Everyone's Friend

Nobody's enemy save his own,
(What shall it be in the end?),
Still by the nick-name he is known,
Everyones Friend.
Nobodys Enemy stands alone
While he has money to lend,
Nobodys Enemy holds his own,
Everyones Friend

Nobodys Enemy down and out,
Game to the end,
And he mostly dies with no one about,
Everyones Friend.

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

Lets Be Fools To-Night or, The Three Partners

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

A Mate Can Do No Wrong

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

The Secret Whisky Cure

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

The Muscovy Duck

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

English

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The Stranger's Friend

The strangest things and the maddest things, that a man can do or say,
To the chaps and fellers and coves Out Back are matters of every day;
Maybe on account of the lives they lead, or the life that their hearts discard,
But never a fool can be too mad or a hard case be too hard.

I met him in Bourke in the Union days, with which we have nought to do
(Their creed was narrow, their methods crude, but they stuck to the cause like glue).
He came into town from the Lost Soul Run for his grim half-yearly bend,
And because of a curious hobby he had, he was known as The Strangers Friend.

It is true to the region of adjectives when I say that the spree was grim,
For to go on the spree was a sacred rite, or a heathen rite, to him,
To shout for the travellers passing through to...

Henry Lawson

To My friends

These are songs of the Friends I neglected,
And the Foes, too, in part;
These are songs that were mostly rejected,
But songs from my heart.

Yours truly,
Henry Lawson.

Sydney, 19/9/1910

Henry Lawson

For He Was A Jolly Good Fellow

They cheered him from the wharf, it was a glorious day:
His hand went to his scarf, his thoughts were far away.
Oh, he was Jolly Good, they sang it long and loud,
The money lender stood unknown amongst the crowd.
Hed taken him aside, while trembling fit to fall,
No friendly eye espied the last farewell of all!

He held a peevish kid, another at his knee;
The wife whom he could bid farewell, eternally
Stood nagging at his side in tones that none could hear,
And deared him, tender eyed, when passengers came near
(The cabin waits below the row and childrens squall,
And not a soul to know the bitter farce of all).

Their hearts were good as gold, each pocket spared a tray,
They pooled them as of old to drink him on his way.
His pile of luggage rose, as brave...

Henry Lawson

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,
Whod followed to their cost,
Save those who lay face upward
On that red field Id lost;
And here and there a soldier
Id trusted not at all,
Like an unexpected mourner
At a poor mans funeral.

And as the horses stumbled,
And th...

Henry Lawson

The Men Who Live It Down

I have sinned, like others, blindly, without thought and without fear,
And my best friends say it kindly, You should go away from here.
Shall I fly the paltry spirit of a narrow little town,
While the battle-drums are beating for the men who live it down?

Down the street where all men know me I can walk with level eyes,
They believe the lies about me, they can sneer, but I despise.
From my black and bitter childhood, from my dull and joyless youth,
It is I who, it is I who, I and Christ who know the truth!

I have sinned, but as a man might; like a man Ill rise again
From long nights of mental torture, from long days of care and pain.
Pass me by with eyes averted, with a shrug or with a frown,
But their heads shall bow in ashes long ere my head shall go down!

...

Henry Lawson

The Way Of The World

When fairer faces turn from me,
And gayer friends grow cold,
And I have lost through poverty
The friendship bought with gold;
When I have served the selfish turn
Of some all-worldly few,
And Follys lamps have ceased to burn,
Then Ill come back to you.

When my admirers find Im not
The rising star they thought,
And praise or blame is all forgot
My early promise brought;
When brighter rivals lead a host
Where once I led a few,
And kinder times reward their boast,
Then Ill come back to you.

You loved me, not for what I had
Or what I might have been,
You saw the good, but not the bad,
Was kind, for that between.
I know that youll forgive again,
That you will judge me true;
Ill be too tired to explain
When I come ...

Henry Lawson