Brother, Youll Take My Hand

Not to the sober and staid,
Leading a quiet life,
But to men whose paths are laid
Ever through storm and strife,
Here is a song from me,
Sent to the tragic West,
Message of sympathy
To the hearts that can never rest.
This is the song I send
Out to the Western land,
Sinner, and martyr, and friend,
Brother! youll take my hand.

To you who have loved and lost;
To you whose souls have died
Cursing a fair false face
And the red warm lips that lied;
Loved with a boyish love,
With a love that was pure and true,
That set one woman above
The world that was known to you;
Eating your heart out now
Alone on a waste of sand,
I have been played with too.
Brother! youll take my hand.

To you who were loved too well,
And who cast that love aside
When your vanity was replete
And your passion was satisfied,
Haunted now day and night;
Haunted in every place
By the eyes of a suicide,
Set in a dead girls face.
Crouched in your misery
Out where the stars are grand,
O I am haunted too!
Brother! youll take my hand.

To you who had wealth or name,
Friends, love, and a future fair,
And who sacrificed all for drink
And the nights of Leicester Square:
In by the drunken town,
Out on the barren tramp,
Pacing it up and down
Alone by the listening camp;
Crouched in your agony,
Hiding your eyes with your hand,
I had the ball at my feet,
Brother! I understand.

There is a light for all;
Hold up your head and live!
Forgive the woman who wronged,
And the dead girl will forgive.
Brood not, but work for good;
Work in the world of men,
Strong is the man who fell
And rose from the depths again.
There shall be peace for you,
Sinners, who win the land.
I would fight upward too,
Brother! youll take my hand.

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.'

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English

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Written Out

Sing the song of the reckless, who care not what they do;
Sing the song of a sinner and the song of a writer, too,
Down in a pub in the alleys, in a dark and dirty hole,
With every soul a drunkard and the boss with never a soul.

Uncollared, unkempt, unshaven, sat the writer whose fame was fair,
And the girls of the streets were round him, and the bullies and bludgers there;
He was one of themselves and they told him the things that they had to tell,
He was studying human nature with his brothers and sisters in hell.

He was neither poor nor lonely, for a place in the world hed won,
And up in the heights of the city hed a thousand friends or none;
But he knew that his chums could wait awhile, that hed reckon with foes at last,
For he lived far into a future that he knew b...

Henry Lawson

To Victor Daly

I thought that silence would be best,
But I a call have heard,
And, Victor, after all the rest,
I well might say a word:
The day and work is nearly done,
And ours the victory,
And we are resting, one by one,
In graveyards by the sea.

But then you talked of other nights,
When, gay from dusk to dawn,
You wasted hours with other lights
That went where you have gone.
You spoke not of the fair and fast,
But of the pure and true,
Sweet ugly women of the past
Who stood so well by you.

You made a jest on that last night,
I met it with a laugh:
You wondered which of us should write
The others epitaph.
We filled the glasses to the brim,
The lands own wine you know,
And solemnly we drank to him
Who should be first to...

Henry Lawson

The Afterglow

Oh, for the fire that used to glow
In those my days of old!
I never thought a man could grow
So callous and so cold.
Ah, for the heart that used to ache
For those in sorrows ways;
I often wish my heart could break
As it did in those dead days.

Along my track of storm and stress,
And it is plain to trace,
I look back from the loneliness
And the depth of my disgrace.
Twas fate and only fate I know,
But all mistakes are plain,
Tis sadder than the afterglow,
More dreary than the rain.

But still there lies a patch of sun
That neer will come again,
Those golden days when I was one
Of Natures gentlemen.
And if there is a memory
Could break me down at last,
It sure would be the thought of this,
The sunshine in the pa...

Henry Lawson

New Life, New Love

The breezes blow on the river below,
And the fleecy clouds float high,
And I mark how the dark green gum trees match
The bright blue dome of the sky.
The rain has been, and the grass is green
Where the slopes were bare and brown,
And I see the things that I used to see
In the days ere my head went down.
I have found a light in my long dark night,
Brighter than stars or moon;
I have lost the fear of the sunset drear,
And the sadness of afternoon.
Here let us stand while I hold your hand,
Where the lights on your golden head,
Oh! I feel the thrill that I used to feel
In the days ere my heart was dead.

The storms gone by, but my lips are dry
And the old wrong rankles yet,
Sweetheart or wife, I must take new life
From your red lips warm and ...

Henry Lawson

To Jack

So, Ive battled it through on my own, Jack,
I have done with all dreaming and doubt.
Though stoney to-night and alone, Jack,
I am watching the Old Year out.
I have finished with brooding and fears,
Jack, And the spirit is rising in me,
For the sake of the old New Years, Jack,
And the bright New Years to be.

I have fallen in worldly disgrace, Jack,
And I know very well that you heard;
They have blackened my name in this place, Jack,
And I answered them never a word.
But why should I bluster or grieve,
Jack? So narrow and paltry they be,
I knew you would never believe, Jack,
The lies that were said against me.

That is done which shall never be undone,
And I blame not, I blame not my land,
But Im hearing the Calling of London,
And I...

Henry Lawson

Hannah Thomburn

They lifted her out of a story
Too sordid and selfish by far,
They left me the innocent glory
Of love that was pure as a star;
They left me all guiltless of evil
That would have brought years of distress
When the chance to be man, god or devil,
Was mine, on return from Success.

With a name and a courage uncommon
She had come in the soul striving days,
She had come as a child, girl and woman,
Come only to comfort and praise.
There was never a church that could marry,
For never a court could divorce,
In the season of Hannah and Harry
When the love of my life ran its course.

Her hair was red gold on head Grecian,
But fluffed from the parting away,
And her eyes were the warm grey Venetian
That comes with the dawn of the day.
No Fa...

Henry Lawson

Brother, Youll Take My Hand

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Brother, Youll Take My Hand