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 bravely as the best,
He had two suits of clothes, his wife and kids the rest.
Hed stood em up a sov., for fear of seeming small,
And he was thinking of that worst farewell of all.

They cheered from cargo ways and ballast heap and pile,
To last him all his days, they sent him off in style.
(He only took his book.) He only turned his head
In one last hopeless look towards a cargo shed
Where one stood brimming eyed in silence by the wall,
No jealous eyes espied that last farewell of all.

The ship is out of sight and out of memory clean,
Hes rolling through the Bight on board the All Serene.
His hearts like half a brick, the voice of hope is dumb,
Hes handicapped and sick with fear of whats to come.
Theyre passing Cape Leuwin, the half-brick starts to fall,
But with a fiendish grin, he curses land and all.

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

The Paroo River

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The Man Who Raised Charlestown

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

In The Day's When We Are Dead

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

The Gentlemen Of Dickens

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

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The Vagabond

White handkerchiefs wave from the short black pier
As we glide to the grand old sea,
But the song of my heart is for none to hear
If one of them waves for me.
A roving, roaming life is mine,
Ever by field or flood,
For not far back in my father's line
Was a dash of the Gipsy blood.

Flax and tussock and fern,
Gum and mulga and sand,
Reef and palm, but my fancies turn
Ever away from land;
Strange wild cities in ancient state,
Range and river and tree,
Snow and ice. But my star of fate
Is ever across the sea.

A god-like ride on a thundering sea,
When all but the stars are blind,
A desperate race from Eternity
With a gale-and-a-half behind.
A jovial spree in the cabin at night,
A song on the rolling deck,
A lark ashore wit...

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

The Seabolts Volunteers

They towed the Seabolt down the stream,
And through the harbours mouth;
She spread her wings and sailed away
To seek the sunny South.

But, ah! she met with storm on storm
Ere half her course had run;
And all her masts were torn away,
And all her boats save one.

The good old ship had settled far
Beneath her cargo line,
Her riven sides were drinking deep
The draughts of ocean brine.

There gathered round the only boat
The women pale with fear,
And trembling little ones, who clung
To those who held them dear.

Then spoke the captain, brave and true,
His voice rose oer the roar;
The boat will save us all but five,
She cannot float with more!

And backward from the side he stepped
(He had been born at sea)

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

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 Author's Farewell To The Bushmen

Some carry their swags in the Great North-West,
Where the bravest battle and die,
And a few have gone to their last long rest,
And a few have said: Good-bye!
The coast grows dim, and it may be long
Ere the Gums again I see;
So I put my soul in a farewell song
To the chaps who barracked for me.

Their days are hard at the best of times,
And their dreams are dreams of care,
God bless them all for their big soft hearts,
And the brave, brave grins they wear!
God keep me straight as a man can go,
And true as a man may be!
For the sake of the hearts that were always so,
Of the men who had faith in me!

And a ship-side word I would say, you chaps
Of the blood of the Dont-give-in!
The world will call it a boast, perhaps,
But Ill win, if a ma...

Henry Lawson