Hes Gone To England For A Wife

He's gone to England for a wife
Among the ladies there;
And yet I know a lass he deemed
The rarest of the rare.
Hes gone to England for a wife;
And rich and proud is he.
But he was poor and toiled for bread
When first he courted me.

He said I was the best on earth;
He said I was his life;
And now he thinks of noble birth,
And seeks a lady wife!
He said for me alone hed toil
To win an honest fame;
But now no lass on southern soil
Is worthy of his name!

I think I see his lady bride,
A fair and faultless face,
And nothing in her heart beside
The empty pride of race.
And she will grace his gilded home,
The wife his gold shall buy;
But will she ever dream of him,
Or love as well as I?

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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Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

English

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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

Uncle Harry

Oh, never let on to your own true love
That ever you drank a drop;
That ever you played in a two-up school
Or slept in a sly-grog shop;
That ever a bad girl nursed you round,
That ever you sank so low.
But she pulled you through, and it's only you
And your old mate Harry know.

"Billy the Link" they called you then,
And it makes me sad to think
Of the strenuous days when it took three cops
And a pimp to couple the Link.
"Mister Linkhurst" they call you now,
And your kitchen garden grows;
And no one knows in your family,
But your Uncle Harry knows.

Oh, never let on to your fair young bride
How a "straight" girl stabbed your heart
With a devilish wire to the Western side
Where we were a world apart.
With pick and shovel you fought ...

Henry Lawson

Written Afterwards

So the days of my tramping are over,
And the days of my riding are done,
Im about as content as a rover
Will ever be under the sun;
I write, after reading your letter,
My pipe with old memories rife,
And I feel in a mood that had better
Not meet the true eyes of the wife.

You must never admit a suggestion
That old things are good to recall;
You must never consider the question:
Was I happier then, after all?
You must banish the old hope and sorrow
That make the sad pleasures of life,
You must live for To-day and To-morrow
If you want to be just to the wife.

I have changed since the first day I kissed her.
Which is due, Heaven bless her!, to her;
Im respected and trusted, Im Mister,
Addressed by the children as Sir.
And ...

Henry Lawson

The Peace Maker

It has a point of neither sex
But comes in guise of both,
And, doubly dangerous complex,
It is a thing to loathe,
A lady with her sweet, sad smile,
A gentleman on oath.

Strip off the mother-veil, and fur!
And signs of quiet taste.
The dead childs locket take from her
(The dead mans gift in haste)
And wash from every evil line
The layers of filling paste!

From saddened eyes the hells own glare!
From sweet mouth blasphemy!
Wrench out the gold-filled false teeth there
That twice mock honesty,
And leave the evil face awry
For married folk to see.

For foolish girl wives in despair,
For mens and childrens sakes,
Let loose the glossed and padded hair
To writhe like scorching snakes!
And strip the barren bod...

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

The Black Bordered Letter

An SO es dead in London,
An answered to the call,
An trotted through the Long Street,
With earse an plumes an all?
We was village boys an brothers,
We was warm as we could be,
In the milk-walk an the fried fish,
Up in London, im an me.

We was warm,
We was warm,
As we ad always been;
We never ad a dry word
Till she come between.

I lived round Windsor Terrace,
An im across the wye,
An when I sailed a emigrant
We never said good-bye!
He wos better than a brother,
Wot you Bushmen call a mate.
(Did he reach the rylwye stytion,
As they told me, just too late!)

We was warm,
We was warm,
As pals was ever seen;
We never ad a dry word
Till she come between.

I meant to go back om...

Henry Lawson

Hes Gone To England For A Wife

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Hes Gone To England For A Wife