The King Of Our Republic

He is coming! He is coming! without heralds, without cheers.
He is coming! He is coming! and hes been with us for years:
And, if you should pause to wonder whos the man of whom I sing,
Tis the King of our Republic, and the man we shall call King.

No, he comes not to amuse us, and he comes not to explain,
With the bathos of the old things over all the land again.
The debatable and tangled, and the vain imagining
Shall be swept out of our pathway by the man that well call King.

He is coming! He is coming! He has heard our spirit call;
Hell be greatest man since Cromwell in the English nations all,
And hell take his place amongst us while the rest are wondering,
Shall the King of our Republic, and the man we will call King.

If you find him stern, unyielding, where his living task is set,
I have told you that a tyrant shall uplift the nation yet;
He will place his countrys welfare over all and everything,
Shall the King of our Republic, and the man that well call King.

Yet his heart shall still be gentle with his brothers gone astray,
For the Great Man of Australia shall be simple in his day,
Modest, kindly, but unyielding, while the watching world shall ring
With the name of our Republic and the man that we call King.

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.'

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English

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The King

Among the sons of Englishmen
Full many feel like real tears,
For, though he reigned but scarcely ten,
He bore the burden many years.
He lived the dead past doubly down,
He shamed, by manliness and truth,
The lies that beat about a crown,
And round a known man in his youth.

For he had lived as men have done
Since Adams time, to prove them true.
He proved it in his manhoods prime,
And to the end, as strong men do.
And so he died, and, ever since,
And on through years the words shall ring:
He lived a man, he lived a prince,
And died a gentleman and King.

Unto the friends of his hot youth,
In his wise age, he still was true.
He showed, by steadfastness and truth,
What kings as well as men can do;
Till all was manlike or forgot,<...

Henry Lawson

When I Was King

The second time I lived on earth
Was several hundred years ago;
And, royal by my second birth,
I know as much as most men know.
I was a king who held the reins
As never modern monarch can;
I was a king, and I had brains,
And, what was more, I was a man!

Called to the throne in stormy times,
When things were at their very worst,
I had to fight, and not with rhymes,
My own self and my kindred first;
And after that my friends and foes,
And great abuses born of greed;
And when Id fairly conquered those,
I ruled the land a king indeed.

I found a deal of rottenness,
Such as in modern towns we find;
I camped my poor in palaces
And tents upon the plain behind.
I marked the hovels, dens and drums
In that fair city by the sea.
...

Henry Lawson

The Song Of Australia

The centuries found me to nations unknown,
My people have crowned me and made me a throne;
My royal regalia is love, truth, and light,
A girl called Australia, I've come to my right.

Though no fields of conquest grew red at my birth,
My dead were the noblest and bravest on earth;
Their strong sons are worthy to stand with the best,
My brave Overlanders ride west of the west.

My cities are seeking the clean and the right;
My Statesmen are speaking in London to-night;
The voice of my Bushmen is heard oversea;
My army and navy are coming to me.

By all my grim headlands my flag is unfurled,
My artists and singers are charming the world;
The White world shall know its young outpost with pride;
The fame of my poets goes ever more wide.

By old...

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

That Great Waiting Silence

Where shall we go for prophecy? Where shall we go for proof?
The holiday street is crowded, pavement, window and roof;
Band and banner pass by us, and the old tunes rise and fall,
But that great waiting silence is on the people all!

Where is the cheering and laughter of the eight-hour days gone by?
When the holiday heart was careless, and the holiday spirit high,
The friendly jostling and banter, the wit and the jovial call?
But that great waiting silence is over the people all.

Oh! but my heart beats faster, and a gush that was nearly tears:
Clatter of hammers on iron! and Australian Engineers!
Goods from Australian workshops, proud to the world at last
(And I see, in a flash from the future, Australian guns go past).

The morning sun-glare, softened by a veil, ...

Henry Lawson

My Land And I

They have eaten their fill at your tables spread,
Like friends since the land was won;
And they rise with a cry of "Australia's dead!"
With the wheeze of "Australia's done!"
Oh, the theme is stale, but they tell the tale
(How the weak old tale will keep!)
Like the crows that croak on a splintered rail,
That have gorged on a rotten sheep.

I would sing a song in your darkest hour
In your darkest hour and mine,
For I see the dawn of your wealth and power,
And I see your bright star shine.
The little men yelp and the little men lie,
And they spread the lies afar;
But we heed them never, my Land and I,
For we know how small they are.

They know you not in a paltry town,
In the streets where great hopes die,
Oh, heart that never a flood could dr...

Henry Lawson