Above Crows Nest - Sydney

A blanket low and leaden,
Though rent across the west,
Whose darkness seems to deaden
The brightest and the best;
A sunset white and staring
On cloud-wrecks far away,
And haggard house-walls glaring
A farewell to the day.

A light on tower and steeple,
Where sun no longer shines,
My people, Oh my people!
Rise up and read the signs!
Low looms the nearer high-line
(No sign of star or moon),
The horseman on the skyline
Rode hard this afternoon!

(Is he, and who shall know it?,
The spectre of a scout?
The spirit of a poet,
Whose truths were met with doubt?
Who sought and who succeeded
In marking dangers track,
Whose warnings were unheeded
Till all the sky was black?)

It is a shameful story
For our young, generous home,
Without the rise and glory
Wed go as Greece and Rome.
Without the sacrifices
That make a nations name,
The elder nations vices
And luxuries we claim.

Grown vain without a conquest,
And sure without a fort,
And maddened in the one quest
For pleasure or for sport.
Self-blinded to our starkness
Wed fling the time away
To fight, half-armed, in darkness
Who should be armed to-day.

This song is for the city,
The city in its pride,
The coming time shall pity
And shield the countryside.
Shall we live in the present
Till fearful war-clouds loom,
And till the sullen peasant
Shall leave us to our doom?

Cloud-fortresses titanic
Along the western sky,
The tired, bowed mechanic
And pallid clerk flit by.
Lit by a light unhealthy,
The ghastly after-glare,
The veiled and goggled wealthy
Drive fast, they know not where.

Nights sullen spirit rouses,
The darkening gables lour
From ugly four-roomed houses
Verandahd windows glower;
The last long day-stare dies on
The scrub-ridged western side,
And round the near horizon
The spectral horsemen ride.

Henry Lawson

Henry Lawson was an Australian writer and poet. Along with Banjo Paterson, he is among the best-known Australian poets and fiction writers of the colonial period and is often called Australia's 'greatest short story writer'. His works frequently document the lives and struggles of rural and outback Australians. Lawson's own life was marked by hardship and struggles including impaired hearing and financial difficulties, which influenced his realist depictions of Australian life. Some of his notable works include 'While the Billy Boils' and 'In the Days When the World was Wide.'

Henry Lawson

Cherry-Tree Inn

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

The Old Bark School

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

The Rush To London

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

The Boss's Boots

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Skyline Riders

Against the light of a dawning white
My Skyline Riders stand,
There is trouble ahead for a dark year dead
And the selfish wrongs of a land;
There are hurrying feet of fools to repeat
The follies of Nineteen Eight,
But darkly still on each distant hill
My riders watch and wait.

My Skyline Riders are down and gone
As far as the eye can see,
And the horses stand in the shades of dawn
Where a single man holds three.
We feel the flush and we feel the thrill
Of the coming of Nineteen Nine,
For my Skyline Riders are over the hill
And into the firing line.

The skyline lifts while a storm-cloud lowers,
Whats that? A shot! Alls well!
There is news out there for this land of ours
That the tattling rifles tell.
A thud and a thud and a...

Henry Lawson

The Roaring Days

The night too quickly passes
And we are growing old,
So let us fill our glasses
And toast the Days of Gold;
When finds of wondrous treasure
Set all the South ablaze,
And you and I were faithful mates
All through the roaring days!

Then stately ships came sailing
From every harbour's mouth,
And sought the land of promise
That beaconed in the South;
Then southward streamed their streamers
And swelled their canvas full
To speed the wildest dreamers
E'er borne in vessel's hull.

Their shining Eldorado,
Beneath the southern skies,
Was day and night for ever
Before their eager eyes.
The brooding bush, awakened,
Was stirred in wild unrest,
And all the year a human stream
Went pouring to the West.

The rough bush ...

Henry Lawson

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 l...

Henry Lawson

The Last Review

Turn the light down, nurse, and leave me, while I hold my last review,
For the Bush is slipping from me, and the town is going too:
Draw the blinds, the streets are lighted, and I hear the tramp of feet,
And Im weary, very weary, of the Faces in the Street.

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

They are coming! They are coming! they are passing through the room
With the smell of gum leaves burning, and the scent of Wattle bloom!
And behind them in the timber, after dust and heat and toil,
Others sit beside the camp fire yarning while the billies boil.

...

Henry Lawson

My Land And I

They have eaten their fill at your tables spread,
Like friends since the land was won;
And they rise with a cry of "Australia's dead!"
With the wheeze of "Australia's done!"
Oh, the theme is stale, but they tell the tale
(How the weak old tale will keep!)
Like the crows that croak on a splintered rail,
That have gorged on a rotten sheep.

I would sing a song in your darkest hour
In your darkest hour and mine,
For I see the dawn of your wealth and power,
And I see your bright star shine.
The little men yelp and the little men lie,
And they spread the lies afar;
But we heed them never, my Land and I,
For we know how small they are.

They know you not in a paltry town,
In the streets where great hopes die,
Oh, heart that never a flood could dr...

Henry Lawson

Old Stone Chimney

The rising moon on the peaks was blending
Her silver light with the sunset glow,
When a swagman came as the day was ending
Along a path that he seemed to know.
But all the fences were gone or going,
The hand of ruin was everywhere;
The creek unchecked in its course was flowing,
For none of the old clay dam was there.

Here Time had been with his swiftest changes,
And husbandry had westward flown;
The cattle tracks in the rugged ranges
Were long ago with the scrub oergrown.
It must have needed long years to soften
The road, that as hard as rock had been;
The mountain path he had trod so often
Lay hidden now with a carpet green.

He thought at times from the mountain courses
He heard the sound of a bullock bell,
The distant gallop of stockme...

Henry Lawson

Above Crows Nest - Sydney

Suggested Poems

Above Crows Nest - Sydney