On The Summit Of Mount Clarence

On the summit of Mount Clarence rotting slowly in the air
Stands a tall and naked flagstaff, relic of the Russian scare,
Russian scare that scares no longer, for the cry is All is well,
Yet the flagstaff still is standing like a lonely sentinel.
And it watches through the seasons, winters cold and summers heat,
Watches seaward, watches ever for the phantom Russian fleet.

In a cave among the ridges, where the scrub is tall and thick
With no human being near him dwells a wretched lunatic:
On Mount Clarence in the morning he will fix his burning eyes,
And he scans the sea and watches for the signal flag to rise;
In his ears the roar of cannon and the sound of battle drums
While he cleans his gun and watches for the foe that never comes.

And they say, at dreary nightfall, when the storms are howling round
Comes a phantom ship to anchor in the waters of the Sound,
And the lunatic who sees it wakes the landscape with his whoops,
Loads his gun and marches seaward at the head of airy troops,
To the summit of Mount Clarence leads them on with martial tread,
Fires his gun and sends the Russians to the mustering of the dead.

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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English

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Captain Von Esson Of The Sebastopol

Of his    beauty, or stature, or colour of hair I hadnt the slightest hint,
But he comes to me as a little man, with a scrubby beard and a squint,
With a heart somewhere if it wasnt there, and an Irish terrier nose,
With a bark or a yelp for his friends and his crew, and a bull-dog grip for his foes.

The Japs had taken a permanent fort at the price of ten thousand sons,
And they shelled the ships in the harbour there with their landed naval guns.
Through sand bags laid on the upper deck, the shells went through with a whelt,
And some (because of ballistic curve) out under the armoured belt.

Till each was sunk that the Russians left, while the buildings reeled with the shock,
Save the last of the Russian ships of war, the Sebastopol, in dock.
And this is the reason, told in a ...

Henry Lawson

Nemesis

It is night-time when the saddest and the darkest memories haunt,
When outside the printing office the most glaring posters flaunt,
When the love-wrong is accomplished. And I think of things and mark
That the blackest lies are written, told, and printed after dark.
Tis the time of late editions. It is night when, as of old,
Foulest things are done for hatred, for ambition, love and gold.

Racing from the senseless city down the dull suburban streets,
Come again the ragged newsboys yelping with their paltry sheets,
Lying posters meaning nothing, double columns meaning less,
Twisted facts and reckless falsehoods, dodges of the Daily Press.
In the town the roar and rattle of the great machines once more,
Greedy for the extra penny, while the Public howls for war.

War...

Henry Lawson

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
For our young...

Henry Lawson

The Vanguard

While the crippled cruisers stagger where the blind horizon dips,
And the ocean ooze is rising round the sunken battle-ships,
While the battered wrecks, unnoticed, with their mangled crews drift past,
Let me fire one gun for Russia, though that gun should be the last.

Tis a struggle of the Ages, and the White Mans star is dim,
There is little jubilation, for the game has got too grim;
But though Russias hope seems shattered, and the Russian star seems set,
It may mean the Dawn for Russia, and my hopes in IVAN yet!

Let the Jingo in his blindness cant and cackle as he will;
But across the path from Asia run the Russian trenches still!
And the sahib in his rickshaw may loll back and smoke at ease,
While the haggard, ragged heroes man the battered batteries.

Ti...

Henry Lawson

The Cliffs

They sing of the grandeur of cliffs inland,
But the cliffs of the ocean are truly grand;
And I long to wander and dream and doubt
Where the cliffs by the ocean run out and out.

To the northward far as the eye can reach
Are sandhill, boulder, and sandy beach;
But southward rises the track for me,
Where the cliffs by the ocean run out to sea.

Friends may be gone in the morning fair,
But the cliffs by the ocean are always there;
Lovers may leave when the wind is chill,
But the cliffs by the ocean are steadfast still.

They watch the sea and they ward the land,
And they warn the ships from the treacherous sand;
And I sadly think in the twilight hour
What I might have been had I known my power.

Where the smoke-cloud blurs and the white sails ...

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