The City Bushman
It was pleasant up the country, City Bushman, where you went,
For you sought the greener patches and you travelled like a gent;
And you curse the trams and buses and the turmoil and the push,
Though you know the squalid city needn't keep you from the bush;
But we lately heard you singing of the `plains where shade is not',
And you mentioned it was dusty -- `all was dry and all was hot'.
True, the bush `hath moods and changes' -- and the bushman hath 'em, too,
For he's not a poet's dummy -- he's a man, the same as you;
But his back is growing rounder -- slaving for the absentee --
And his toiling wife is thinner than a country wife should be.
For we noticed that the faces of the folks we chanced to meet
Should have made a greater contrast to the faces in the street;
And, in short, we think the bushman's being driven to the wall,
And it's doubtful if his spirit will be `loyal thro' it all'.
Though the bush has been romantic and it's nice to sing about,
There's a lot of patriotism that the land could do without --
Sort of BRITISH WORKMAN nonsense that shall perish in the scorn
Of the drover who is driven and the shearer who is shorn,
Of the struggling western farmers who have little time for rest,
And are ruined on selections in the sheep-infested West;
Droving songs are very pretty, but they merit little thanks
From the people of a country in possession of the Banks.
And the `rise and fall of seasons' suits the rise and fall of rhyme,
But we know that western seasons do not run on schedule time;
For the drought will go on drying while there's anything to dry,
Then it rains until you'd fancy it would bleach the sunny sky --
Then it pelters out of reason, for the downpour day and night
Nearly sweeps the population to the Great Australian Bight.
It is up in Northern Queensland that the seasons do their best,
But it's doubtful if you ever saw a season in the West;
There are years without an autumn or a winter or a spring,
There are broiling Junes, and summers when it rains like anything.
In the bush my ears were opened to the singing of the bird,
But the `carol of the magpie' was a thing I never heard.
Once the beggar roused my slumbers in a shanty, it is true,
But I only heard him asking, `Who the blanky blank are you?'
And the bell-bird in the ranges -- but his `silver chime' is harsh
When it's heard beside the solo of the curlew in the marsh.
Yes, I heard the shearers singing `William Riley', out of tune,
Saw 'em fighting round a shanty on a Sunday afternoon,
But the bushman isn't always `trapping brumbies in the night',
Nor is he for ever riding when `the morn is fresh and bright',
And he isn't always singing in the humpies on the run --
And the camp-fire's `cheery blazes' are a trifle overdone;
We have grumbled with the bushmen round the fire on rainy days,
When the smoke would blind a bullock and there wasn't any blaze,
Save the blazes of our language, for we cursed the fire in turn
Till the atmosphere was heated and the wood began to burn.
Then we had to wring our blueys which were rotting in the swags,
And we saw the sugar leaking through the bottoms of the bags,
And we couldn't raise a chorus, for the toothache and the cramp,
While we spent the hours of darkness draining puddles round the camp.
Would you like to change with Clancy -- go a-droving? tell us true,
For we rather think that Clancy would be glad to change with you,
And be something in the city; but 'twould give your muse a shock
To be losing time and money through the foot-rot in the flock,
And you wouldn't mind the beauties underneath the starry dome
If you had a wife and children and a lot of bills at home.
Did you ever guard the cattle when the night was inky-black,
And it rained, and icy water trickled gently down your back
Till your saddle-weary backbone fell a-aching to the roots
And you almost felt the croaking of the bull-frog in your boots --
Sit and shiver in the saddle, curse the restless stock and cough
Till a squatter's irate dummy cantered up to warn you off?
Did you fight the drought and pleuro when the `seasons' were asleep,
Felling sheoaks all the morning for a flock of starving sheep,
Drinking mud instead of water -- climbing trees and lopping boughs
For the broken-hearted bullocks and the dry and dusty cows?
Do you think the bush was better in the `good old droving days',
When the squatter ruled supremely as the king of western ways,
When you got a slip of paper for the little you could earn,
But were forced to take provisions from the station in return --
When you couldn't keep a chicken at your humpy on the run,
For the squatter wouldn't let you -- and your work was never done;
When you had to leave the missus in a lonely hut forlorn
While you `rose up Willy Riley' -- in the days ere you were born?
Ah! we read about the drovers and the shearers and the like
Till we wonder why such happy and romantic fellows strike.
Don't you fancy that the poets ought to give the bush a rest
Ere they raise a just rebellion in the over-written West?
Where the simple-minded bushman gets a meal and bed and rum
Just by riding round reporting phantom flocks that never come;
Where the scalper -- never troubled by the `war-whoop of the push' --
Has a quiet little billet -- breeding rabbits in the bush;
Where the idle shanty-keeper never fails to make a draw,
And the dummy gets his tucker through provisions in the law;
Where the labour-agitator -- when the shearers rise in might --
Makes his money sacrificing all his substance for The Right;
Where the squatter makes his fortune, and `the seasons rise and fall',
And the poor and honest bushman has to suffer for it all;
Where the drovers and the shearers and the bushmen and the rest
Never reach the Eldorado of the poets of the West.
And you think the bush is purer and that life is better there,
But it doesn't seem to pay you like the `squalid street and square'.
Pray inform us, City Bushman, where you read, in prose or verse,
Of the awful `city urchin who would greet you with a curse'.
There are golden hearts in gutters, though their owners lack the fat,
And we'll back a teamster's offspring to outswear a city brat.
Do you think we're never jolly where the trams and buses rage?
Did you hear the gods in chorus when `Ri-tooral' held the stage?
Did you catch a ring of sorrow in the city urchin's voice
When he yelled for Billy Elton, when he thumped the floor for Royce?
Do the bushmen, down on pleasure, miss the everlasting stars
When they drink and flirt and so on in the glow of private bars?
You've a down on `trams and buses', or the `roar' of 'em, you said,
And the `filthy, dirty attic', where you never toiled for bread.
(And about that self-same attic -- Lord! wherever have you been?
For the struggling needlewoman mostly keeps her attic clean.)
But you'll find it very jolly with the cuff-and-collar push,
And the city seems to suit you, while you rave about the bush.
. . . . .
You'll admit that Up-the Country, more especially in drought,
Isn't quite the Eldorado that the poets rave about,
Yet at times we long to gallop where the reckless bushman rides
In the wake of startled brumbies that are flying for their hides;
Long to feel the saddle tremble once again between our knees
And to hear the stockwhips rattle just like rifles in the trees!
Long to feel the bridle-leather tugging strongly in the hand
And to feel once more a little like a native of the land.
And the ring of bitter feeling in the jingling of our rhymes
Isn't suited to the country nor the spirit of the times.
Let us go together droving, and returning, if we live,
Try to understand each other while we reckon up the div.
poem by Henry Lawson
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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
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Clancy of the Overflow
Clancy of the Overflow ...
I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better
Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan, years ago,
He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him,
Just "on spec", addressed as follows, "Clancy, of The Overflow".
And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected,
(And I think the same was written with a thumb-nail dipped in tar)
Twas his shearing mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it:
"Clancy's gone to Queensland droving, and we don't know where he are."
In my wild erratic fancy visions come to me of Clancy
Gone a-droving "down the Cooper" where the Western drovers go;
As the stock are slowly stringing, Clancy rides behind them singing,
For the drover's life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know.
And the bush hath friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him
In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars,
And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended,
And at night the wond'rous glory of the everlasting stars.
I am sitting in my dingy little office, where a stingy
Ray of sunlight struggles feebly down between the houses tall,
And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty city
Through the open window floating, spreads its foulness over all
And in place of lowing cattle, I can hear the fiendish rattle
Of the tramways and the buses making hurry down the street,
And the language uninviting of the gutter children fighting,
Comes fitfully and faintly through the ceaseless tramp of feet.
And the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt me
As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste,
With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy,
For townsfolk have no time to grow, they have no time to waste.
And I somehow rather fancy that I'd like to change with Clancy,
Like to take a turn at droving where the seasons come and go,
While he faced the round eternal of the cash-book and the journal --
But I doubt he'd suit the office, Clancy, of "The Overflow".
Banjo Paterson
poem by Andrew Barton Paterson
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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
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Up The Country
I am back from up the country -- very sorry that I went --
Seeking for the Southern poets' land whereon to pitch my tent;
I have lost a lot of idols, which were broken on the track,
Burnt a lot of fancy verses, and I'm glad that I am back.
Further out may be the pleasant scenes of which our poets boast,
But I think the country's rather more inviting round the coast.
Anyway, I'll stay at present at a boarding-house in town,
Drinking beer and lemon-squashes, taking baths and cooling down.
`Sunny plains'! Great Scott! -- those burning
wastes of barren soil and sand
With their everlasting fences stretching out across the land!
Desolation where the crow is! Desert where the eagle flies,
Paddocks where the luny bullock starts and stares with reddened eyes;
Where, in clouds of dust enveloped, roasted bullock-drivers creep
Slowly past the sun-dried shepherd dragged behind his crawling sheep.
Stunted peak of granite gleaming, glaring like a molten mass
Turned from some infernal furnace on a plain devoid of grass.
Miles and miles of thirsty gutters -- strings of muddy water-holes
In the place of `shining rivers' -- `walled by cliffs and forest boles.'
Barren ridges, gullies, ridges! where the ever-madd'ning flies --
Fiercer than the plagues of Egypt -- swarm about your blighted eyes!
Bush! where there is no horizon! where the buried bushman sees
Nothing -- Nothing! but the sameness of the ragged, stunted trees!
Lonely hut where drought's eternal, suffocating atmosphere
Where the God-forgotten hatter dreams of city life and beer.
Treacherous tracks that trap the stranger,
endless roads that gleam and glare,
Dark and evil-looking gullies, hiding secrets here and there!
Dull dumb flats and stony rises, where the toiling bullocks bake,
And the sinister `gohanna', and the lizard, and the snake.
Land of day and night -- no morning freshness, and no afternoon,
When the great white sun in rising bringeth summer heat in June.
Dismal country for the exile, when the shades begin to fall
From the sad heart-breaking sunset, to the new-chum worst of all.
Dreary land in rainy weather, with the endless clouds that drift
O'er the bushman like a blanket that the Lord will never lift --
Dismal land when it is raining -- growl of floods, and, oh! the woosh
Of the rain and wind together on the dark bed of the bush --
Ghastly fires in lonely humpies where the granite rocks are piled
In the rain-swept wildernesses that are wildest of the wild.
Land where gaunt and haggard women live alone and work like men,
Till their husbands, gone a-droving, will return to them again:
Homes of men! if home had ever such a God-forgotten place,
Where the wild selector's children fly before a stranger's face.
Home of tragedy applauded by the dingoes' dismal yell,
Heaven of the shanty-keeper -- fitting fiend for such a hell --
And the wallaroos and wombats, and, of course, the curlew's call --
And the lone sundowner tramping ever onward through it all!
I am back from up the country, up the country where I went
Seeking for the Southern poets' land whereon to pitch my tent;
I have shattered many idols out along the dusty track,
Burnt a lot of fancy verses -- and I'm glad that I am back.
I believe the Southern poets' dream will not be realised
Till the plains are irrigated and the land is humanised.
I intend to stay at present, as I said before, in town
Drinking beer and lemon-squashes, taking baths and cooling down.
poem by Henry Lawson
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An answer to Various Bards
Well, I've waited mighty patient while they all came rolling in,
Mister Lawson, Mister Dyson, and the others of their kin,
With their dreadful, dismal stories of the Overlander's camp,
How his fire is always smoky, and his boots are always damp;
And they paint it so terrific it would fill one's soul with gloom --
But you know they're fond of writing about "corpses" and "the tomb".
So, before they curse the bushland, they should let their fancy range,
And take something for their livers, and be cheerful for a change.
Now, for instance, Mr Lawson -- well, of course, we almost cried
At the sorrowful description how his "little 'Arvie" died,
And we lachrymosed in silence when "His Father's mate" was slain;
Then he went and killed the father, and we had to weep again.
Ben Duggan and Jack Denver, too, he caused them to expire,
After which he cooked the gander of Jack Dunn, of Nevertire;
And, no doubt, the bush is wretched if you judge it by the groan
Of the sad and soulful poet with a graveyard of his own.
And he spoke in terms prophetic of a revolution's heat,
When the world should hear the clamour of those people in the street;
But the shearer chaps who start it -- why, he rounds on them the blame,
And he calls 'em "agitators who are living on the game".
Bur I "over-write" the bushmen! Well, I own without a doubt
That I always see the hero in the "man from furthest out".
I could never contemplate him through an atmosphere of gloom,
And a bushman never struck me as a subject for "the tomb".
If it ain't all "golden sunshine" where the "wattle branches wave",
Well, it ain't all damp and dismal, and it ain't all "lonely grave".
And, of course, there's no denying that the bushman's life is rough,
But a man can easy stand it if he's built of sterling stuff;
Though it's seldom that the drover gets a bed of eiderdown,
Yet the man who's born a bushman, he gets mighty sick of town,
For he's jotting down the figures, and he's adding up the bills
While his heart is simply aching for a sight of Southern hills.
Then he hears a wool-team passing with a rumble and a lurch,
And, although the work is pressing, yet it brings him off his perch,
For it stirs him like a message from his station friends afar
And he seems to sniff the ranges in the scent of wool and tar;
And it takes him back in fancy, half in laughter, half in tears,
to a sound of other voices and a thought of other years,
When the woolshed rang with bustle from the dawning of the day,
And the shear-blades were a-clicking to the cry of "Wool away!"
Then his face was somewhat browner, and his frame was firmer set --
And he feels his flabby muscles with a feeling of regret.
But the wool-team slowly passes, and his eyes go slowly back
To the dusty little table and the papers in the rack,
And his thoughts go to the terrace where his sickly children squall,
And he thinks there's something healthy in the bush-life after all.
But we'll go no more a-droving in the wind or in the sun,
For out fathers' hearts have failed us, and the droving days are done.
There's a nasty dash of danger where the long-horned bullock wheels,
And we like to live in comfort and to get our reg'lar meals.
For to hang around the township suits us better, you'll agree,
And a job at washing bottles is the job for such as we.
Let us herd into the cities, let us crush and crowd and push
Till we lose the love of roving, and we learn to hate the bush;
And we'll turn our aspirations to a city life and beer,
And we'll slip across to England -- it's a nicer place than here;
For there's not much risk of hardship where all comforts are in store,
And the theatres are in plenty, and the pubs are more and more.
But that ends it, Mr Lawson, and it's time to say good-bye,
So we must agree to differ in all friendship, you and I.
Yes, we'll work our own salvation with the stoutest hearts we may,
And if fortune only favours we will take the road some day,
And go droving down the river 'neath the sunshine and the stars,
And then return to Sydney and vermilionize the bars.
poem by Andrew Barton Paterson
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Borderland
I am back from up the country -- very sorry that I went --
Seeking for the Southern poets' land whereon to pitch my tent;
I have lost a lot of idols, which were broken on the track --
Burnt a lot of fancy verses, and I'm glad that I am back.
Further out may be the pleasant scenes of which our poets boast,
But I think the country's rather more inviting round the coast --
Anyway, I'll stay at present at a boarding-house in town
Drinking beer and lemon-squashes, taking baths and cooling down.
Sunny plains! Great Scot! -- those burning wastes of barren soil and sand
With their everlasting fences stretching out across the land!
Desolation where the crow is! Desert! where the eagle flies,
Paddocks where the luny bullock starts and stares with reddened eyes;
Where, in clouds of dust enveloped, roasted bullock-drivers creep
Slowly past the sun-dried shepherd dragged behind his crawling sheep.
Stunted "peak" of granite gleaming, glaring! like a molten mass
Turned, from some infernal furnace, on a plain devoid of grass.
Miles and miles of thirsty gutters -- strings of muddy waterholes
In the place of "shining rivers" (walled by cliffs and forest boles).
"Range!" of ridgs, gullies, ridges, barren! where the madden'd flies --
Fiercer than the plagues of Egypt -- swarm about your blighted eyes!
Bush! where there is no horizon! where the buried bushman sees
Nothing. Nothing! but the maddening sameness of the stunted trees!
Lonely hut where drought's eternal -- suffocating atmosphere --
Where the God forgottcn hatter dreams of city-life and beer.
Treacherous tracks that trap the stranger, endless roads that gleam and glare,
Dark and evil-looking gullies -- hiding secrets here and there!
Dull, dumb flats and stony "rises," where the bullocks sweat and bake,
And the sinister "gohanna," and the lizard, and the snake.
Land of day and night -- no morning freshness, and no afternoon,
For the great, white sun in rising brings with him the heat of noon.
Dismal country for the exile, when the shades begin to fall
From the sad, heart-breaking sunset, to the new-chum, worst of all.
Dreary land in rainy weather, with the endless clouds that drift
O'er the bushman like a blanket that the Lord will never lift --
Dismal land when it is raining -- growl of floods and oh! the "woosh"
Of the rain and wind together on the dark bed of the bush --
Ghastly fires in lonely humpies where the granite rocks are pil'd
On the rain-swept wildernesses that are wildest of the wild.
Land where gaunt and haggard women live alone and work like men,
Till their husbands, gone a-droving, will return to them again --
Homes of men! if homes had ever such a God-forgotten place,
Where the wild selector's children fly before a stranger's face.
Home of tragedy applauded by the dingoes' dismal yell,
Heaven of the shanty-keeper -- fitting fiend for such a hell --
And the wallaroos and wombats, and, of course, the "curlew's call" --
And the lone sundowner tramping ever onward thro' it all!
I am back from up the country -- up the country where I went
Seeking for the Southern poets' land whereon to pitch my tent;
I have left a lot of broken idols out along the track,
Burnt a lot of fancy verses -- and I'm glad that I am back --
I believe the Southern poet's dream will not be realised
Till the plains are irrigated and the land is humanised.
I intend to stay at present -- as I said before -- in town
Drinking beer and lemon-squashes -- taking baths and cooling down.
poem by Henry Lawson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Somewhere Up In Queensland
He's somewhere up in Queensland,
The old folks used to say;
He’s somewhere up in Queensland,
The people say to-day.
But Somewhere (up in Queensland)
That uncle used to know—
That filled our hearts with wonder,
Seems vanished long ago.
He’s gone to Queensland, droving,
The old folks used to say;
He’s gone to Queensland, droving,
The people say to-day.
But “gone to Queensland, droving,”
Might mean, in language plain,
He follows stock in buggies,
And gets supplies by train.
He’s knocking round in Queensland,
The old folks used to say;
He’s gone to Queensland, roving,
His sweetheart says to-day.
But “gone to Queensland, roving”
By mighty plain and scrub,
Might mean he drives a motor-car
For Missus Moneygrub.
He’s looking for new country,
The old folks used to say;
Our boy has gone exploring,
Fond parents say to-day.
“Exploring” out in Queensland
Might only mean to some
He’s salesman in “the drapery”
Of a bush emporium.
To somewhere up in Queensland
Went Tom and Ted and Jack;
From somewhere up in Queensland
The dusty cheques come back:
From somewhere up in Queensland
Brown drovers used to come,
And someone up in Queensland
Kept many a southern home.
Somewhere up in Queensland,
How many black sheep roam,
Who never write a letter,
And never think of home.
For someone up in Queensland
How many a mother spoke;
For someone up in Queensland
How many a girl’s heart broke.
poem by Henry Lawson
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The Shanty On The Rise
When the caravans of wool-teams climbed the ranges from the West,
On a spur among the mountains stood `The Bullock-drivers' Rest';
It was built of bark and saplings, and was rather rough inside,
But 'twas good enough for bushmen in the careless days that died --
Just a quiet little shanty kept by `Something-in-Disguise',
As the bushmen called the landlord of the Shanty on the Rise.
City swells who `do the Royal' would have called the Shanty low,
But 'twas better far and purer than some toney pubs I know;
For the patrons of the Shanty had the principles of men,
And the spieler, if he struck it, wasn't welcome there again.
You could smoke and drink in quiet, yarn, or else soliloquise,
With a decent lot of fellows in the Shanty on the Rise.
'Twas the bullock-driver's haven when his team was on the road,
And the waggon-wheels were groaning as they ploughed beneath the load;
And I mind how weary teamsters struggled on while it was light,
Just to camp within a cooey of the Shanty for the night;
And I think the very bullocks raised their heads and fixed their eyes
On the candle in the window of the Shanty on the Rise.
And the bullock-bells were clanking from the marshes on the flats
As we hurried to the Shanty, where we hung our dripping hats;
And we took a drop of something that was brought at our desire,
As we stood with steaming moleskins in the kitchen by the fire.
Oh! it roared upon a fireplace of the good, old-fashioned size,
When the rain came down the chimney of the Shanty on the Rise.
They got up a Christmas party in the Shanty long ago,
While I camped with Jimmy Nowlett on the riverbank below;
Poor old Jim was in his glory -- they'd elected him M.C.,
For there wasn't such another raving lunatic as he.
`Mr. Nowlett, Mr. Swaller!' shouted Something-in-Disguise,
As we walked into the parlour of the Shanty on the Rise.
There is little real pleasure in the city where I am --
There's a swarry round the corner with its mockery and sham;
But a fellow can be happy when around the room he whirls
In a party up the country with the jolly country girls.
Why, at times I almost fancied I was dancing on the skies,
When I danced with Mary Carey in the Shanty on the Rise.
Jimmy came to me and whispered, and I muttered, `Go along!'
But he shouted, `Mr. Swaller will oblige us with a song!'
And at first I said I wouldn't, and I shammed a little too,
Till the girls began to whisper, `Mr. Swallow, now, ah, DO!'
So I sang a song of something 'bout the love that never dies,
And the chorus shook the rafters of the Shanty on the Rise.
Jimmy burst his concertina, and the bullock-drivers went
For the corpse of Joe the Fiddler, who was sleeping in his tent;
Joe was tired and had lumbago, and he wouldn't come, he said,
But the case was very urgent, so they pulled him out of bed;
And they fetched him, for the bushmen knew that Something-in-Disguise
Had a cure for Joe's lumbago in the Shanty on the Rise.
Jim and I were rather quiet while escorting Mary home,
'Neath the stars that hung in clusters, near and distant, from the dome;
And we walked so very silent -- being lost in reverie --
That we heard the settlers'-matches rustle softly on the tree;
And I wondered who would win her when she said her sweet good-byes --
But she died at one-and-twenty, and was buried on the Rise.
I suppose the Shanty vanished from the ranges long ago,
And the girls are mostly married to the chaps I used to know;
My old chums are in the distance -- some have crossed the border-line,
But in fancy still their glasses chink against the rim of mine.
And, upon the very centre of the greenest spot that lies
In my fondest recollection, stands the Shanty on the Rise.
poem by Henry Lawson
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The Swagless Swaggie
This happened many years ago
Before the bush was cleared,
When every man was six foot high
And wore a flowing beard.
One very hot and windy day,
Along the old coach road,
Towards Joe Murphy’s halfway house
A bearded bushman strode.
He was a huge and heavy man,
Well over six foot high,
An old slouch hat was on his head,
And murder in his eye.
No billy can was in his hand,
No heavy swag he bore,
But deep and awful were the oaths
That swagless swaggie swore.
At last he reached the shanty door,
Into the bar he burst,
He dumped his hat upon the floor,
And cursed and cursed and cursed.
A neighboring shed had just cut out;
The bar was nearly full
Of shearers and of bullockies
Who’d come to cart the wool.
They were a rough and ready lot,
The bushmen gathered there,
But every man was stricken dumb,
To hear the stranger swear.
He cursed the bush, he cursed mankind,
The whole wide universe.
It froze their very blood to hear
That swagless swaggie curse.
Joe Murphy seized an empty pot
And filled it brimming full.
The stranger raised it to his lips
And took a mighty pull.
This seemed to cool him down a bit;
He finished off the ale,
And to the crowd around the bar
He told his awful tale.
“I met the Ben Hall gang,” he said,
“The blankards stuck me up!
They pinched me billy, pinched me swag,
And pinched me flamin’ pup!
They turned me pockets inside out,
And took me only quid!
I never thought they’d pinch me pipe,
But swelp me gawd they did!
I spoke to ’em as man to man,
I said I’d fight ’em all;
I would have broke O’Mealleys neck,
And tanned the hide of Hall.
They only laughed, and said good-bye,
And rode away to brag
Of how they stuck a swaggie up
And robbed him of his swag.
“I never done ’em any harm,
I thought ’em decent chaps.
But now I wouldn’t raise a hand
To save ’em from the traps.
I’m finished with the bush for good,
I’m off to Wagga town
Where they won’t stick a swaggie up
Or take a swaggie down.
The bushmen were a decent lot,
As bushmen mostly are.
They filled the stranger up with beer;
The hat went round the bar.
The shearers threw some blankets in
To make another swag,
The rousers gave a billy can
And brand new tucker bag.
Joe Murphy gave a meerschaum pipe
He hadn’t smoked for years.
The stranger was too full of words,
His eyes were dim with tears.
The ringer shouted drinks all round
And then, to top it up,
The babbling brook, the shearers cook,
Gave him a kelpie pup.
Next day, an hour before the dawn,
The stranger took the track
Complete with pup and billy can,
His swag upon his back.
Along the most forsaken roads,
Intent on dodging graft,
He headed for the Great North West,
And laughed, and laughed and laughed.
poem by Edward Harrington
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Over the Ranges and Into the West
Let others sing praise of their sea-girted isles,
But give me the bush with its limitless miles;
Then it’s over the ranges and into the West,
To the scenes of wild boyhood; we love them the best.
We’ll ride and we’ll ride from the city afar,
To the plains where the cattle and sheep stations are;
Where stockmen ride hard, and the drover starts forth
On his long, lonely journey ’way up in the North.
When your money is low, and your luck has gone down,
There’s no place so lone as the streets of a town;
There’s nothing but worry, and dread and unrest,
So we’ll over the ranges and into the West.
The drought in the West may spread ruin around,
But the dread drought of life in the city is found;
And I’d far sooner tread on the long dusty way,
Where each one you meet says, “Good day, mate, good day.”
poem by Henry Lawson
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The Federal City
OH! the folly, the waste, and the pity! Oh, the time that is flung behind!
They are seeking a site for a city, whose eyes shall be always blind,
Whose love for their ease grows greater, and whose care for their country less—
They are seeking a site for a city—a City of Selfishness.
In ignorance, deafness, blindness, in the cities by the sea,
With waste of time and of money, and with local jealousy;
With Anti-Federal envy, and personal paltriness,
They are seeking a site for a city—while Australia moans in distress.
By the coast with the people crowding, where Australia’s danger lies,
By the hills and the clear, cool rivers, and under the softer skies,
Where the fat shall not melt, and the ranter grow cool in the fresh’ning breeze,
And the dwellers drivel in comfort and the boodlers swindle at ease.
They are seeking a site for a city in the beauty spots of the land,
While I see so plainly, my children, where the Federal towers should stand!
Where the heart of Australia beats strongest and highest in desert air.
Make a site for a Federal City, and build you your capital there!
Where the crowd should be drawn from the coast line to the great bush that cradled the race,
Where the bush might be armed and directed should the seaboard be lost for a space;
Where the waste should be watered and gardened, in the drought-land of Never Despair,
There build you your Federal City, and make you a paradise there.
It shall be a world-wide object-lesson; it shall stand while a bushman is true,
And I tell you the bushmen will build it to show what a nation can do;
And there shall Australia sit queenly, and there shall her children be schooled,
For, I say, from the heart of Australia shall the whole of Australia be ruled.
poem by Henry Lawson
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The Bush Fire
Ah, better the thud of the deadly gun, and the crash of the bursting shell,
Than the terrible silence where drought is fought out there in the western hell;
And better the rattle of rifles near, or the thunder on deck at sea,
Than the sound—most hellish of all to hear—of a fire where it should not be.
On the runs to the west of the Dingo Scrubs there was drought, and ruin, and death,
And the sandstorm came from the dread north-east with the blast of a furnace-breath;
Till at last one day, at the fierce sunrise, a boundary-rider woke,
And saw, in the place of the distant haze, a curtain of light blue smoke.
There is saddling-up by the cockey’s hut, and out in the station yard,
And away to the north, north-east, north-west, the bushmen are riding hard.
The pickets are out and many a scout, and many a mulga wire,
While Bill and Jim, with their faces grim, are riding to meet the fire.
It roars for days in the hopeless scrubs, and across, where the ground seems bare,
With a cackle and hiss, like the hissing of snakes, the fire is travelling there;
Till at last, exhausted by sleeplessness, and the terrible toil and heat,
The squatter is crying, ‘My God! the wool!’ and the farmer, ‘My God! the wheat!’
But there comes a drunkard (who reels as he rides), with the news from the roadside pub:—
‘Pat Murphy—the cockey—cut off by the fire!—way back in the Dingo Scrub!’
‘Let the wheat and the woolshed go to——’ Well, they do as each great heart bids;
They are riding a race for the Dingo Scrub—for Pat and his wife and kids.
And who is leading the race with death? An ill-matched three, you’ll allow;
Flash Jim the breaker and Boozing Bill (who is riding steadily now),
And Constable Dunn, of the Mounted Police, is riding between the two
(He wants Flash Jim, but the job can wait till they get the Murphys through).
As they strike the track through the blazing scrub, the trooper is heard to shout:
‘We’ll take them on to the Two-mile Tank, if we cannot bring them out!’
A half-mile more, and the rest rein back, retreating, half-choked, halfblind;
And the three are gone from the sight of men, and the bush fire roars behind.
The Bushman wiped the tears of smoke, and like Bushmen wept and swore;
‘Poor Bill will be wanting his drink to-night as never he did before.
‘And Dunn was the best in the whole damned force!’ says a client of Dunn’s, with pride;
I reckon he’ll serve his summons on Jim—when they get to the other side.
It is daylight again, and the fire is past, and the black scrub silent and grim,
Except for the blaze of an old dead tree, or the crash of a falling limb;
And the Bushmen are riding again on the run, with hearts and with eyes that fill,
To look for the bodies of Constable Dunn, Flash Jim, and Boozing Bill.
They are found in the mud of the Two-mile Tank, where a fiend might scarce survive,
But the Bushmen gather from words they hear that the bodies are much alive.
There is Swearing Pat, with his grey beard singed, and his language of lurid hue,
And his tough old wife, and his half-baked kids, and the three who dragged them through.
Old Pat is deploring his burnt-out home, and his wife the climate warm;
And Jim the loss of his favourite horse, and Dunn his uniform;
And Boozing Bill, with a raging thirst, is cursing the Dingo Scrub—
He’ll only ask for the loan of a flask and a lift to the nearest pub.
Flash Jim the Breaker is lying low—blue-paper is after him,
And Dunn, the trooper, is riding his rounds with a blind eye out for Jim,
And Boozing Bill is fighting D.Ts. in the township of Sudden Jerk—
When they’re wanted again in the Dingo Scrubs, they’ll be there to do the work.
poem by Henry Lawson
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Knights Of The Never Never
When I rode with young Sid Kidman out across the Yarrowie Plain
In that year the Long Drought ended, and the northlands smiled again
As we took the old Tarcowie track and on to Booleroo,
His keen eye scanned the country, and we yarned of men we knew:
Mal Murray and Jim Spicer, of Jasser and Judell,
Bill Mitchell and old stagers whom I still remember well;
And he told of chance-missed fortunes when the game was in his grasp,
Of life along The Barrier with German Charlie Rasp.
Now, back in Kidman country where the grizzled bushmen are,
In many a stark out-station, o'er many a shanty bar,
The drovers' drawling voices talk about 'Old Sid' today:
'Bushmen like him ain't raised no more,' the grizzled veterans say,
For o'er the furthest saltbush lands his questing mind went out
To glimpse high opportunity where others saw black drought.
Shrewd-eyed, yet greatly daring, laughing he ventured forth
To stake his luck, his judgment 'gainst swift treacheries 'up north.'
'I mind the time I rode with him,' a wizened stockman says.
'He knowed that country like a map, an' all the tricks an' ways.
'Aye, and he knowed the cattle game.' The voices drone and drawl,
Till, 'The time I rode for Kidman,' is the burden of them all.
'Deserved his luck? Too right he did, seein' how he began;
But times like them don't come again for us or any man.
Them meddlin' airyplans an' sich brings old days to an end.'
And so they mourn, no magnate, but a bushman and a friend.
So the best-known bushman passes in the fullness of his years;
And, with his passing, so an olden order disappears
Sid Kidman, Jimmy Tyson - rugged princes of Outback,
Who sought their fortunes far afield along the arid track;
Strong men who, taking heart of grace, unflinchingly rode forth
To play a rough, grim game, and win, against the stubborn North;
To become a land's tradition, future figures of romance,
Busmen who fought and loved their bush; the men who took a chance.
poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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Conroy's Gap
This was the way of it, don't you know --
Ryan was "wanted" for stealing sheep,
And never a trooper, high or low,
Could find him -- catch a weasel asleep!
Till Trooper Scott, from the Stockman's Ford --
A bushman, too, as I've heard them tell --
Chanced to find him drunk as a lord
Round at the Shadow of Death Hotel.
D'you know the place? It's a wayside inn,
A low grog-shanty -- a bushman trap,
Hiding away in its shame and sin
Under the shelter of Conroy's Gap --
Under the shade of that frowning range
The roughest crowd that ever drew breath --
Thieves and rowdies, uncouth and strange,
Were mustered round at the "Shadow of Death".
The trooper knew that his man would slide
Like a dingo pup, if he saw the chance;
And with half a start on the mountain side
Ryan would lead him a merry dance.
Drunk as he was when the trooper came,
to him that did not matter a rap --
Drunk or sober, he was the same,
The boldest rider in Conroy's Gap.
"I want you, Ryan," the trooper said,
"And listen to me, if you dare resist,
So help me heaven, I'll shoot you dead!"
He snapped the steel on his prisoner's wrist,
And Ryan, hearing the handcuffs click,
Recovered his wits as they turned to go,
For fright will sober a man as quick
As all the drugs that the doctors know.
There was a girl in that shanty bar
Went by the name of Kate Carew,
Quiet and shy as the bush girls are,
But ready-witted and plucky, too.
She loved this Ryan, or so they say,
And passing by, while her eyes were dim
With tears, she said in a careless way,
"The Swagman's round in the stable, Jim."
Spoken too low for the trooper's ear,
Why should she care if he heard or not?
Plenty of swagmen far and near --
And yet to Ryan it meant a lot.
That was the name of the grandest horse
In all the district from east to west;
In every show ring, on every course,
They always counted The Swagman best.
He was a wonder, a raking bay --
One of the grand old Snowdon strain --
One of the sort that could race and stay
With his mighty limbs and his length of rein.
Born and bred on the mountain side,
He could race through scrub like a kangaroo;
The girl herself on his back might ride,
And The Swagman would carry her safely through.
He would travel gaily from daylight's flush
Till after the stars hung out their lamps;
There was never his like in the open bush,
And never his match on the cattle-camps.
For faster horses might well be found
On racing tracks, or a plain's extent,
But few, if any, on broken ground
Could see the way that The Swagman went.
When this girl's father, old Jim Carew,
Was droving out on the Castlereagh
With Conroy's cattle, a wire came through
To say that his wife couldn't live the day.
And he was a hundred miles from home,
As flies the crow, with never a track
Through plains as pathless as ocean's foam;
He mounted straight on The Swagman's back.
He left the camp by the sundown light,
And the settlers out on the Marthaguy
Awoke and heard, in the dead of night,
A single horseman hurrying by.
He crossed the Bogan at Dandaloo,
And many a mile of the silent plain
That lonely rider behind him threw
Before they settled to sleep again.
He rode all noght, and he steered his course
By the shining stars with a bushman's skill,
And every time that he pressed his horse
The Swagman answered him gamely still.
He neared his home as the east was bright.
The doctor met him outside the town
"Carew! How far did you come last night?"
"A hundred miles since the sun went down."
And his wife got round, and an oath he passed,
So long as he or one of his breed
Could raise a coin, though it took their last,
The Swagman never should want a feed.
And Kate Carew, when her father died,
She kept the horse and she kept him well;
The pride of the district far and wide,
He lived in style at the bush hotel.
Such wasThe Swagman; and Ryan knew
Nothing about could pace the crack;
Little he'd care for the man in blue
If once he got on The Swagman's back.
But how to do it? A word let fall
Gave him the hint as the girl passed by;
Nothing but "Swagman -- stable wall;
Go to the stable and mind your eye."
He caught her meaning, and quickly turned
To the trooper: "Reckon you'll gain a stripe
By arresting me, and it's easily earned;
Let's go to the stable and get my pipe,
The Swagman has it." So off they went,
And as soon as ever they turned their backs
The girl slipped down, on some errand bent
Behind the stable and seized an axe.
The trooper stood at the stable door
While Ryan went in quite cool and slow,
And then (the trick had been played before)
The girl outside gave the wall a blow.
Three slabs fell out of the stable wall --
'Twas done 'fore ever the trooper knew --
And Ryan, as soon as he saw them fall,
Mounted The Swagman and rushed him through.
The trooper heard the hoof-beats ring
In the stable yard, and he jammed the gate,
But The Swagman rose with a mighty spring
At the fence, and the trooper fired too late
As they raced away, and his shots flew wide,
And Ryan no longer need care a rap,
For never a horse that was lapped in hide
Could catch The Swagman in Conroy's Gap.
And that's the story. You want to know
If Ryan came back to his Kate Carew;
Of course he should have, as stories go,
But the worst of it is this story's true:
And in real life it's a certain rule,
Whatever poets and authors say
Of high-toned robbers and all their school,
These horsethief fellows aren't built that way.
Come back! Don't hope it -- the slinking hound,
He sloped across to the Queensland side,
And sold The Swagman for fifty pound,
And stole the money, and more beside.
And took to drink, and by some good chance
Was killed -- thrown out of a stolen trap.
And that was the end of this small romance,
The end of the story of Conroy's Gap.
poem by Andrew Barton Paterson
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The Men Who Made Australia
There'll be royal times in Sydney for the Cuff and Collar Push,
There’ll be lots of dreary drivel and clap-trap
From the men who own Australia, but who never knew the Bush,
And who could not point their runs out on the map.
Oh, the daily Press will grovel as it never did before,
There’ll be many flags of welcome in the air,
And the Civil Service poet, he shall write odes by the score—
But the men who made the land will not be there.
You shall meet the awful Lady of the latest Birthday Knight—
(She is trying to be English, don’t-cher-know?)
You shall hear the empty mouthing of the champion blatherskite,
You shall hear the boss of local drapers blow.
There’ll be ‘majahs’ from the counter, tailors’ dummies from the fleet,
And to represent Australia here to-day,
There’s the today with his card-case and his cab in Downing-street;
But the men who made Australia—where are they?
Call across the blazing sand wastes of the Never-Never Land!
There are some who will not answer yet awhile,
Some whose bones rot in the mulga or lie bleaching on the sand,
Died of thirst to win the land another mile.
Thrown from horses, ripped by cattle, lost on deserts; and the weak,
Mad through loneliness or drink (no matter which),
Drowned in floods or dead of fever by the sluggish slimy creek—
These are men who died to make the Wool-Kings rich.
Call across the scrubby ridges where they clear the barren soil,
And the gaunt Bush-women share the work of men—
Toil and loneliness for ever—hardship, loneliness and toil—
Where the brave drought-ruined farmer starts again!
Call across the boundless sheep-runs of a country cursed for sheep—
Call across the awful scrublands west of Bourke!
But they have no time to listen—they have scarcely time to sleep—
For the men who conquer deserts have to work.
Dragged behind the crawling sheep-flock on the hot and dusty plain,
They must make a cheque to feed the wife and kids—
Riding night-watch round the cattle in the pelting, freezing rain,
While world-weariness is pressing down the lids.
And away on far out-stations, seldom touched by Heaven’s breath,
In a loneliness that smothers love and hate—
Where they never take white women—there they live the living death
With a half-caste or a black-gin for a mate.
They must toil to save the gaunt stock in the blazing months of drought,
When the stinging, blinding blight is in men’s eyes—
On the wretched, burnt selections, on the big runs further out
Where the sand-storm rises lurid to the skies.
Not to profit when the grass is waving waist-high after rain,
And the mighty clip of wool comes rolling in—
For the Wool-King goes to Paris with his family again
And the gold that souls are sacrificed to win.
There are carriages in waiting for the swells from over-sea,
There are banquets in the latest London style,
While the men who made Australia live on damper, junk and tea—
But the quiet voices whisper, ‘Wait a while!’
For the sons of all Australia, they were born to conquer fate—
And, where charity and friendship are sincere,
Where a sinner is a brother and a stranger is a mate,
There the future of a nation’s written clear.
Aye, the cities claim the triumphs of a land they do not know,
But all empty is the day they celebrate!
For the men who made Australia federated long ago,
And the men to rule Australia—they can wait.
Though the bed may be the rough bunk or the gum leaves or the sand,
And the roof for half the year may be the sky—
There are men amongst the Bushmen who were born to save the land!
And they’ll take their places sternly by-and-by.
There’s a whisper on the desert though the sunset breeze hath died
In the scrubs, though not a breath to stir a bough,
There’s a murmur, not of waters, down the Lachlan River side,
’Tis the spirit of Australia waking now!
There’s the weird hymn of the drought-night on the western water-shed,
Where the beds of unlocked rivers crack and parch;
’Tis the dead that we have buried, and our great unburied dead,
Who are calling now on living men to march!
Round the camp fire of the fencers by the furthest panel west,
In the men’s hut by the muddy billabong,
On the Great North-Western Stock-routes where the drovers never rest,
They are sorting out the right things from the wrong.
In the shearers’ hut the slush lamp shows a haggard, stern-faced man
Preaching war against the Wool-King to his mates;
And wherever go the billy, water-bag and frying-pan,
They are drafting future histories of states!
poem by Henry Lawson
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Corny Bill
His old clay pipe stuck in his mouth,
His hat pushed from his brow,
His dress best fitted for the South --
I think I see him now;
And when the city streets are still,
And sleep upon me comes,
I often dream that me an' Bill
Are humpin' of our drums.
I mind the time when first I came
A stranger to the land;
And I was stumped, an' sick, an' lame
When Bill took me in hand.
Old Bill was what a chap would call
A friend in poverty,
And he was very kind to all,
And very good to me.
We'd camp beneath the lonely trees
And sit beside the blaze,
A-nursin' of our wearied knees,
A-smokin' of our clays.
Or when we'd journeyed damp an' far,
An' clouds were in the skies,
We'd camp in some old shanty bar,
And sit a-tellin' lies.
Though time had writ upon his brow
And rubbed away his curls,
He always was -- an' may be now --
A favourite with the girls;
I've heard bush-wimmin scream an' squall --
I've see'd 'em laugh until
They could not do their work at all,
Because of Corny Bill.
He was the jolliest old pup
As ever you did see,
And often at some bush kick-up
They'd make old Bill M.C.
He'd make them dance and sing all night,
He'd make the music hum,
But he'd be gone at mornin' light
A-humpin' of his drum.
Though joys of which the poet rhymes
Was not for Bill an' me,
I think we had some good old times
Out on the wallaby.
I took a wife and left off rum,
An' camped beneath a roof;
But Bill preferred to hump his drum
A-paddin' of the hoof.
The lazy, idle loafers what
In toney houses camp
Would call old Bill a drunken sot,
A loafer, or a tramp;
But if the dead should ever dance --
As poets say they will --
I think I'd rather take my chance
Along of Corny Bill.
His long life's-day is nearly o'er,
Its shades begin to fall;
He soon must mount his bluey for
The last long tramp of all;
I trust that when, in bush an' town,
He's lived and learnt his fill,
They'll let the golden slip-rails down
For poor old Corny Bill.
poem by Henry Lawson
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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
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Gettin Back
When we've arrived by boat or rail, and feeling pretty well,
And humped our heavy gladstones to the Great Norsouth Hotel;
And when we've had a wash and brush and changed biled rags for soft —
And ate a hearty country meal — our spirits go aloft!
(Damn the city!)
When we've walked out a mile and back along the old bush track,
And dropped into the letter-box our last damned letters back;
When we've turned in and slept half through the soft white beds all night
To start, at daylight toy the coach — we're getting back all right.
(Damn the city!)
When we have crossed the nearer heights through box and stringy-bark,
And traced the newer tree-marked track above the gullies dark;
When we begin to ask how far it is to tucker yet —
Where clear streams whet our appetites — we're getting back, don't fret.
(Damn the city!)
We try to draw the driver out (a 'case' as like as not),
For we don't know how much he knows, or how much we've forgot.
And we make bloomers, and the seats seem narrow slippery shelves —
Until we find he's just a liar, like ourselves.
(Damn the city!)
When we can take an interest in all and everything,
When we begin to drop the 'g' in words that end in 'ing',
When good old oaths come 'back again, and we can sleep at night,
And eat our fish with knives and forks — we're gettin' back all right.
(Damn the city!)
I'm staying at a lake-side home, down here at Nevermind,
The small hand 'separator' is the only change I find,
And there's a girl with kind grey eyes and hair of reddish gold,
And she's read somewhere in a book that poets don't grow old.
(Damn the city!)
She's twenty-two, I'm forty-three; but, ere the week is done,
She's only in her eighteenth year, and I am twenty-one!
I'm younger than the younger men, who can't be young — or won't —
She heard that poets don't grow old — and now she knows they don't.
(DAMN THE CITY!)
The dandy tourists wonder how the old town had got in —
The straight young bushmen wonder how that poet bloke could win.
But the grand old bush life backed me up, when they were hard to rouse,
And I turned out at six o'clock and helped her milk the cows!
(DAMN THE CITY!)
poem by Henry Lawson
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Musterin
Oh, I've ridden 'em rough an' I've ridden 'em kind,
Brumbies and prads well-bred.
Of every colour and every kind
(The old stock-rider said).
I've broken the wild Blanchwater colts
An' Walers from down Noo South,
An' every sort that bucks or bolts,
With every sort of mouth.
An' I thought I knew the musterin' game
Right thro' from A to Z.
An' every sort of nag you'd name
(The old stock-rider said).
I've wheeled 'em up in the Queensland scrub,
An' tailed 'em back o' Bourke,
To skite in many an old bush pub
I was master of all bush work.
But musterin' cattle be aeroplanes?
What profit does it bring?
An' I don't see how a bushman gains,
For it ain't a natural thing.
Soaring' and roarin' an' rampin' round
In a rackety tin machine,
When a natural horse on natural ground
Beats all yer keraseen.
I suppose it's progress as they say,
But the thing's against all laws.
So I'm saddlin' up an' I'm off away
Where they ain't got them gee-gaws.
For I got no time for aeroplanes;
But a prad with a good, kind eye,
An' the press o' the knee and the feel of the reins
Is my game till I die.
poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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The Man from Goondiwindi, Q.
I
This is the sunburnt bushman who
Came down from Goondiwindi, Q.
II
This is the Push from Waterloo
That spotted the sunburnt bushman who
Came down from Goondiwindi, Q.
III
These are the wealthy uncles -- two,
Part of the Push from Waterloo
That spotted the sunburnt bushman who
Came down from Goondiwindi, Q.
IV
This is the game, by no means new,
Played by the wealthy uncles -- two,
Part of the Push from Waterloo
That spotted the sunburnt bushman who
Came down from Goondiwindi, Q.
V
This is the trooper dressed in blue,
Who busted the game by no means new,
Played by the wealthy uncles -- two,
Part of the Push from Waterloo
That spotted the sunburnt bushman who
Came down from Goondiwindi, Q.
VI
This is the magistrate who knew
Not only the trooper dressed in blue,
But also the game by no means new,
And likewise the wealthy uncles -- two,
And ditto the Push from Waterloo
That spotted the sunburnt bushman who
Came down from Goondiwindi, Q.
VII
This is the tale that has oft gone through
On western plains where the skies are blue,
Till the native bear and the kangaroo
Have heard of the magistrate who knew
Not only the trooper dressed in blue,
But also the game by no means new,
And likewise the wealthy uncles -- two,
And ditto the Push from Waterloo
That spotted the sunburnt bushman who
Came down from Goondiwindi, Q.
The Evening News, 17 Dec 1904
(This verse was published, copiously illustrated by Lionel Lindsay. Each stanza had its own illustration.)
The pronounciation of many Australian place-names can be quite unexpected. Goondiwindi is a case in point. The town is situated on the border of Queensland and New south Wales, on the banks of the Macintyre River, and its name is pronounced "gun-da-windy", with the main stress on the third syllable, a secondary stress on the first.
poem by Andrew Barton Paterson
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