Republican Pioneers

We're marching along, we're gath'ring strong'
We place on our right reliance,
We fling in the air, for all who care,
Our first loud notes of defiance!
We fling in the air,
For all who care,
Our first loud notes of defiance!

Laugh long and loud, you toady crowd,
At the men you call benighted,
In spite of your sneers, we are pioneers
Of "Australian States United"!
In spite of your sneers, We are pioneers
Of "Australian States United"!

Not long we'll stand as an outlaw band,
And be in our country lonely,
For soon to the sky shall ring our cry,
Our cry of "Australia only"!
For soon to the sky
Shall mount our cry,
Our cry of "Australia only"!

And we'll sleep sound in Australian ground,
'Neath the blue-cross flag star lighted,
When it freely waves o'er the grass-grown graves
Of the pioneers united!
When it floats and veers
O'er the pioneers
Of "Australian States United"!

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

William Street

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

Borderland

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

Ballad Of The Drover

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

The Two Samaritans And The Tramp

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

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Freedom On The Wallaby

Australia's a big country
An' Freedom's humping bluey,
An' Freedom's on the wallaby
Oh! don't you hear 'er cooey?
She's just begun to boomerang,
She'll knock the tyrants silly,
She's goin' to light another fire
And boil another billy.

Our fathers toiled for bitter bread
While loafers thrived beside 'em,
But food to eat and clothes to wear,
Their native land denied 'em.
An' so they left their native land
In spite of their devotion,
An' so they came, or if they stole,
Were sent across the ocean.

Then Freedom couldn't stand the glare
O' Royalty's regalia,
She left the loafers where they were,
An' came out to Australia.
But now across the mighty main
The chains have come ter bind her,
She little thought to see again
T...

Henry Lawson

A Song For The Sydney Poor or, The Australian Marseillaise

Sing the strong, proud song of Labour,
Toss the ringing music high;
Libertys a nearer neighbour
Than she was in days gone by.
Workmens weary wives and daughters
Sing the songs of liberty;
Men hail men across the waters,
Men reply across the sea.

We are marching on and onward
To the silver-streak of dawn,
To the dynasty of mankind
We are marching on.

Long the rich have been protected
By the walls that cant endure;
By the walls that they erected
To divide them from the poor.
Crumbling now, they should not trust them,
For their end is drawing near;
Walls of Cant and walls of Custom,
Walls of Ignorance and Fear.

Tyrants, grip your weapons firmer,
Grip them firmly by the helves;
For the poor begin to murmur
Lo...

Henry Lawson

The Australian Marseillaise or, A Song For The Sydney Poor

Sing the strong, proud song of Labour,
Toss the ringing music high;
Libertys a nearer neighbour
Than she was in days gone by.
Workmens weary wives and daughters
Sing the songs of liberty;
Men hail men across the waters,
Men reply across the sea.

We are marching on and onward
To the silver-streak of dawn,
To the dynasty of mankind
We are marching on.

Long the rich have been protected
By the walls that cant endure;
By the walls that they erected
To divide them from the poor.
Crumbling now, they should not trust them,
For their end is drawing near;
Walls of Cant and walls of Custom,
Walls of Ignorance and Fear.

Tyrants, grip your weapons firmer,
Grip them firmly by the helves;
For the poor begin to murmur
Lo...

Henry Lawson

The Distant Drum

Republicans! the time is coming!
Listen to the distant drumming!
Hearken to the whispers humming
In the troubled atmosphere.

Ye are born to do the toiling;
On and on, and no recoiling!
To the fighting, to the foiling
Of the wrongs that wrong us here.

Let the Loyal laugh and jeer you;
Let them in derision cheer you.
Still the cowards show they fear you
By their deeds and all they say.

Let Britannia rule for ever
Oer the wave; but never, never!
Rule a land great oceans sever
Fifteen thousand miles away.

Stained by persecutions fires
Thinned of homes and thick with spires,
They love the land that bred their sires,
Ye the Land that breeds your sons.

And your sons shall have the reaping,
And your sons shall h...

Henry Lawson

On The March

So the time seems come at last,
And the drums go rolling past,
And above them in the sunlight Labour's banners float and flow;
They are marching with the sun,
But I look in vain for one
Of the men who fought for freedom more than fifteen years ago.

They were men who did the work
Out at Blackall, Hay, and Bourke,
They were men who fought the battle that the world shall never know;
And they vanished one by one
When their bitter task was done,
Men who worked and wrote for freedom more than fifteen years ago.

Some are scattered, some are dead,
By the shanty and the shed,
In the lignum and the mulga, by the river running low;
And I often wish in vain
I could call them back again,
Mates of mine who fought for freedom more than fifteen years ago.

Henry Lawson

For Australia

Now, with the wars of the world begun, they'll listen to you and me,
Now while the frightened nations run to the arms of democracy,
Now, when our blathering fools are scared, and the years have proved us right,
All unprovided and unprepared, the Outpost of the White!

"Get the people, no matter how," that is the way they rave,
Could a million paupers aid us now, or a tinpot squadron save?
The "loyal" drivel, the blatant boast are as shames that used to be,
Our fight shall be a fight for the coast, with the future for the sea!

We must turn our face to the only track that will take us through the worst,
Cable to charter that we lack, guns and cartridges first,
New machines that will make machines till our factories are complete,
Block the shoddy and Brummagem, pay them with w...

Henry Lawson