I'll Tell You What You Wanderers

I'll tell you what you wanderers, who drift from town to town;
Don't look into a good girl's eyes, until you've settled down.
It's hard to go away alone and leave old chums behind,
It's hard to travel steerage when your tastes are more refined,
To reach a place when times are bad, and to be standing there,
No money in your pocket nor a decent rag to wear.
But be forced from that fond clasp, from that last clinging kiss,
By poverty! There is on earth no harder thing than this.

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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The Professional Wanderer

When youve knocked about the country, been away from home for years;
When the past, by distance softened, nearly fills your eyes with tears,
You are haunted oft, wherever or however you may roam,
By a fancy that you ought to go and see the folks at home.
You forget the family quarrels, little things that used to jar,
And you think of how theyll worry, how they wonder where you are;
You will think you served them badly, and your own part youll condemn,
And it strikes you that youll surely be a novelty to them,
For your voice has somewhat altered, and your face has somewhat changed,
And your views of men and matters over wider fields have ranged.
Then its time to save your money, or to watch it (how it goes!);
Then its time to get a Gladstone and a decent suit of clothes;
T...

Henry Lawson

By Hut, Homestead And Shearing Shed,

By hut, homestead and shearing shed,
By railroad, coach and track,
By lonely graves where rest the dead,
Up-Country and Out-Back:
To where beneath the clustered stars
The dreamy plains expand.

My home lies wide a thousand miles
In Never-Never Land.
It lies beyond the farming belt,
Wide wastes of scrub and plain,
A blazing desert in the drought,
A lake-land after rain;
To the skyline sweeps the waving grass,
Or whirls the scorching sand,
A phantom land, a mystic realm!
The Never-Never Land.

Where lone Mount Desolation lies
Mounts Dreadful and Despair,
'Tis lost beneath the rainless skies
In hopeless deserts there;
It spreads nor-west by No-Man's Land
Where clouds are seldom seen
To where the cattle stations lie
Thr...

Henry Lawson

Over The Ranges And Into The West

Let others sing praise of their sea-girted isles,
But give me the bush with its limitless miles;
Then its over the ranges and into the West,
To the scenes of wild boyhood; we love them the best.

Well ride and well ride from the city afar,
To the plains where the cattle and sheep stations are;
Where stockmen ride hard, and the drover starts forth
On his long, lonely journey way up in the North.

When your money is low, and your luck has gone down,
Theres no place so lone as the streets of a town;
Theres nothing but worry, and dread and unrest,
So well over the ranges and into the West.

The drought in the West may spread ruin around,
But the dread drought of life in the city is found;
And Id far sooner tread on the long dusty way,
Where each ...

Henry Lawson

The Never-Never Country

By homestead, hut, and shearing-shed,
By railroad, coach, and track,
By lonely graves of our brave dead,
Up-Country and Out-Back:
To where 'neath glorious the clustered stars
The dreamy plains expand,
My home lies wide a thousand miles
In the Never-Never Land.

It lies beyond the farming belt,
Wide wastes of scrub and plain,
A blazing desert in the drought,
A lake-land after rain;
To the sky-line sweeps the waving grass,
Or whirls the scorching sand,
A phantom land, a mystic land!
The Never-Never Land.

Where lone Mount Desolation lies,
Mounts Dreadful and Despair,
'Tis lost beneath the rainless skies
In hopeless deserts there;
It spreads nor'-west by No-Man's-Land,
Where clouds are seldom seen,
To where the cattle-stati...

Henry Lawson

On The Wallaby

Now the tent poles are rotting, the camp fires are dead,
And the possums may gambol in trees overhead;
I am humping my bluey far out on the land,
And the prints of my bluchers sink deep in the sand:
I am out on the wallaby humping my drum,
And I came by the tracks where the sundowners come.

It is nor'-west and west o'er the ranges and far
To the plains where the cattle and sheep stations are,
With the sky for my roof and the grass for my bunk,
And a calico bag for my damper and junk;
And scarcely a comrade my memory reveals,
Save the spiritless dingo in tow of my heels.

But I think of the honest old light of my home
When the stars hang in clusters like lamps from the dome,
And I think of the hearth where the dark shadows fall,
When my camp fire is built...

Henry Lawson

A Voice From The City

On western plain and eastern hill
Where once my fancy ranged,
The station hands are riding still
And they are little changed.
But I have lost in London gloom
The glory of the day,
The grand perfume of wattle bloom
Is faint and far away.
Brown faces under broad-brimmed hats
The grip of wiry hands,
The gallops on the frosty flats,
Seem dreams of other lands;
The camp fire and the stars that blaze
Above the mystic plain
Are but the thoughts of vanished days
That never come again.

The evening star I seldom view,
That led me on to roam,
I never see the morning star
That used to draw me home.
But I have often longed for day
To hide the few I see,
Because they only point and say
Most bitter things to me.

I wear my l...

Henry Lawson