Cypher Seven "07"

The nearer camp fires lighted,
The distant beacons bright,
The horsemen on the skyline
Are closing in to-night!
My brothers, Oh my brothers!
Lie down and rest at last,
The Years of Reparation
Have rushed upon us fast.

Oh, ride and ride, you riders,
Who rode ere I was born,
While blink-and-blink the star-dust
That blinks before the morn.
And glow and glow you camp fires,
And flash, you beacons bright!
Theyre riding round the wronged ones
And riding round the right!

My brothers, Oh my brothers!
With dried and haggard eyes,
In gaol for just blows stricken,
In gaol for womens lies!
Lie down and pace no longer
But bathe your eyes in tears
For Years of Retribution
That shall be seven years!

Their lovers and believers!
Their sweethearts, sisters, wives,
Their daughters, sons and mothers,
The true friends of their lives!
Hold up your heads and firmly
Look down the Crooked Seers
For Years of Justifying
That shall be seven years.

Inventors, artists, poets,
Exiled or driven mad,
Sweated, sneered at, slandered,
And driven to the bad,
Take up the tools of genius,
Freed from all paltry fears,
For Seasons of Repayment
That shall be seven years.

Oh, ride and ride, you riders,
That rode when I was born
Against a ghastly skyline
Beneath a storm-cloud torn!
I watched you through my childhood,
I saw the whip and spur,
No spys glass could detect you
But I knew what you were!

Oh, ride and ride, my riders,
And flash my birth star bright!
The youth I never dreamed of
Is with me here to-night!
The hearing, strength and vision,
The will to do and dare,
The love I ever longed for
Is round me everywhere.

Dead Friendship, ah! Dead Friendship,
Rise up and breathe again,
I ride my rounds re-honoured
Along the ranks of men.
My old mates, Oh! my old mates,
Who fought the cur and brute,
My horsemen from the skyline
Are drawn up to salute!

My Dead Love, Oh! my Dead Love,
Who died for love of me,
Who sleeps amongst the poets
Since five years sobbed the sea.
Since five years blackened honour
And cramped and warped the pen,
Theres glory to your spirit
The laurel leafs again.

My enemies, the causeless
Of vicious mysteries,
Or mad with jealous madness,
Or for the crawlers fees,
Fear ye my Cypher Seven!
For seven years to run,
The number set by Heaven
When Heavens will is done.

So ride and ride, my riders,
And ride for men and me,
Ride close round madness yonder
And blackest treachery!
Oh! ride round little children
That sleep through all and smile!,
At daybreak I will lead you,
Now I must rest awhile.

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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My Skyline Riders are down and gone
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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
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The Friends Of The Fallen fortunes

The battlefield behind us,
And night loomed on the track;
The Friends of Fallen Fortunes
Were riding at my back.
Save those who lay face upward
Upon the sodden plain,
Not one of all Id trusted
Was missing from my train.

A draggled train and blood-stained,
With helmets dented in,
With battered, loosened armour,
But with a cheerful grin.
No dark look bent upon me;
I noted to my shame
That Friends of Fallen Fortunes
Are aye the last to blame.


Not one of all Id trusted,
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Id trusted not at all,
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And as the horses stumbled,
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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
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Riding Round The Lines

Dust and smoke against the sunrise out where grim disaster lurks
And a broken sky-line looming like unfinished railway works,
And a trot, trot, trot and canter down inside the belt of mines:
It is General Greybeard Shrapnel who is riding round his lines.

And the scarecrows from the trenches, haggard eyes and hollow cheeks,
War-stained uniforms and ragged that have not been off for weeks;
They salute him and they cheer him and they watch his face for signs;
Ah! they try to read old Greybeard while hes riding round the lines.

Theres a crack, crack, crack and rattle; theres a thud and theres a crash;
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Our Mistress And Our Queen

We set no right above hers,
No earthly light nor star,
She hath had many lovers,
But not as lovers are:
They all were gallant fellows
And died all deaths for her,
And never one was jealous
But comrades true they were.

Oh! each one is a brother,
Though all the lands they claim,
For her or for each other
Theyve died all deaths the same
Young, handsome, old and ugly,
Free, married or divorced,
Where springtime bard or Thug lie
Her lovers feet have crossed.

Mid buttercups and daisies
With fair girls by their side,
Young poets sang her praises
While day in starlight died.
In smoke and fire and dust, and
With red eyes maniac like,
Those same young poets thrust and,
Wrenched out the reeking pike!

She is as ...

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The Sliprails And The Spur

The colours of the setting sun
Withdrew across the Western land,
He raised the sliprails, one by one,
And shot them home with trembling hand;
Her brown hands clung, her face grew pale,
Ah! quivering chin and eyes that brim!,
One quick, fierce kiss across the rail,
And, `Good-bye, Mary!' `Good-bye, Jim!'
Oh, he rides hard to race the pain
Who rides from love, who rides from home;
But he rides slowly home again,
Whose heart has learnt to love and roam.

A hand upon the horse's mane,
And one foot in the stirrup set,
And, stooping back to kiss again,
With `Good-bye, Mary! don't you fret!
When I come back', he laughed for her,
`We do not know how soon 'twill be;
I'll whistle as I round the spur,
You let the sliprails down for me.'

She...

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