Taking His Chance

They stood by the door of the Inn on the Rise;
May Carney looked up in the bushranger's eyes:
`Oh! why did you come?, it was mad of you, Jack;
You know that the troopers are out on your track.'
A laugh and a shake of his obstinate head,
`I wanted a dance, and I'll chance it,' he said.

Some twenty-odd bushmen had come to the `ball',
But Jack from his youth had been known to them all,
And bushmen are soft where a woman is fair,
So the love of May Carney protected him there;
And all the short evening, it seems like romance,
She danced with a bushranger taking his chance.

`Twas midnight, the dancers stood suddenly still,
For hoofs had been heard on the side of the hill!
Ben Duggan, the drover, along the hillside
Came riding as only a bushman can ride.
He sprang from his horse, to the shanty he sped,
`The troopers are down in the gully!' he said.

Quite close to the homestead the troopers were seen.
`Clear out and ride hard for the ranges, Jack Dean!
Be quick!' said May Carney, her hand on her heart,
`We'll bluff them awhile, and 'twill give you a start.'
He lingered a moment, to kiss her, of course,
Then ran to the trees where he'd hobbled his horse.

She ran to the gate, and the troopers were there,
The jingle of hobbles came faint on the air,
Then loudly she screamed: it was only to drown
The treacherous clatter of slip-rails let down.
But troopers are sharp, and she saw at a glance
That someone was taking a desperate chance.

They chased, and they shouted, `Surrender, Jack Dean!'
They called him three times in the name of the Queen.
Then came from the darkness the clicking of locks;
The crack of the rifles was heard in the rocks!
A shriek and a shout, and a rush of pale men,
And there lay the bushranger, chancing it then.

The sergeant dismounted and knelt on the sod,
`Your bushranging's over, make peace, Jack, with God!'
The bushranger laughed, not a word he replied,
But turned to the girl who knelt down by his side.
He gazed in her eyes as she lifted his head:
`Just kiss me, my girl, and, I'll, chance it,' he said.

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 Motor Car

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

Old North Sydney

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

The Rovers

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

In The Days When The World Was Wide

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.

Mary Lemaine

Jim Duff was a native,as wild as could be;
A stealer and duffer of cattle was he,
But back in his youth he had stolen a pearl
Or a diamond rather the heart of a girl;
She served with a squatter who lived on the plain,
And the name of the girl it was Mary Lemaine.

Twas a drear, rainy day and the twilight was done,
When four mounted troopers rode up to the run.
They spoke to the squatter he asked them all in.
The homestead was small and the walls they were thin;
And in the next room, with a cold in her head,
Our Mary was sewing on buttons in bed.

She heard a few words, but those words were enough
The troopers were all on the track of Jim Duff.
The super, his rival, was planning a trap
To capture the scamp in Maginniss Gap.
Ive warned him before...

Henry Lawson

Years After The War In Australia

The Big rough boys from the runs out back were first where the balls flew free,
And yelled in the slang of the Outside Track: By God, its a Christmas spree!
Its not too rusty, and Wool away!, stand clear of the blazing shoots!,
Sheep O! Sheep O!, Well cut out to-day, Look out for the bosss boots!
What price the tally in camp to-night!, What price the boys Out Back!
Go it, you tigers, for Right or Might and the pride of the Outside Track!
Needle and thread!, I have broke my comb!, Now ride, you flour-bags, ride!
Fight for your mates and the folk at home!, Heres for the Lachlan side!
Those men of the West would sneer and scoff at the gates of hell ajar,
And oft the sight of a head cut off was hailed by a yell for Tar!

I heard the push in the Red Red...

Henry Lawson

Trooper Campbell

One day old Trooper Campbell
Rode out to Blackman's Run,
His cap-peak and his sabre
Were glancing in the sun.
'Twas New Year's Eve, and slowly
Across the ridges low
The sad Old Year was drifting
To where the old years go.

The trooper's mind was reading
The love-page of his life,
His love for Mary Wylie
Ere she was Blackman's wife;
He sorrowed for the sorrows
Of the heart a rival won,
For he knew that there was trouble
Out there on Blackman's Run.

The sapling shades had lengthened,
The summer day was late,
When Blackman met the trooper
Beyond the homestead gate.
And if the hand of trouble
Can leave a lasting trace,
The lines of care had come to stay
On poor old Blackman's face.

`Not good day, Trooper Cam...

Henry Lawson

The Bush Fire

Ah, better the thud of the deadly gun, and the crash of the bursting shell,
Than the terrible silence where drought is fought out there in the western hell;
And better the rattle of rifles near, or the thunder on deck at sea,
Than the sound, most hellish of all to hear, of a fire where it should not be.

On the runs to the west of the Dingo Scrubs there was drought, and ruin, and death,
And the sandstorm came from the dread north-east with the blast of a furnace-breath;
Till at last one day, at the fierce sunrise, a boundary-rider woke,
And saw, in the place of the distant haze, a curtain of light blue smoke.

There is saddling-up by the cockeys hut, and out in the station yard,
And away to the north, north-east, north-west, the bushmen are riding hard.
The pickets are out and m...

Henry Lawson

The Drover's Sweetheart

An hour before the sun goes down
Behind the ragged boughs,
I go across the little run
And bring the dusty cows;
And once I used to sit and rest
Beneath the fading dome,
For there was one that I loved best
Who'd bring the cattle home.

Our yard is fixed with double bails,
Round one the grass is green,
The bush is growing through the rails,
The spike is rusted in;
And 'twas from there his freckled face
Would turn and smile at me
He'd milk a dozen in the race
While I was milking three.

I milk eleven cows myself
Where once I milked but four;
I set the dishes on the shelf
And close the dairy door;
And when the glaring sunlight fails
And the fire shines through the cracks,
I climb the broken stockyard rails
And watch the...

Henry Lawson

The Ghost At The Second Bridge

You'd call the man a senseless fool,
A blockhead or an ass,
Whod dare to say he saw the ghost
Of Mount Victoria Pass;
But I believe the ghost is there,
For, if my eyes are right,
I saw it once upon a neer-
To-be-forgotten night.

Twas in the year of eighty-nine,
The day was nearly gone,
The stars were shining, and the moon
Is mentioned further on;
Id tramped as far as Hartley Vale,
Tho tired at the start,
But coming back I got a lift
In Johnny Joness cart.

Twas winter on the mountains then,
The air was rather chill,
And so we stopped beside the inn
That stands below the hill.
A fire was burning in the bar,
And Johnny thought a glass
Would give the tired horse a spell
And help us up the Pass.

Then ...

Henry Lawson