Somewhere Up In Queensland

He's somewhere up in Queensland,
The old folks used to say;
Hes somewhere up in Queensland,
The people say to-day.
But Somewhere (up in Queensland)
That uncle used to know,
That filled our hearts with wonder,
Seems vanished long ago.

Hes gone to Queensland, droving,
The old folks used to say;
Hes gone to Queensland, droving,
The people say to-day.
But gone to Queensland, droving,
Might mean, in language plain,
He follows stock in buggies,
And gets supplies by train.

Hes knocking round in Queensland,
The old folks used to say;
Hes gone to Queensland, roving,
His sweetheart says to-day.
But gone to Queensland, roving
By mighty plain and scrub,
Might mean he drives a motor-car
For Missus Moneygrub.

Hes looking for new country,
The old folks used to say;
Our boy has gone exploring,
Fond parents say to-day.
Exploring out in Queensland
Might only mean to some
Hes salesman in the drapery
Of a bush emporium.

To somewhere up in Queensland
Went Tom and Ted and Jack;
From somewhere up in Queensland
The dusty cheques come back:
From somewhere up in Queensland
Brown drovers used to come,
And someone up in Queensland
Kept many a southern home.

Somewhere up in Queensland,
How many black sheep roam,
Who never write a letter,
And never think of home.
For someone up in Queensland
How many a mother spoke;
For someone up in Queensland
How many a girls heart broke.

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

1891

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

The Grog-an'Grumble Steeplechase

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

A Word From The Bards

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

In The Day's When We Are Dead

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

English

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Billy Of Queensland

Queensland, he heads his letters, thats all:
The date, and the month, and the year in brief;
He often sends me a cheerful scrawl,
With an undertone of ancient grief.
The first seems familiar, but might have changed,
As often the writing of wanderers will;
He seems all over the world to have ranged,
And he signs himself William, or Billy, or Bill.

He might have been an old mate of mine,
A shearer, or one of the station hands.
(There were some of em died, who drop me a line,
Signing other names, and in other hands.
There was one who carried his swag with me
On the western tracks, when the world was young,
And now he is spouting democracy
In another land with another tongue.)

He cheers me up like an old mate, quite,
And swears at times like an...

Henry Lawson

Bush Hay

The stamp of Scotland is on his face,
But he sailed to the South a lad,
And he does not think of the black bleak hills
And the bitter hard youth he had;
He thinks of a nearer and dearer past
In the bright land far away,
When the teams went up and the teams came down,
In the days when they made bush hay.

The fare was rough and the bush was grim
In the years of his pilgrimage,
But he gained the strength that is still with him
In his hale, late middle age.
He thinks of the girl at the halfway inn
They use as a barn to-day,
Oh, she was a dumpling and he was thin
In the days when they made bush hay.

The ration teams to the Bathurst Plains
Were often a fortnight full.
And they branched all ways in the early days
And back to the port with...

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

The Bush Beyond The Range

From Crows Nest here by Sydney town
Where crows had nests of old
I see the Range where day goes down,
The dim blue in the gold.
And sometimes wonder, half in doubt,
Has there been so much change
As pictured in the prints about
The Bush beyond the Range.

Theres motor car and all the frills
But none of my old mates,
The Bush seems run by Bufflo Bills
And Hayseeds from the States.
I miss the homesteads and the scrub,
The stock and fences too,
The horse and swagmen and the pub.
That Minns and Mahoney drew.

I miss the drivers, diggers, sheep,
And, lots of things, Ah, well!
I wonder if the Kellys keep
The Carriers Camp Hotel,
If that still stands by hill and plain
As old man Kellys pride,
Or if he did pull round again...

Henry Lawson

Up The Country

I am back from up the country, very sorry that I went,
Seeking for the Southern poets' land whereon to pitch my tent;
I have lost a lot of idols, which were broken on the track,
Burnt a lot of fancy verses, and I'm glad that I am back.
Further out may be the pleasant scenes of which our poets boast,
But I think the country's rather more inviting round the coast.
Anyway, I'll stay at present at a boarding-house in town,
Drinking beer and lemon-squashes, taking baths and cooling down.

`Sunny plains'! Great Scott!, those burning wastes of barren soil and sand
With their everlasting fences stretching out across the land!
Desolation where the crow is! Desert where the eagle flies,
Paddocks where the luny bullock starts and stares with reddened eyes;
Where, in clouds of dust enve...

Henry Lawson

Knockin' Around

Weary old wife, with the bucket and cow,
Hows your son Jack? and where is he now?
Haggard old eyes that turn to the west,
Boys will be boys, and hes gone with the rest!
Grief without tears and grief without sound;
Somewhere up-country hes knocking around.
Knocking around with a vagabond crew,
Does for himself what a mother would do;
Maybe in trouble and maybe hard-up,
Maybe in want of a bite or a sup;
Dead of the fever, or lost in the drought,
Lonely old mother! hes knocking about.

Wiry old man at the tail of the plough,
Heard of Jack lately? and where is he now?
Pauses a moment his forehead to wipe,
Drops the rope reins while he feels for his pipe,
Scratches his grey head in sorrow or doubt:
Somewheers or others hes knocking about.

Henry Lawson