Ben Boyd's Tower

Ben Boyd's Tower is watching,
Watching oer the sea;
Ben Boyds Tower is waiting
For her and me.
We do not know the day,
We do not know the hour,
But we know that we shall meet
By Ben Boyds Tower.

Moonlight peoples Boyd Tower,
Mystic are its walls;
Lightly dance the lovers
In its haunted halls.

Ben Boyds Tower is watching,
Watching oer the foam;
Ben Boyds Tower is waiting
Till the Wanderer comes home.

O! he lay above us,
High above the surf,
Finger-nails and toe-caps
Digging in the turf.

We do not know the day,
We do not know the hour,
But Two and Two shall meet again
By Ben Boyds Tower.

Theres an ancient dame in Eden,
Basket on her arm,
And she goes down the Main Street
From the old, old farm.

Hood drawn on her forehead,
Withered dame and grey,
She never looks on Boyd Tower
Out across the Bay.

Bright eyes in the ballroom,
Coquetting with two,
Just for love of mischief,
As a girl will do.
A quarrel in the bar-room,
All within the hour,
And four men rode from Boyd Town
To Ben Boyds Tower.

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

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The Empty Glass

There are three lank bards in a borrowed room,
Ah! The number is one too few,
They have deemed their home and the bars unfit
For the thing that they have to do.
Three glasses they fill with the Lands own wine,
And the bread of life they pass.
Their glasses they take, which they slowly raise,
And they drink to an empty glass.

(Theres a greater glare in the street to-night,
And a louder rush and roar,
Theres a mad crowd yelling the winners name,
And howling the cricket score:
Oh! The bright moonlight on the angels white,
And the tombs and the monuments grand,
And down by the water at Waverley
Theres a little lone mound of sand.)

Oh, the drinkers would deem them drunk or mad,
And the barmaid stare and frown,
Each lays a hand on the empt...

Henry Lawson

The Outside Track

There were ten of us there on the moonlit quay,
And one on the forard hatch;
No straighter mate to his mates than he
Had ever said: Lens a match!

"Twill be long, old man, ere our glasses clink,
Twill be long ere we grip your hand!",
And we dragged him ashore for a final drink
Till the whole wide world seemed grand.

For they marry and go as the world rolls back,
They marry and vanish and die;
But their spirit shall live on the Outside Track
As long as the years go by.

The port-lights glowed in the morning mist
That rolled from the waters green;
And over the railing we grasped his fist
As the dark tide came between.

We cheered the captain and cheered the crew,
And our mate, times out of mind;
We cheered the land he was goi...

Henry Lawson

Wide Spaces

When my last long-beer has vanished and the truth is left unsaid;
When each sordid care is banished from my chair and from my bed,
And my common people sadly murmur: "'Arry Lawson dead,"

When the man I was denounces all the things that I was not,
When the true souls stand like granite, while the souls of liars not,
When the quids I gave are counted, and the trays I cadged forgot;

Shall my spirit see the country that it wrote for once again?
Shall it see the old selections, and the common street and lane?
Shall it pass across the Black Soil and across the Red Soil Plain?

Shall it see the gaunt Bushwoman "slave until she's fit to drop",
For the distant trip to Sydney, all depending on the crop?
Or the twinkling legs of kiddies, running to the lollie-shop?

Sh...

Henry Lawson

The Bards Who Lived At Manly

The camp of high-class spielers,
Who sneered in summer dress,
And doo-dah dilettante,
And scornful venuses,
House agents, and storekeepers,
All eager they to bleed,
The bards who tackled Manly,
Were plucky bards indeed!

With shops that feared to trust them,
And pubs that looked askance;
And prigs who read their verses,
But gave them not a glance;,
When all were vain and selfish,
And editors were hard,
The bard that stuck to Manly
Was sure a mighty bard.

What mattered floors were barren,
And windows curtainless,
And our life seemed to others
But blackguard recklessness?
We wore our clothes for comfort,
We earned our bread alway,
And beer and good tobacco
Came somehow every day.

Came kindred souls to ...

Henry Lawson

The Squatters Daughter

Out in the west, where runs are wide,
And days than ours are hotter,
Not very far from Lachlan Side
There dwelt a wealthy squatter.

Of old opinions he was full,
An Englishman, his sire,
Was hated long where peasants pull
Their forelocks to the squire.

He loved the good old British laws,
And Royaltys regalia,
And oft was heard to growl because
They wouldnt fit Australia.

This squatter had a lovely child,
An angel bright we thought her;
And all the stockmen rude and wild
Adored the squatters daughter.

But on a bright eventful morn,
A swell of northern nation,
A lordling, brought his languid yawn
And eyeglass to the station.

He coveted the squatters wealth;
He saw the squatters daughter:
And, what i...

Henry Lawson

Cherry-Tree Inn

The rafters are open to sun, moon, and star,
Thistles and nettles grow high in the bar,
The chimneys are crumbling, the log fires are dead,
And green mosses spring from the hearthstone instead.
The voices are silent, the bustle and din,
For the railroad hath ruined the Cherry-tree Inn.

Save the glimmer of stars, or the moon's pallid streams,
And the sounds of the 'possums that camp on the beams,
The bar-room is dark and the stable is still,
For the coach comes no more over Cherry-tree Hill.
No riders push on through the darkness to win
The rest and the comfort of Cherry-tree Inn.

I drift from my theme, for my memory strays
To the carrying, digging, and bushranging days,
Far back to the seasons that I love the best,
When a stream of wild diggers rushed i...

Henry Lawson