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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
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Related quotes

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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By Hut, Homestead And Shearing Shed,

By hut, homestead and shearing shed,
By railroad, coach and track-
By lonely graves where rest the dead,
Up-Country and Out-Back:
To where beneath the clustered stars
The dreamy plains expand-

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

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

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

Lest in the city I forget
True mateship after all,
My water-bag and billy yet
Are hanging on the wall;
And I, to save my soul again,
Would tramp to sunsets grand
With sad-eyed mates across the plain
In Never-Never Land.

poem by Henry Lawson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Never, Never Land

By hut, homestead and shearing shed,
By railroad, coach and track-
By lonely graves where rest the dead,
Up-Country and Out-Back:
To where beneath the clustered stars
The dreamy plains expand-

poem by Henry Lawson
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Whose Country Is This?

Whose country is this?
It is a land full of snakes;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of many waters;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of thieves! !
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of people;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of oil;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of earthquakes!
Whose country is this?
it is a land full of lovers;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of volcanoes!
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of beautiful flowers;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of hansome men;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of beautiful women;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of roses;
Whose country is this?
it is a land ruled only by men;
Whose country is this?
It is a land without rainfall;
Whose country is this?
It is a land ruled by a woman;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of corruption!
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of pirates! !
Whose country is this?
It is a land ruled by law;
Whose country is this?
It is a land controlled by rebels!
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of ice;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of pregnant women;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah!
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of singers;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of troubles;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of war! !
Whose country is this?
It is a land with the biggest cemetery in the wolrd!
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of desert;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of trees;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of pregnant teenagers!
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of timber;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of hatred;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of love;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of care;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of peace;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of smokers!
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of businesses;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of harlots;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of wise people;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of idiots!
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of gold;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of cocoa;
Whose country is this?
It is a alnd full of crabs;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of evil;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of rainfalls;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of ants;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of horses;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of pigs;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of statues;
Whose country is this?
it is a land full of birds;
And so on, and so forth!
Because nature had made them so as we see them around us,
But the wise and fool live together on this earth.

poem by Edward Kofi Louis
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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In Defence of the Bush

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

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

poem by Andrew Barton Paterson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Never-Never Country

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

poem by Henry Lawson
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Canada First

To home and Country shouts we raise I
For Home and Land to Heaven we cry !

In Home and Country let us live
For Home and Land we stand to die !

This Land us bred : these Hills are ours :
These Mighty Floods that seaward roll

We know no masters but ourselves
We know no bounds this side the pole !

God gave to us these Reaching Woods :
The Spreading Lakes we sail upon ;

We hold them for our children's right
And who is he intrudes thereon?

And we shall till the Rolling Plains
That reach into the setting sun ;

'Tis our Dominion to extend

To coasts that lave the Great Ocean.

To Home and Country shouts we raise !

For Home and Land to Heaven we cry !
In Home and Country let us live

For Home and Land we stand to die !

poem by Robert Kirkland Kernighan
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How the Land was Won

The future was dark and the past was dead
As they gazed on the sea once more –
But a nation was born when the immigrants said
"Good-bye!" as they stepped ashore!
In their loneliness they were parted thus
Because of the work to do,
A wild wide land to be won for us
By hearts and hands so few.

The darkest land 'neath a blue sky's dome,
And the widest waste on earth;
The strangest scenes and the least like home
In the lands of our fathers' birth;
The loneliest land in the wide world then,
And away on the furthest seas,
A land most barren of life for men –
And they won it by twos and threes!

With God, or a dog, to watch, they slept
By the camp-fires' ghastly glow,
Where the scrubs were dark as the blacks that crept
With "nulla" and spear held low;
Death was hidden amongst the trees,
And bare on the glaring sand
They fought and perished by twos and threes –
And that's how they won the land!

It was two that failed by the dry creek bed,
While one reeled on alone –
The dust of Australia's greatest dead
With the dust of the desert blown!
Gaunt cheek-bones cracking the parchment skin
That scorched in the blazing sun,
Black lips that broke in a ghastly grin –
And that's how the land was won!

Starvation and toil on the tracks they went,
And death by the lonely way;
The childbirth under the tilt or tent,
The childbirth under the dray!
The childbirth out in the desolate hut
With a half-wild gin for nurse –
That's how the first were born to bear
The brunt of the first man's curse!

They toiled and they fought through the shame of it –
Through wilderness, flood, and drought;
They worked, in the struggles of early days,
Their sons' salvation out.
The white girl-wife in the hut alone,
The men on the boundless run,
The miseries suffered, unvoiced, unknown –
And that's how the land was won.

No armchair rest for the old folk then –
But, ruined by blight and drought,
They blazed the tracks to the camps again
In the big scrubs further out.
The worn haft, wet with a father's sweat,
Gripped hard by the eldest son,
The boy's back formed to the hump of toil –
And that's how the land was won!

And beyond Up Country, beyond Out Back,
And the rainless belt, they ride,
The currency lad and the ne'er-do-well
And the black sheep, side by side;
In wheeling horizons of endless haze
That disk through the Great North-west,
They ride for ever by twos and by threes –
And that's how they win the rest.

poem by Henry Lawson
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Native Title

You are welcome to our country
When full respect is paid
To those who souls grew out from where
Their ancestors were laid
This land is our protector
This land our path in life
This land is our great comforter
This land is hurt by strife
Feel the heart that beats within it
As the seasons come and go
Feel the energy within it
From which everything does grow
This land will guide your footsteps
This land will feed you well
This land needs loving kindly
This land is not to sell
This land is just our country
This land is just our home
For its not just who owns this land
But whom this land does own.

poem by David Keig
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A Word from the Bards

IT IS New Year’s Day and I rise to state that here on the Sydney side
The Bards have commenced to fill out of late and they’re showing their binjies with pride
They’re patting their binjies with pride, old man, and I want you to understand,
That a binjied bard is a bard indeed when he sings in the Southern Land,
Old chaps,
When he sings in the Southern Land.

For the Southern Land is the Poet’s Home, and over the world’s wide roam,
There was never till now a binjied bard that lived in a poet’s home, old man;
For the poet’s home was a hell on earth, and I want you to understand,
That it isn’t exactly a paradise down here in the Southern Land,
Old chap,
Down here in the Southern Land.

The Beer and the Bailiff were gone last night and the “temple” doorstep clean,
And our heads are clear and our hearts are light with wine from the Riverine—
With wine from the Riverine, old man, and I want you to understand
That Bard, Beer and Bailiff too long were kin down here in the Southern Land,
Old man,
Down here in the Southern Land.

It is not because of a larger fee, nor yet that the bards are free,
For the bards I know and the bards I see are married enough for three;
Are married enough for three, old man, and I want you to understand,
They’ve a right to be married enough for four, down here in the Southern Land,
My girl,
Down here in the Southern Land.

But I think it’s because a bird went round and twittered in ears of men
That bards have care and the world seems bare as seen from the rhyming den,
And twittered in ears of men, old chaps, and got folks to understand
That a poet is something more than a joke down here in the Southern Land,
Old man,
Down here in the Southern Land.

poem by Henry Lawson
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Come Home My Son, Come Home

As I travel across this country
the land that I love best
with its snowy peaked mountains
that lay out of reach in the west.
The rivers and the lakes
where nature grows at its best.
The forests and the plains
that each has their part
in the land I love the best.
I write from a distant shore
with dreams of coming home again
ever always on my mind.
Seeing once again friends
from a long, long time ago.
The land that I live in is not to my desire.
My home is ten thousand miles away,
and each time I see it,
it’s like the birth of a new day.
The cities are filled with people
and in the countryside; you can breathe in the fresh air.
The more I dream about it,
the more I wish to be there.
It is not the land of my birth,
but the place that I call home.
That distant country keeps calling to me
come home my son, come home.

31 January 2009

poem by David Harris
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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
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Paniolo Country

Places I have been,
cities I have seen,
with concrete caverns rising from the ground.
Miles and miles of asphalt trail,
stretch across a land,
stampeding meadow ponies leaving smoke along the way...
I'm going back to paniolo county,
stars at night
no city lights.
Paniolo country, my home on the range.
I made up my mind, won't waste any time
I'm going back to where the clouds ride high.
take my word its pretty, not like the great big city
the winds still bring cool clear mountian air.
I'm going back to paniolo country
rain drops fall, the grass grows tall
paniolo county, my home on the range.

song performed by by Randy Travis
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Christ of the 'Never

With eyes that are narrowed to pierce
To the awful horizons of land,
Through the blaze of hot days, and the fierce
White heat-waves that flow on the sand;
Through the Never Land westward and nor'ward,
Bronzed, bearded, and gaunt on the track,
Low-voiced and hard-knuckled, rides forward
The Christ of the Outer Out-back.

For the cause that will ne'er be relinquished
Despite all the cynics on earth---
In the ranks of the bush undistinguished
By manner or dress---if by birth;
God's preacher, of churches unheeded---
God's vineyard, though barren the sod---
Plain spokesman where spokesman is needed,
Rough link 'twixt the bushman and God.

He works where the hearts of a nation
Are withered in flame from the sky,
Where the sinners work out their salvation
In a hell-upon-earth ere they die.
In the camp or the lonely hut lying
In a waste that seems out of God's sight,
He's the doctor---the mate of thee dying
Through the smothering heat of the night.

By his work in the hells of the shearers,
Where the drinking is ghastly and grim,
Where the roughest and worst of his hearers
Have listened bareheaded to him;
By his paths through the parched desolation,
Hot rides, and the long, terrible tramps;
By the hunger, the thirst, the privation
Of his work in the farthermost camps;

By his worth in the light that shall search men
And prove---ay! and justify---each,
I place him in front of all churchmen
Who feel not, who know not---but preach!

poem by Henry Lawson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Mother India

O Mother Land! O Mother Land!
You are very dear and rare land.
You are the paradise on earth
Where things are not in any dearth.

O Mother Land! O Mother Land!
You are very dear and rare land.

In Your Lap live men and women
Of every caste and religion.
You rain your love and affection
On them all without distinction.

O Mother Land! O Mother Land!
You are very dear and rare land.

You have got a peculiar trait
Due to which you are very great.
You adopt the foreigners too,
Who like to live and die for you.

O Mother Land! O Mother Land!
You are very dear and rare land.

You are beautiful, all perfect;
You are rich in every aspect.
In the ancient times, we have heard,
Aliens called you ‘a golden bird’

O Mother Land! O Mother Land!
You are very dear and rare land.

The mountains guard your honour here;
The ocean washes your feet there.
The rivers contain sweet water
Which for us is just like nectar.

O Mother Land! O Mother Land!
You are very dear and rare land.

Our culture is ancient and high,
We are respected that is why.
Culture has bound us by and by,
With a chain of pure love and tie.

O Mother Land! O Mother Land!
You are very dear and rare land.

We are sorry here live some men
Who are not loyal, but still then,
Pose as lovers of this nation,
Whom we do not like to mention.

O Mother Land! O Mother Land!
You are very dear and rare land.

We are sorry here live some men;
Fire of hatred they ever fan.
Freedom, we fear, may not be lost,
Which we have got at a great cost.

O Mother Land! O Mother Land!
You are very dear and rare land.

Let us be wise not to be tool
Of selfish powers which befool
Those who do not well understand
Their aim which is behind their stand.

O Mother Land! O Mother Land!
You are very dear and rare land.

We will be lucky, if we die
For you, O Gracious Country High!
We’ll give them a fitting reply,
Who see you with a slanting eye.

O Mother Land! O Mother Land!
You are very dear and rare land.

poem by Aziz Ahmad
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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In the Storm that is to come

By our place in the midst of the furthest seas we were fated to stand alone -
When the nations fly at each other's throats let Australia look to her own;
Let her spend her gold on the barren west, let her keep her men at home;
For the South must look to the South for strength in the storm that is to come.

Now who shall gallop from cape to cape, and who shall defend our shores -
The crowd that stand on the kerb agape and glares at the cricket scores?
And who will hold the invader back when the shells tear up the ground -
The weeds that yelp by the cycling track while a nigger scorches round?

There may be many to man the forts in the big towns beside the sea -
But the East will call to the West for scouts in the storm that is to be:
The West cries out to the East in drought, but the coastal towns are dumb;
And the East must look to the West for food in the war that is to come.

The rain comes down on the Western land and the rivers run to waste,
When the city folk rush for the special tram in their childless, senseless haste,
And never a pile of a lock we drive - but a few mean tanks we scratch -
For the fate of a nation is nought compared with the turn of a cricket match!

There's a gutter of mud where there spread a flood from the land-long western creeks,
There is dust and drought on the plains far out where the water lay for weeks,
There's a pitiful dam where a dyke should stretch and a tank where a lake should be,
And the rain goes down through the silt and sand and the floods waste into the seas.

We'll fight for Britain or for Japan, we will fling the land's wealth out;
While every penny and every man should be used to fight the drought.
God helps the nation that helps itself, and the water brings the rain,
And a deadlier foe than the world could send is loose on the western plain.

I saw a vision in days gone by and would dream that dream again
Of the days when the Darling shall not back her billabongs up in vain.
There were reservoirs and grand canals where the Dry Country had been,
And a glorious network of aqueducts, and the fields were always green.

I have seen so long in the land I love what the land I love might be,
Where the Darling rises from Queensland rains and the floods run into the sea.
And it is our fate that we'll wake to late to the truth that we were blind,
With a foreign foe at our harbour gate and a blazing drought behind!