were your hearts to others’ pain—
So I dragged my weary legions back to Russia—once again.

“Thrice again they raised their fingers when I came with purpose true,
And I bowed and smirked and grovelled as I had been used to do.
Till my kin in bloody visions saw their homes in ruins laid
From the Danube to the ocean, from the ocean to Belgrade;
I was ready, for the last time, when they called on me for aid.

From the Dardanelles, denied me, shall my outward march be set;
And you’ll see my fleets of commerce sail the Adriatic yet.”

Grey Day
.
Daybreak on the world of Europe! Daybreak from the Eastern arch;
Hear the startling sound of bugles! Load and limber up and march!
On! for Ivan and his children, Peace and Rest and Morning Star!
On for Truth and Right and Justice. On for Russia and the Czar!

poem by Henry Lawson
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The March of Ivan

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,
For the dots upon the skyline—black against the rising sun;
We are watching through the morning haze, and waiting through the night,
For the long, dark, distant columns that proclaim the Muscovite!
Are you coming, Ivan, coming? (Oh! the world is growing gray
With the terror of the future and the madness of to-day!)
Are you marching, Ivan—forward? (Oh! the world is dark’ning fast,
For the crimes of greater nations ’gainst the small ones in the past.)
Yours, in part, to make atonement, so remember what you are!
Ivan! Sing!—“The Slav is coming! On for Russia and the Czar!”

Ivan’s Song

“Yes, I’m coming, Ivan, coming—I am marching out again
On the weary roads of Russia, past the forest, marsh and plain;
Past the field and past the village, in the shine and in the rain—
By the cart-rut and the grass-track and the jolting cattle-train.
(And, maybe, some gleam of glory penetrates my sluggish brain)
I am marching out for Russia, and for Europe and for you—
But, maybe, I’m mainly marching just because they told me to.

“I have marched to many frontiers, in the pregnant days gone by,
When they told us where to march to, but they did not tell us why.
And they showed us whom to fight with, and they told us where to die.
I have seen our grey battalions to their Heaven—or Hades—hurled—
’Twas enough it was for Russia!—what cared we about the world?

“Did one moan of Ivan’s mother penetrate to other lands?
Did one prayer of Ivan’s father—with his old and knotted hands?
Did one sob from Ivan’s sweetheart, or one cry from Ivan’s wife?
Or a wail from Ivan’s children, for the loss of Ivan’s life?
Marching with the Wolf of Hunger—marching with the Bear of Strength!
We have marched for many winters—but the end is near at length!

“’Tis a long, long march from Plevna, when the Bear went to his den.
It is far from the Crimea; Oh! you did not want us then!
From the shambles of Port Arthur, ’twas a weary way and slow—
And our track was always dotted with the black dots on the snow.
By black dots and crimson splashes you may trace poor Ivan’s track—
And I think that Ivan’s banner should be red, and white and black.

“Ne’er was Present-blinded tyrant who learnt wisdom from the Past,
And there’s one forgot the errand that brought Ivan this way last!
‘To the frontier, and no further’ seemed our motto and our vow,
Since we marched from burning Moscow—but we’re marching further now!
Neighbour’s burning house—or city!—they are easy to forget;
But we lit a light for Europe that shall be rekindled yet!

“Never song of Ivan’s valour, or of ‘Russia’s Flag Unfurled!’
Or the Iron Cross of Russia, penetrates the Outer World.
Ye! who civilise and peddle, ye who hesitate and lag,
Never heard the Russian March and never saw the Russian flag!
You have called on us to save you, never saying why, or how,
But the samovar is boiling! and you’ll hear and see us now.

“From our garrets and our cellars—from the little all we had—
Where the winter brings the sleigh-bells to the streets of Petrograd;
From our huts and from our hutches—from wherever we may be—
From our goat’s-flesh and our mare’s milk and our black unsweetened tea,
From the silence of Siberia, and the strange, snow-deadened streets—
From the blazing banks of Jordan, where we dip our winding-sheets.
From our black bread and our vodka—asking naught, and undismayed—
From our never-empty cradles!—we are coming to your aid.

“Oh, we leave no bands behind us, blaring tunes of Tyranny,
And we wave no swords above us, yelling songs of Liberty;
And no blatant voice of ruler, as we tramp through dry and wet,
Blares: ‘Remember You are Russians!’—we’re not likely to forget.
There are some who have forgotten—merely men, like you and me—
And one object of our marching is to jog their memory.

“You shall hear us, you shall see us—save the dead and deaf and blind—
While the armour of our winter hardens thick and fast behind.
We are marching, we are coming, and we are not on the sea—
You shall see us on the furthest frontier of our enemy!
And while you fix up your frontiers, and remember what you are,
We shall march with Peace for Europe!—back to Russia and the Czar.”

poem by Henry Lawson
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Grey Wolves Grey

The Russian march is soft and slow,
Through dust and heat, or slush and snow,
When the Russian skies hang grey and low
To the frontiers far where the Russians go;
And they march to-night and they march to-day
Like the grey wolves grey, like the grey wolves grey.
Nor song nor sound their track reveals,
Save the ceaseless “clock” of the waggon wheels;
But a rift in the mist shows a glint of sun
On the long, dark shape of a toiling gun;
And they strain by night and they drag by day
To a distant goal, like the grey wolves grey.

As the horses toil at the ends of trains,
And the ends of roads on the Blacksoil Plains.
And Ivan digs in the frozen clay,
And he rolls the logs a bed to lay
For a gun that’s five hundred miles away,
But as sure to come as the grey wolves grey.

He is marching on with a purpose grand,
For brother Slav in another land;
Whose tongue, perchance, he cannot understand.—
But he knows the cry from the far-away,
And he smells the blood like the grey wolves grey.

And Ivan’s wife in her den at home,
While hunger looms and his lean wolves come—
With her grey-black bread like the Darling mud,
And her tea-bricks bound with the bullock’s blood—
She shields her cubs by night and day
Like the crouching sluts of the grey wolves grey.

And I march with Ivan where’er he be,
With the foreign blood that is strong in me,
And the love and the hate that is fantasy,
Like the ghosts of a father’s memory.
With the blood that is strange to us to-day
As the strange wild blood of the grey wolves grey.
Grey wolves,
Grey wolves—
The strange wild blood of the grey wolves grey.

poem by Henry Lawson
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The Vanguard [1]

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—
Let me fire one gun for Russia, though that gun should be the last.
’Tis a struggle of the Ages, and the White Man’s star is dim,
There is little jubilation, for the game has got too grim;
But though Russia’s hope seems shattered, and the Russian star seems set,
It may mean the Dawn for Russia—and my hope’s in IVAN yet!

Let the Jingo in his blindness cant and cackle as he will;
But across the path from Asia run the Russian trenches still!
And the sahib in his rickshaw may loll back and smoke at ease,
While the haggard, ragged heroes man the battered batteries.

’Tis the first round of the struggle of the East against the West,
Of the fearful war of races—for the White Man could not rest.
Hold them, IVAN! staggering bravely underneath your gloomy sky;
Hold them, IVAN! we shall want you pretty badly by-and-bye!

Fighting for the Indian empire, when the British pay their debt;
Never Britain watched for BLUCHER as he’ll watch for IVAN yet!
It means all to young Australia—it means life or death to us,
For the vanguard of the White Man is the vanguard of the Russ!

poem by Henry Lawson
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Skaal

While they struggle on exhausted,
While they plough through bog and flood,
While they drag their sick and wounded
Where the tracks are drenched with blood;
While the Fates seemed joined to crush her
And her bravest hearts lie low,
I might sing one song for Russia,
Even though she be our foe.
Still be generous to foemen,
And have charity for all—
Right or wrong, fill up the wine cup;
‘Skaal!’ unto all brave men—‘Skaal!’

While they suffer, cold and hungry,
All the heart-break of defeat,
And the twice heroic rearguard
Grimly holds the grim retreat;
While they fight the last alive on
Fields where countless corpses are,
We might drop one tear for Ivan,
Dead for Russia and the Czar!

Sullen grief of boorish brother,
Sister’s scalding tears that flow,
Choking grief of grey-haired mother,
Father’s stony face bent low:
Hopeless stare of wife or daughter,
And the sweetheart dumb and white,
And the far-off fields of slaughter
Where their Ivan lies to-night.

Even England feared disaster,
With all Europe in despair,
In the days when Europe’s master
Baited Bruin in his lair.
Greater nations made submission,
And a tyrant’s yoke they earned;
But The Man with curbed ambition
Staggered back while Moscow burned,—

Burned to save the world from ruin
That dark winter long ago;
Ah! the gaunt and hunted Bruin
Hugged the tyrant in the snow!
We can cry the crimes of Russia,
Who know naught of Russia’s work—
We who died to conquer freemen,
We who fought to save the Turk.

Ah! we well may cant and cackle,
In the streets and in the clubs,
While the Russia that we know not
Licks her wounds and feeds her cubs.
But the Fates for ever beckon—
Every nation has its debt,
And her foes may have to reckon,
Reckon with ‘der Russland’ yet.

Through long ages slept the Dragon,
We have roused the ugly beast—
Russia still may stand the vanguard
Of the West against the East.
And though Ivan sees no farther
Than to-night through lurid gloom
Every hour he holds Port Arthur
May postpone the White Man’s doom.

Right or wrong—whate’er in future
May this blundering world befall,
Human kindness will survive it—
Brothers! ‘Skaal!’ to brave men, ‘Skaal!’

poem by Henry Lawson
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Nemesis

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
That the blackest lies are written, told, and printed after dark.
’Tis the time of “late editions”. It is night when, as of old,
Foulest things are done for hatred, for ambition, love and gold.

Racing from the senseless city down the dull suburban streets,
Come again the ragged newsboys yelping with their paltry sheets—
Lying posters meaning nothing, double columns meaning less,
Twisted facts and reckless falsehoods—dodges of the Daily Press.
In the town the roar and rattle of the great machines once more,
Greedy for the extra penny, while the “Public” howls for war.

War because of one poor blunder made in panic far away,
While a thousand men were lying on the battlefield to-day:
Dead heaped on the helpless dying, blinded eyes and brains that swim,
Parched or choked with their own life-blood, battered head and broken limb.
Wounds too ghastly to be pictured. Things to seem like men no more,
Crying out to Christ for water, and oblivion—that is war.

And the poets of the nation—singing-birds or carrion-birds—
Bluff with cheap alliteration and the boom of empty words,
Catch the crowd with cheating phrases, as a jingo laureate flings
Recklessly his high defiance in the “grinning teeth of Things”.
They pretend to lead who follow this day’s crowd with lying tact;
Let them fling their high defiance in the stony face of Fact.

And so Russia, maimed and baited, seeing nought but storm to come,
Sailed upon a desperate venture, cursed by treachery at home;
Seeing danger in each shadow, thinking doubtless now and then
Of the swift fate of her warship with its seven hundred men;
And she struck out in the darkness at the ally of her foe,
Struck out blindly as a wounded dying bear might strike a blow.

Ah, we well might howl for vengeance, we who killed for killing’s sake—
Murdered helpless men in daylight, in cold blood by no mistake,
We who burnt the homes of women when the nights were cold and damp;
We who murdered little children in the concentration camp!
(When the farmers downed the lion for a season in his pride,
Say, did Russia take advantage then, while England’s hands were tied?)

Wipe away the blood that binds you!—struggle to your feet again—
Shake them from your shoulders, Ivan—Ivan nearly mad with pain.
You must fight it single-handed on the deck or in the trench.
Look not to the boorish German! Look not to the fickle French!
Rather look to blinded England when her sight is clear again.
(And remember in the future there is chivalry in Spain.)

Scoff at Russia on the ocean and her helplessness forget,
But on land the braggart Mongol has not done with Ivan yet;
He’s a fierce and cruel tyrant (we are not as others are);
But his slaves would die by thousands for their country and the Czar,
While a single broken column drags a battery through the mire,
And a single battered cruiser has a gun that she can fire.

poem by Henry Lawson
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Ivan, What Happened To Your Smile?

What happened to your smile?
Ivan, [that`s how I would like to call you]
Tell, where is your smile that bloomed on your face?
Ivan, I am afraid your smile has faded for ever.

In the midst of deafening roars and maddening songs,
Ivan, your smile had a musical charm over a season.
Your smile could be seen from places miles away,
Ivan, it had an aroma that winds would proudly carry.

I used to think about others who had solid faces,
Ivan, your face was an exception to all theirs.
The frost and the flame of my winter and summer
Ivan, you see, played hide and seek often; but your smile did not.

Retrieve your smile please for I need to see it
Ivan, your smile speaks volumes about what you are indeed.
In the midst of these homosapians I search for my face
Though I had lost my smile long before you were born Ivan.

poem by M.d Dinesh Nair
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The Little Czar

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!—
The Czar of all the Russias, in fact as well as name.

‘The Father of your People,’ your children called to you
To do the things to save them which only you could do.
Your soldiers whipped their faces—the trodden snow is red
With the blood of men and women; and the blood is on your head!

I saw in dreams a monarch, of his power all unaware,
Step down amongst his people from off his palace stair:
The Grand Dukes shrank and trembled, the traitors fled afar—
Through all the mighty Russias rang the order of the Czar!

You might have journeyed freely, wherever path is made,
Through all your vast dominions, alone and unafraid;
And, in the eyes of subjects, the cultured and the rude,
Have seen, instead of hatred, the tears of gratitude.

Oh, little Czar of Russia, a weak man and a fool,
At the mercy of your nobles—their prisoner and their tool—
Your freedom and your people’s and their love was to be won:
Ah, me! it would have been a deed a coward might have done.

Yet we who know so little might say one word for you:
How many in our weakness have lost our kingdoms, too!
And facing death and exile, when all the world seemed black,
How many in our after-strength have won our kingdoms back!

poem by Henry Lawson
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Abdul Abulbul Amir

The sons of the Prophet are brave men and bold
And quite unaccustomed to fear,
But the bravest by far in the ranks of the Shah,
Was Abdul Abulbul Amir.

If you wanted a man to encourage the van,
Or harass the foe from the rear,
Storm fort or redoubt, you had only to shout
For Abdul Abulbul Amir.

Now the heroes were plenty and well known to fame
In the troops that were led by the Czar,
And the bravest of these was a man by the name
Of Ivan Skavinsky Skavar.

One day this bold Russian, he shouldered his gun
And donned his most truculent sneer,
Downtown he did go where he trod on the toe
Of Abdul Abulbul Amir.

Young man, quoth Abdul, has life grown so dull
That you wish to end your career?
Vile infidel, know, you have trod on the toe
Of Abdul Abulbul Amir.

So take your last look at the sunshine and brook
And send your regrets to the Czar
For by this I imply, you are going to die,
Count Ivan Skavinsky Skavar.

Then this bold Mameluke drew his trusty skibouk,
Singing, "Allah! Il Allah! Al-lah!"
And with murderous intent he ferociously went
For Ivan Skavinsky Skavar.

They parried and thrust, they side-stepped and cussed,
Of blood they spilled a great part;
The philologist blokes, who seldom crack jokes,
Say that hash was first made on the spot.

They fought all that night neath the pale yellow moon;
The din, it was heard from afar,
And huge multitudes came, so great was the fame,
Of Abdul and Ivan Skavar.

As Abdul's long knife was extracting the life,
In fact he was shouting, "Huzzah!"
He felt himself struck by that wily Calmuck,
Count Ivan Skavinsky Skavar.

The Sultan drove by in his red-breasted fly,
Expecting the victor to cheer,
But he only drew nigh to hear the last sigh,
Of Abdul Abulbul Amir.

There's a tomb rises up where the Blue Danube rolls,
And graved there in characters clear,
Is, "Stranger, when passing, oh pray for the soul
Of Abdul Abulbul Amir."

A splash in the Black Sea one dark moonless night
Caused ripples to spread wide and far,
It was made by a sack fitting close to the back,
Of Ivan Skavinsky Skavar.

A Muscovite maiden her lone vigil keeps,
'Neath the light of the cold northern star,
And the name that she murmurs in vain as she weeps,
Is Ivan Skavinsky Skavar.

poem by William Percy French
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The White Tzar

The White Czar is Peter the Great. Batyushka, Father dear, and
Gosudar, Sovereign, are titles the Russian people are fond of
giving to the Czar in their popular songs.

Dost thou see on the rampart's height
That wreath of mist, in the light
Of the midnight moon? O, hist!
It is not a wreath of mist;
It is the Czar, the White Czar,
Batyushka! Gosudar!

He has heard, among the dead,
The artillery roll o'erhead;
The drums and the tramp of feet
Of his soldiery in the street;
He is awake! the White Czar,
Batyushka! Gosudar!

He has heard in the grave the cries
Of his people: "Awake! arise!"
He has rent the gold brocade
Whereof his shroud was made;
He is risen! the White Czar,
Batyushka! Gosudar!

From the Volga and the Don
He has led his armies on,
Over river and morass,
Over desert and mountain pass;
The Czar, the Orthodox Czar,
Batyushka! Gosudar!

He looks from the mountain-chain
Toward the seas, that cleave in twain
The continents; his hand
Points southward o'er the land
Of Roumili! O Czar,
Batyushka! Gosudar!

And the words break from his lips:
"I am the builder of ships,
And my ships shall sail these seas
To the Pillars of Hercules!
I say it; the White Czar,
Batyushka! Gosudar!

"The Bosphorus shall be free;
It shall make room for me;
And the gates of its water-streets
Be unbarred before my fleets.
I say it; the White Czar,
Batyushka! Gosudar!

"And the Christian shall no more
Be crushed, as heretofore,
Beneath thine iron rule,
O Sultan of Istamboul!
I swear it; I the Czar,
Batyushka! Gosudar!

poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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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
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The Man Who Raised Charlestown

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,
When a quiet man from Buckland rode at dusk to raise Charlestown.

Not a young man in his glory filled with patriotic fire,
Not an orator or soldier, or a known man in his shire;
He was just the Unexpected – one of Danger's Volunteers,
At a time for which he'd waited, all unheard of, many years.

And Charlestown met in council, the quiet man to hear –
The town was large and wealthy, but the folks were filled with fear,
The fear of death and plunder; and none to lead had they,
And Self fought Patriotism as will always be the way.

The man turned to the people, and he spoke in anger then.
And crooked his finger here and there to those he marked as men.
And many gathered round him to see what they could do –
For men know men in danger, as they know the cowards too.

He chose his men and captains, and sent them here and there,
The arms and ammunition were gathered in the square;
While peaceful folk were praying or croaking, every one,
He was working with his blacksmiths at the carriage of a gun.

While the Council sat on Sunday, and the church bells rang their peal,
The quiet man was mending a broken waggon wheel;
While they passed their resolutions on his doings (and the likes),
From a pile his men brought to him he was choosing poles for pikes.

(They were hanging men in Buckland who would not cheer King George –
They were making pikes in Charlestown at every blacksmith's forge:
While the Council sat in session and the same old song they sang,
They heard the horsemen gallop out, and the blacksmiths' hammers clang.)

And a thrill went through the city ere the drums began to roll,
And the coward found his courage, and the drunkard found his soul.
So a thrill went through the city that would go through all the land,
For the quiet man from Buckland held men's hearts in his right hand.

And he caught a Charlestown poet (there are many tell the tale),
And he took him by the collar when he'd filled him up with ale;
"Now, then, write a song for Charlestown that shall lift her on her way,
For she's marching out to Buckland and to Death at break o' day."

And he set the silenced women tearing sheet and shift and shirt
To make bandages and roll them for the men that would get hurt.
And he called out his musicians and he told them what to play:
"For I want my men excited when they march at break o' day."

And he set the women cooking – with a wood-and-water crew –
"For I want no empty stomachs for the work we have to do."
Then he said to his new soldiers: "Eat your fill while yet you may;
'Tis a heavy road to Buckland that we'll march at break o' day."

And a shout went through the city when the drums began to roll
(And the coward was a brave man and the beggar had a soul),
And the drunken Charlestown poet cared no more if he should hang,
For his song of "Charlestown's Coming" was the song the soldiers sang.

And they cursed the King of England, and they shouted in their glee,
And they swore to drive the British and their friends into the sea;
But when they'd quite finished swearing, said their leader "Let us pray,
For we march to Death and Freedom, and it's nearly dawn of day."

There were marching feet at daybreak, and close upon their heels
Came the scuffling tread of horses and the heavy crunch of wheels;
So they took the road to Buckland, with their scout out to take heed,
And a quiet man of fifty on a grey horse in the lead.

There was silence in the city, there was silence as of night –
Women in the ghostly daylight, kneeling, praying, deathly white,
As their mothers knelt before them, as their daughters knelt since then,
And as ours shall, in the future, kneel and pray for fighting men.

For their men had gone to battle, as our sons and grandsons too
Must go out, for Life and Freedom, as all nations have to do.
And the Charlestown women waited for the sounds that came too soon –
Though they listened, almost breathless, till the early afternoon.

Then they heard the tones of danger for their husbands, sweethearts, sons,
And they stopped their ears in terror, crying, "Oh, my God! The guns!"
Then they strained their ears to listen through the church-bells' startled chime –
Far along the road to Buckland, Charlestown's guns were marking time.

"They advance!" "They halt!" "Retreating!" "They come back!" The guns are done!"
But the calmer spirits, listening, said: "Our guns are going on."
And the friend and foe in Buckland felt two different kinds of thrills
When they heard the Charlestown cannon talking on the Buckland hills.

And the quiet man of Buckland sent a message in that day,
And he gave the British soldiers just two hours to march away.
And they hang men there no longer, there is peace on land and wave;
On the sunny hills of Buckland there is many a quiet grave.

There is peace upon the land, and there is friendship on the waves –
On the sunny hills of Buckland there are rows of quiet graves.
And an ancient man in Buckland may be seen in sunny hours,
Pottering round about his garden, and his kitchen stuff and flowers.

poem by Henry Lawson
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The Unsung Heroes

A song for the unsung heroes who rose in the country's need,
When the life of the land was threatened by the slaver's cruel greed,
For the men who came from the cornfield, who came from the plough and the flail,
Who rallied round when they heard the sound of the mighty man of the rail.

They laid them down in the valleys, they laid them down in the wood,
And the world looked on at the work they did, and whispered, 'It is good.'
They fought their way on the hillside, they fought their way in the glen,
And God looked down on their sinews brown, and said, 'I have made them men.'

They went to the blue lines gladly, and the blue lines took them in,
And the men who saw their muskets' fire thought not of their dusky skin.
The gray lines rose and melted beneath their scathing showers,
And they said, ''T is true, they have force to do, these old slave boys of ours.'

Ah, Wagner saw their glory, and Pillow knew their blood,
That poured on a nation's altar, a sacrificial flood.
Port Hudson heard their war-cry that smote its smoke-filled air,
And the old free fires of their savage sires again were kindled there.

They laid them down where the rivers the greening valleys gem.
And the song of the thund'rous cannon was their sole requiem,
And the great smoke wreath that mingled its hue with the dusky cloud,
Was the flag that furled o'er a saddened world, and the sheet that made their shroud.

Oh, Mighty God of the Battles Who held them in Thy hand,
Who gave them strength through the whole day's length, to fight for their native land,
They are lying dead on the hillsides, they are lying dead on the plain,
And we have not fire to smite the lyre and sing them one brief strain.

Give, Thou, some seer the power to sing them in their might,
The men who feared the master's whip, but did not fear the fight;
That he may tell of their virtues as minstrels did of old,
Till the pride of face and the hate of race grow obsolete and cold.

A song for the unsung heroes who stood the awful test,
When the humblest host that the land could boast went forth to meet the best;
A song for the unsung heroes who fell on the bloody sod,
Who fought their way from night to day and struggled up to God.

poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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Ivan Ivan

Did you ever find out who planted those apples
Those apples dancing gravity falling out of the carriage
Hitting ground behind the horses
Shiny red apples like eyeballs of knowledge
Eat eat the breakfast of your life
Their drumming beat
Against your heart

Ivan Ivan
A child of revenge
Ever plunged within the moonlit lake you shattered with a pebble
When moonlight hit your eyes like thunder weeping silence
Just a drip dropp drip dropp drip dropp across your heart
Water weapon armored pain
In an ambush against the enemy
Who was the enemy Ivan

Ivan Ivan
You crossed the moonlight to water walk stars
Earthly dresses shattered naked you stood
Where naked all of us at one point will stand
Like a truth naked hidden by heart shed in the light
Laughter swelled boy in innocence encroaching lands
Spring your soul afar spring your heart in pain
History foretold freedom redeemed
Its drumming beat the wings of your flight

Inspired by Ivan's Childhood, a Tarkowsky film

poem by Miroslava Odalovic
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When I Was King

The second time I lived on earth
Was several hundred years ago;
And—royal by my second birth—
I know as much as most men know.
I was a king who held the reins
As never modern monarch can;
I was a king, and I had brains,
And, what was more, I was a man!
Called to the throne in stormy times,
When things were at their very worst,
I had to fight—and not with rhymes—
My own self and my kindred first;
And after that my friends and foes,
And great abuses born of greed;
And when I’d fairly conquered those,
I ruled the land a king indeed.

I found a deal of rottenness,
Such as in modern towns we find;
I camped my poor in palaces
And tents upon the plain behind.
I marked the hovels, dens and drums
In that fair city by the sea.
And burnt the miles of wretched slums
And built the homes as they should be.

I stripped the baubles from the State,
And on the land I spent the spoil;
I hunted off the sullen great,
And to the farmers gave the soil.
My people were their own police;
My courts were free to everyone.
My priests were to preach love and peace;
My Judges to see justice done.

I’d studied men and studied kings,
No crawling cant would I allow;
I hated mean and paltry things,
As I can hate them even now.
A land of men I meant to see,
A strong and clean and noble race—
No subject dared kneel down to me,
But looked his king straight in the face

Had I not been a king in fact,
A king in council-hall and tent,
I might have let them crawl and act
The courtier to their heart’s content;
But when I called on other kings,
And saw men kneel, I felt inclined
To gently tip the abject things
And kick them very hard behind.

My subjects were not slaves, I guess,
But though the women in one thing—
A question ’twas of healthy dress—
Would dare to argue with their king
(I had to give in there, I own,
Though none denied that I was strong),
Yet they would hear my telephone
If anything went very wrong.

I also had some poets bright—
Their songs were grand, I will allow—
They were, if I remember right,
About as bad as bards are now.
I had to give them best at last,
And let them booze and let them sing;
As it is now, so in the past,
They’d small respect for gods or king.

I loved to wander through the streets—
I carried neither sword nor dirk—
And watch the building of my fleets,
And watch my artisans at work.
At times I would take off my coat
And show them how to do a thing—
Till someone, clucking in his throat,
Would stare and gasp, ‘It is the king!’

And I would say, ‘Shut up, you fools!
Is it for this my towns I burn?
You don’t know how to handle tools,
And by my faith you’ll have to learn!’
I was a king, but what of that?
A king may warble in the spring
And carry eggs home in his hat,
Provided that he is a king.

I loved to stroll about the town
With chums at night, and talk of things,
And, though I chanced to wear the crown,
My friends, by intellect, were kings.
When I was doubtful, then I might
Discuss a matter quietly,
But when I felt that I was right
No power on earth could alter me!

And now and then it was no sin
Nor folly to relax a bit—
I’d take my friends into an inn
And call for wine and pay for it.
And then of many things we’d clack
With loosened tongues and visions clear—
I often heard behind my back
The whispered ‘Peace, the king is here!’

The women harped about a queen,
I knew they longed to have a court
And flaunt their feathers on the scene,
But hitherto I’d held the fort.
My subjects wanted me, no doubt,
To give the throne a son and heir—
(There were some little kings about,
But that was neither here nor there).

I’d no occasion for a wife—
A queen as yet was not my plan;
I’d seen a lot of married life—
My sire had been a married man.
‘A son and heir be hanged!’ I said—
‘How dare you ask for such a thing,
‘You fight it out when I am dead
‘And let the best man be the king!’

‘Your Majesty, we love you well!’
A candid friend would say to me—
‘But there be tales that people tell
‘Unfitted to thy dignity’—
‘My dignity be damned!’ I’d say,
‘Bring me no women’s chattering!
‘I’ll be a man while yet I may—
‘When trouble comes I’ll be a king!

I’d kept my kingdom clean and strong
While other kingdoms were like ours—
I had no need to brook a wrong,
I feared not all the rotten Powers
I did not eat my heart out then,
Nor feebly fight in verse or prose
I’d take five hundred thousand men
To argue matters with my foes!

It thrilled me through, the mighty tramp
Of armëd men, the thundering cheer—
The pregnant whisper through the camp
At dead of night: ‘The King is here!’
And though we paid for victory
On some fields that were hard to hold,
The faith my soldiers had in me
Oft strengthened mine a hundredfold.

I’d chat with soldiers by the fires
On rocky heights and river banks,
I’d seek the brains that war requires,
And take my captains from the ranks.
And so, until the storm was by,
And came the peace just war can bring,
I bore me so that men might cry
With all their hearts, ‘God Save the King.’

When I was king the world was wide,
And I was strong and I was free.
I knew no hatred, knew no pride,
No envy and no treachery.
I feared no lies. I feared no truth,
Nor any storm that time might bring.
I had my love, I had my youth,
The world was mine when I was king.

Peace came at last—and strange is Fate—
The women begged just once alone
To see me robed in royal state
And seated on my father’s throne.
I thought, ‘Shall I this boon deny?’
And said—and ’twas a paltry thing:
‘I’ll show the fools just once that I
‘Can look, as well as be, a king.’

They dusted out the castle old,
And from the closet and the chest
They dug the jewels set in gold—
The crown and robes and all the rest.
They came with eyes like stars of night,
With diamonds set in raven hair,
They came with arms and bosoms white—
And, Oh my God! but one was fair!

They dressed me as the kings had been,
The ancient royal purple spread,
And one that was to be my queen,
She placed the circlet on my head.
They pressed their hearts and bowed to me,
They knelt with arms uplifted all.
I felt the rush of vanity—
The pride that goes before the fall.

And then the banquet and the wine
With Satan’s music and the glance
Of siren eyes. Those captains mine
Were reeling in the maddening dance:
A finger writing on the wall,
While girls sang as the angels sing—
A drunken boaster in the hall,
The fool that used to be a king.
I rose again—no matter how—
A woman, and a deeper fall—
I move amongst my people now
The most degraded of them all.
But, if in centuries to come,
I live once more and claim my own,
I’ll see my subjects blind and dumb
Before they set me on a throne

poem by Henry Lawson
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The Vagabond

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
If one of them waves for me.
A roving, roaming life is mine,
Ever by field or flood --
For not far back in my father's line
Was a dash of the Gipsy blood.

Flax and tussock and fern,
Gum and mulga and sand,
Reef and palm -- but my fancies turn
Ever away from land;
Strange wild cities in ancient state,
Range and river and tree,
Snow and ice. But my star of fate
Is ever across the sea.

A god-like ride on a thundering sea,
When all but the stars are blind --
A desperate race from Eternity
With a gale-and-a-half behind.
A jovial spree in the cabin at night,
A song on the rolling deck,
A lark ashore with the ships in sight,
Till -- a wreck goes down with a wreck.

A smoke and a yarn on the deck by day,
When life is a waking dream,
And care and trouble so far away
That out of your life they seem.
A roving spirit in sympathy,
Who has travelled the whole world o'er --
My heart forgets, in a week at sea,
The trouble of years on shore.

A rolling stone! -- 'tis a saw for slaves --
Philosophy false as old --
Wear out or break 'neath the feet of knaves,
Or rot in your bed of mould!
But I'D rather trust to the darkest skies
And the wildest seas that roar,
Or die, where the stars of Nations rise,
In the stormy clouds of war.

Cleave to your country, home, and friends,
Die in a sordid strife --
You can count your friends on your finger ends
In the critical hours of life.
Sacrifice all for the family's sake,
Bow to their selfish rule!
Slave till your big soft heart they break --
The heart of the family fool.

Domestic quarrels, and family spite,
And your Native Land may be
Controlled by custom, but, come what might,
The rest of the world for me.
I'd sail with money, or sail without! --
If your love be forced from home,
And you dare enough, and your heart be stout,
The world is your own to roam.

I've never a love that can sting my pride,
Nor a friend to prove untrue;
For I leave my love ere the turning tide,
And my friends are all too new.
The curse of the Powers on a peace like ours,
With its greed and its treachery --
A stranger's hand, and a stranger land,
And the rest of the world for me!

But why be bitter? The world is cold
To one with a frozen heart;
New friends are often so like the old,
They seem of the past a part --
As a better part of the past appears,
When enemies, parted long,
Are come together in kinder years,
With their better nature strong.

I had a friend, ere my first ship sailed,
A friend that I never deserved --
For the selfish strain in my blood prevailed
As soon as my turn was served.
And the memory haunts my heart with shame --
Or, rather, the pride that's there;
In different guises, but soul the same,
I meet him everywhere.

I had a chum. When the times were tight
We starved in Australian scrubs;
We froze together in parks at night,
And laughed together in pubs.
And I often hear a laugh like his
From a sense of humour keen,
And catch a glimpse in a passing phiz
Of his broad, good-humoured grin.

And I had a love -- 'twas a love to prize --
But I never went back again . . .
I have seen the light of her kind brown eyes
In many a face since then.

. . . . .

The sailors say 'twill be rough to-night,
As they fasten the hatches down,
The south is black, and the bar is white,
And the drifting smoke is brown.
The gold has gone from the western haze,
The sea-birds circle and swarm --
But we shall have plenty of sunny days,
And little enough of storm.

The hill is hiding the short black pier,
As the last white signal's seen;
The points run in, and the houses veer,
And the great bluff stands between.
So darkness swallows each far white speck
On many a wharf and quay.
The night comes down on a restless deck, --
Grim cliffs -- and -- The Open Sea!

poem by Henry Lawson
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Bourke

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—
They all lead on, or they lead back, to Bourke in Ninety-one, and two.
No sign that green grass ever grew in scrubs that blazed beneath the sun;
The plains were dust in Ninety-two, that baked to bricks in Ninety-one.
On glaring iron-roofs of Bourke, the scorching, blinding sandstorms blew,
And there was nothing beautiful in Ninety-one and Ninety-two.

Save grit and generosity of hearts that broke and healed again—
The hottest drought that ever blazed could never parch the hearts of men;
And they were men in spite of all, and they were straight, and they were true,
The hat went round at trouble’s call, in Ninety-one and Ninety-two.

They drank, when all is said and done, they gambled, and their speech was rough—
You’d only need to say of one—‘He was my mate!’ that was enough.
To hint a bushman was not white, nor to his Union straight and true,
Would mean a long and bloody fight in Ninety-one and Ninety-two.

The yard behind the Shearers’ Arms was reckoned best of battle grounds,
And there in peace and quietness they fought their ten or fifteen rounds;
And then they washed the blood away, and then shook hands, as strong men do—
And washed away the bitterness—in Ninety-one and Ninety-two.

The Army on the grand old creek was mighty in those days gone by,
For they had sisters who could shriek, and brothers who could testify;
And by the muddy waterholes, they tackled sin till all was blue—
They took our bobs and damned our souls in Ninety-one and Ninety-two.

By shanty bars and shearing sheds, they took their toll and did their work—
But now and then they lost their heads, and raved of hotter hells than Bourke:
The only message from the dead that ever came distinctly through—
Was—‘Send my overcoat to hell’—it came to Bourke in Ninety-two.

I know they drank, and fought, and died—some fighting fiends on blazing tracks—
I don’t remember that they lied, or crawled behind each others’ backs;
I don’t remember that they loafed, or left a mate to battle through—
Ah! men knew how to stick to men in Ninety-one and Ninety-two.

They’re scattered wide and scattered far—by fan-like tracks, north, east, and west—
The cruel New Australian star drew off the bravest and the best.
The Cape and Klondyke claim their bones, the streets of London damned a few,
And jingo-cursed Australia mourns for Ninety-one and Ninety-two.

For ever westward in the land, Australians hear—and will not heed—
The murmur of the board-room, and the sure and stealthy steps of greed—
Bourke was a fortress on the track! and garrisons were grim and true
To hold the spoilers from Out Back, in Ninety-one and Ninety-two.

I hear it in the ridges lone, and in the dread drought-stricken wild—
I hear at times a woman’s moan—the whimper of a hungry child:
And—let the cynics say the word: ‘a godless gang, a drunken crew’—
But these were things I never heard in Ninety-one and Ninety-two.

They say that things have changed out there, and western towns have altered quite:
They don’t know how to drink and swear, they’ve half forgotten how to fight;
They’ve almost lost the strength to trust, the faith in mateship to be true—
The heart that grew in drought and dust in Ninety-one and Ninety-two.
We’ve learned to laugh the bitter laugh since then—we’ve travelled, you and I;
The sneaking little paragraph, the dirty trick, the whispered lie
Are known to us—the little men—whose souls are rotten through and through—
We called them scabs and crawlers then, in Ninety-one and Ninety-two.

And could I roll the summers back, or bring the dead time on again;
Or from the grave or world-wide track, call back to Bourke the vanished men,
With mind content I’d go to sleep, and leave those mates to judge me true,
And leave my name to Bourke to keep—the Bourke of Ninety-one and two.

poem by Henry Lawson
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Song of the Dardanelles

The Wireless tells and the cable tells
How our boys behaved by the Dardanelles.
Some thought in their hearts “Will our boys make good?”
We knew them of old and we knew they would!
Knew they would—
Knew they would;
We were mates of old and we knew they would.
They laughed and they larked and they loved likewise,
For blood is warm under Southern skies;
They knew not Pharoah (’tis understood),
And they got into scrapes, as we knew they would.
Knew they would—
Knew they would;
And they got into scrapes, as we knew they would.

They chafed in the dust of an old dead land
At the long months’ drill in the scorching sand;
But they knew in their hearts it was for their good,
And they saw it through as we knew they would.
Knew they would—
Knew they would;
And they saw it through as we knew they would.

The Coo-ee called through the Mena Camp,
And an army roared like the Ocean’s tramp
On a gale-swept beach in her wildest mood,
Till the Pyramids shook as we knew they would.
Knew they would—
Knew they would.
(And the Sphinx woke up as we knew she would.)

They were shipped like sheep when the dawn was grey;
(But their officers knew that no lambs were they).
They squatted and perched where’er they could,
And they “blanky-ed” for joy as we knew they would.
Knew they would—
Knew they would;
They “blanky-ed” for joy as we knew they would.

The sea was hell and the shore was hell,
With mine, entanglement, shrapnel and shell,
But they stormed the heights as Australians should,
And they fought and they died as we knew they would.
Knew they would—
Knew they would;
They fought and they died as we knew they would.

From the southern hills and the city lanes,
From the sandwaste lone and the Blacksoil Plains;
The youngest and strongest of England’s brood!—
They’ll win for the South as we knew they would.
Knew they would—
Knew they would;
They’ll win for the South as we knew they would.

poem by Henry Lawson
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Then and Now

"Build me a nation," said the Lord.
The distant nations heard the word,
Build me a nation true and strong,
Bar out the old world's hate and wrong;
For men had traced with blood and tears
The trail of weary wasting years,
And torn and bleeding martyrs trod
Through fire and torture up to God.

While in the hollow of his hand
God hid the secret of our land,
Men warred against their fiercest foes,
And kingdoms fell and empires rose,
Till, weary of the old world strife,
Men sought for broader, freer life,
And plunged into the ocean's foam
To find another, better home.

And, like a vision fair and bright
The new world broke upon their sight.
Men grasped the prize, grew proud and strong,
And cursed the land with crime and wrong.
The Indian stood despoiled of lands,
The Negro bound with servile bands,
Oppressed through weary years of toil,
His blood and tears bedewed the soil.

Then God arose in dreadful wrath,
And judgment streamed around his path;
His hand the captive's fetters broke,
His lightnings shattered every yoke.
As Israel through the Red sea trod,
Led by the mighty hand of God,
They passed to freedom through a flood,
Whose every wave and surge was blood.

And slavery, with its crime and shame,
Went down in wrath and blood and flame
The land was billowed-o'er with graves
Where men had lived and died as slaves.
Four and thirty years -- what change since
then!
Beings once chattles now are men;
Over the gloom of slavery's night,
Has flashed the dawn of freedom's light.

To-day no mother with anguish wild
Kneels and implores that her darling child
Shall not be torn from her bleeding heart,
With its quivering tendrils rent apart.
The father may soothe his child to sleep,
And watch his slumbers calm and deep.
No tyrant's tread will disturb his rest
Where freedom dwells as a welcome guest.

His walls may be bare of pictured grace,
His fireside the lowliest place;
But the wife and children sheltered there
Are his to defend and guard with care.
Where haughty tyrants once bore rule
Are ballot-box and public school.
The old slave-pen of former days
Gives place to fanes of prayer and praise.

To-night we would bring our meed of praise
To noble friends of darker days;
The men and women crowned with light,
The true and tried in our gloomy night.
To Lundy, whose heart was early stirred
To speak for freedom an earnest word;
To Garrison, valiant, true and strong,
Whose face was as flint against our wrong.

And Phillips, the peerless, grand and brave,
A tower of strength to the outcast slave.
Earth has no marble too pure and white
To enrol his name in golden light.
Our Douglass, too, with his massive brain,
Who plead our cause with his broken chain,
And helped to hurl from his bloody seat
The curse that writhed and died at his feet.

And Governor Andrew, who, looking back,
Saw none he despised, though poor and black;
And Harriet Beecher, whose glowing pen
Corroded the chains of fettered men.
To-night with greenest laurels we'll crown
North Elba's grave where sleeps John Brown,
Who made the gallows an altar high,
And showed how a brave old man could die.
And Lincoln, our martyred President,
Who returned to his God with chains he had rent.*
And Sumner, amid death's icy chill,
Leaving to Hoar his Civil Rights Bill.
And let us remember old underground,
With all her passengers northward bound,
The train that ran till it ceased to pay,
With all her dividends given away.
Nor let it be said that we have forgot
The women who stood with Lucretia Mott;
Nor her who to the world was known
By the simple name of Lucy stone.
A tribute unto a host of others
Who knew that men though black were brothers,
Who battled against our nation's sin,
Whose graves are thick whose ranks are thin.
Oh, people chastened in the fire,
To nobler, grander things aspire;

In the new era of your life,
Bring love for hate, and peace for strife;
Upon your hearts this vow record
That ye will build unto the Lord
A nobler future, true and grand,
To strengthen, crown and bless the land.
A higher freedom ye may gain
Than that which comes from a riven chain;
Freedom your native land to bless
With peace, and love and righteousness,
As dreams that are past, a tale all told,
Are the days when men were bought and sold;
Now God be praised from sea to sea,
Our flag floats o'er a country free.

poem by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
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Did you?

Did you see the thoughts of my heart,
When tired, exausted, nearly frustrated,
Yet strong, with the head towards the stars,
I was working for your low rating?
Did you hear the whisper of your soul,
Ashamed, weak from lies and the fraud?
They both had thought you
were bolder,
They both were sure you were better brought,
But they were mistaken and upset:
Your better ego seems to be now dead.
Ivan Petryshyn Chicago Poetry SPJ

poem by Ivan Petryshyn
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My Army, O, My Army!

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;
I heard them as a Young Man—and I am growing old!
My army, O, my army! The signs are manifold!
My army, O, my army! My army and my Queen!
I used to sing your battle-songs when I was seventeen!
They came to me from ages, they came from far and near;
They came to me from Paris, they came to me from Here!—
They came when I was marching with the Army of the Rear.

My Queen’s dark eyes were flashing (oh, she was younger then!);
My Queen’s Red Cap was redder than the reddest blood of men!
My Queen marched like an Amazon, with anger manifest—
Her dark hair darkly matted from a knifegash in her breast
(For blood will flow where milk will not—her sisters knew the rest).

My legions ne’er were listed, they had no need to be;
My army ne’er was trained in arms—’twas trained in misery!
It took long years to mould it, but war could never drown
The shuffling of my army’s feet in the hunger-haunted town—
A little child was murdered, and so Tyranny went down.

My army kept no order, my army kept no time;
My army dug no trenches, yet died in dust and slime;
Its troops were fiercely ignorant, as to the manner born;
Its clothes were rags and tatters, or patches worn and torn—
Ah, me! It wore a uniform that I have often worn!

The faces of my army were ghastly as the dead;
My army’s cause was Hunger, my army’s cry was “Bread!”
It called on God and Mary and Christ of Nazareth;
It cried to kings and courtesans that fainted at its breath—
Its women beat their poor, flat breasts where babes had starved to death.

My army! My army—I hear the sound of drums
Above the roar of battles—and, lo! my army comes!
Nor creed of man may stay it—nor war, nor nation’s law—
The pikes go through the firing-lines as pitchforks go through straw—
Like pitchforks through the litter, while empires stand in awe.

poem by Henry Lawson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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