Send Round The Hat

Now this is the creed from the Book of the Bush,
Should be simple and plain to a dunce:
"If a mans in a hole you must pass round the hat,
Were he jail-bird or gentleman once."

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

Old Tunes

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

The Unknown God

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

The League Of Nations

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

Up The Country

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

English

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A Mate Can Do No Wrong

We learnt the creed at Hungerford,
We learnt the creed at Bourke;
We learnt it in the good times
And learnt it out of work.
We learnt it by the harbour-side
And on the billabong:
"No matter what a mate may do,
A mate can do no wrong!"
Hes like a king in this respect
(No matter what they do),
And, king-like, shares in storm and shine
The Throne of Life with you.
We learnt it when we were in gaol
And put it in a song:
"No matter what a mate may do,
A mate can do no wrong!"
Theyll say he said a bitter word
When hes away or dead.
Were loyal to his memory,
No matter what he said.
And we should never hesitate,
But strike out good and strong,
And jolt the slanderer on the jaw,
A mate can do no wrong!

Henry Lawson

The New Chum Jackeroo

Let bushmen think as bushmen will,
And say whateer they choose,
I hate to hear the stupid sneer
At New Chum Jackaroos.

He may not ride as you can ride,
Or do what you can do;
But sometimes youd seem small beside
The New Chum Jackaroo.

His share of work he never shirks,
And through the blazing drought,
He lives the old things down, and works
His own salvation out.

When older, wiser chums despond
He battles brave of heart,
Twas he who sailed of old beyond
The margin of the chart.

Twas he who proved the world was round,
In crazy square canoes;
The lands youre living in were found
By New Chum Jackaroos.

He crossed the deserts hot and bare,
From barren, hungry shores,
The plains that you would scarcel...

Henry Lawson

Heed Not!

Heed not the cock-sure tourist,
Seeing with English eyes;
Stroked at the banquet table
Still, with the old stock lies,
Pet of a social circle,
Guest in a garden fair,
Free of the first-class carriage,
He learns no Australia there.

Heed not the Southern humbugs
By the first saloons who come,
From his work in the wide, hot scrub-lands
The Australian goes not home.
Give them the toadies knighthood,
Fit for the souls theyve got;
Fear not to shame Australia
For Australia knows them not.

Heed not the Sydney dailies,
Naught for the land they do;
Heed not the Melbourne street crowd,
For they know no more than you!
Pent in the coastal cities,
Still on the old-world track,
They know naught of Australia,
Of the heart of ...

Henry Lawson

The Old Stockman's Lament

Wrap me up in me stockwhip and blanket,
And bury me deep down below,
Where this piffle and sham wont disgust me,
In the land where the coolibahs grow;
For Ive stayed with some well-to-do people,
And Ive dined with some middle-class folk;
And Ive sorrowed by clock-tower and steeple
Till my heart for the Commonwealths broke.

They have flown in another direction,
Who used to clack-clack by the hour
Of this awful Freetrade and Protection,
Of our dear darling member in power,
And the Higher Religion for Dossers,
And the Need of an Object for Drunks,
Now theyre all of them Red or Blue Crossers,
With their tails sticking out of their trunks.

There are citified Martins in dozens,
The Darling Point Martins the pick,
Who used to be horrif...

Henry Lawson

The Ballad Of The Rousabout

A Rouseabout of rouseabouts, from any land, or none,
I bear a nick-name of the bush, and Im, a womans son;
I came from where I campd last night, and, at the day-dawn glow,
I rub the darkness from my eyes, roll up my swag, and go.

Some take the track for bitter pride, some for no pride at all,
(But, to us all the world is wide when driven to the wall)
Some take the track for gain in life, some take the track for loss,
And some of us take up the swag as Christ took up the Cross.

Some take the track for faith in men, some take the track for doubt,
Some flee a squalid home to work their own salvation out.
Some dared not see a mothers tears nor meet a fathers face,
Born of good Christian families some leap, head-long, from Grace.

Oh we are men who fought and ros...

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