Sydney Town In 91

Let us sing a song as not a
Solitary poet sings,
For our seething brain has got a
Mighty grip on earthly things;
We can feel the strength within us,
And our soul is bounding high,
And our hissing pen shall win us
Wealth and Beauty by-and-bye.

Listen to the thunder swelling
Till the mighty west vibrates!
Tis the horny-handed yelling
For the Labour candidates!
Hear the language of the frisky
Push assisting at the fun:
Liberty, and rum and whisky!
Sydney town in 91.

Whack the poor and cut a caper,
Turn the taps and shout wharroo!
For each Sydney leading paper
Has a candidate or two.
Every new one is an ember,
Lighting up this land of sin,
Clever little B, , k is member
For the Sydney Bulletin.

Wherefore hang our curls in sloppy
Mats of ink upon our brow?
Hark! the devil yells for copy,
And the comps are swearing now.
Put in Parkes and Dan OConnor
While the nation swears and laughs,
They are good, upon my honour
They are good for paragraphs!

Stone them, egg them, flour-bag them,
Pelt and whelt them black and blue!
Swear at them, and bully-rag them,
Vote for them, and put them through!
What is fame, and what is money
While the sky is still oerhead?
I would vote for Garden Honey,
Only Garden Honeys dead.

Every mans as goods his neighbour,
We will lead the nations van.
(If hed swear to fight for Labour
Wed return a Chinaman.)
Squash the hills and shout Hosanna!
Wake the nations! New South Wales!
Nail the shining Southern Banner
To the Pole with two-inch nails!

Renegades! our hearts grow lighter
As the roving seasons flow.
Time will teach, for een the writer
Yelled for Freedom long ago;
Yelled unto the hungry toiler,
Fought to break the tyrants power,
Till his over-heated boiler
Needed wetting evry hour!

What care we for Federation?
And the loan may float or drown;
Will a brother in the nation
Only lend us half-a-crown?
Heavens! but our heads are aching,
Theres a throbbing in our brows;
Let us go to gaol for taking
Part in federated rows.

Ah! the land without elections
Is a lonely land indeed;
We must take our joy in sections,
While our flaming countries bleed!
Glorious harvest for reporters,
Load your pens and fire away,
While the railway guards and porters
Get a jolly holiday.

Let us think and rave and borrow
Yards from poets who are dead,
Bards who died of ruin and sorrow
In the gutter and the shed.
Federate the hanged creation!
(Snake thats born of rum! whats that?)
Lo! the throes of inspiration
Scare the mangy office cat!

Though the scythe of Time is brittle,
Taking every sweep a year,
We shall jog his arm a little
In the Southern Hemisphere.
Let the northern nations squabble,
We will row another boat;
Lord, well make the planet wobble
When we get One Man One Vote.

We will hold this Eldorado
Island of the evergreen;
Let the soldiers and Recardo
Go to hell, or Argentine!
Weve the power, and we are waiting;
Why the day of deeds defer
While our sons are emigrating
To the planet Jupiter?

Brightest spot upon the planet
Is the land where I was born,
And the lunatics who man it
Are the rising sons of morn.
Take the song and sing it gaily,
For the times are very ripe;
Let the crawling, lying daily
Set it up in mortgaged type.

The muse was forcibly ejected at this point.

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

The Southerly Buster

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

Interlude - A Dirge Of Joy

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

The Last Review

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

Those Foreign Engineers

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

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

To Be Amused

You ask me to be gay and glad
While lurid clouds of danger loom,
And vain and bad and gambling mad,
Australia races to her doom.
You bid me sing the light and fair,
The dance, the glance on pleasure's wings,
While you have wives who will not bear,
And beer to drown the fear of things.

A war with reason you would wage
To be amused for your short span,
Until your children's heritage
Is claimed for China by Japan.
The football match, the cricket score,
The "scraps", the tote, the mad'ning Cup,
You drunken fools that evermore
"To-morrow morning" sober up!

I see again with haggard eyes,
The thirsty land, the wasted flood;
Unpeopled plains beyond the skies,
And precious streams that run to mud;
The ruined health, the wasted wealth,

Henry Lawson

The Vote Of Thanks Debate

The other night I got the blues and tried to smile in vain.
I couldnt chuck a chuckle at the foolery of Twain;
When Ward and Billings failed to bring a twinkle to my eye,
I turned my eyes to Hansard of the fifteenth of July.
I laughed and roared until I thought that I was growing fat,
And all the boarders came to see what I was laughing at:
It rose the risibility of some, I grieve to state,
That foolish speech of Brentnalls in the Vote of Thanks debate.

O Brentnall, of the olden school and cold sarcastic style!
Youll take another WORKER now and stick it on your file;
Were very fond of poetry,, we hope that this is quite
As entertaining as the lines you read the other night.
We know that you are honest, but twas foolish to confess
You read and file the WORKER; we...

Henry Lawson

The Men Who Made Australia

There'll be royal times in Sydney for the Cuff and Collar Push,
Therell be lots of dreary drivel and clap-trap
From the men who own Australia, but who never knew the Bush,
And who could not point their runs out on the map.
Oh, the daily Press will grovel as it never did before,
Therell be many flags of welcome in the air,
And the Civil Service poet, he shall write odes by the score,
But the men who made the land will not be there.

You shall meet the awful Lady of the latest Birthday Knight,
(She is trying to be English, dont-cher-know?)
You shall hear the empty mouthing of the champion blatherskite,
You shall hear the boss of local drapers blow.
Therell be majahs from the counter, tailors dummies from the fleet,
And to represent Australia here to-day,
There...

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

A Song Of Brave Men

Man, is the Sea your master? Sea, and is man your slave?,
This is the song of brave men who never know they are brave:
Ceaselessly watching to save you, stranger from foreign lands,
Soundly asleep in your state room, full sail for the Goodwin Sands!
Life is a dream, they tell us, but life seems very real,
When the lifeboat puts out from Ramsgate, and the buggers put out from Deal!

A gun from the lightship!, a rocket!, a cry of, Turn out, me lad!
Ship on the Sands! theyre shouting, and a rush of the oilskin-clad.
The lifeboat leaping and swooping, in the wake of the fighting tug,
And the luggers afloat in Hells water, Oh, tourist, with cushion and rug!,
Think of the freezing fury, without one minutes relief,
When they stood all night in the blackness by the wreck of the ...

Henry Lawson

Sydney Town In 91

Suggested Poems

Sydney Town In 91