The Lay Of The Motor-Car

We're away! and the wind whistles shrewd
In our whiskers and teeth;
And the granite-like grey of the road
Seems to slide underneath.
As an eagle might sweep through the sky,
So we sweep through the land;
And the pallid pedestrians fly
When they hear us at hand.

We outpace, we outlast, we outstrip!
Not the fast-fleeing hare,
Nor the racehorses under the whip,
Nor the birds of the air
Can compete with our swiftness sublime,
Our ease and our grace.
We annihilate chickens and time
And policemen and space.

Do you mind that fat grocer who crossed?
How he dropped down to pray
In the road when he saw he was lost;
How he melted away
Underneath, and there rang through the fog
His earsplitting squeal
As he went, Is that he or a dog,
That stuff on the wheel?

Andrew Barton Paterson

Andrew Barton Paterson, also known as Banjo Paterson, was an Australian bush poet, journalist, and author. Renowned for his poignant and humorous depictions of rural Australia, he wrote iconic works like "Waltzing Matilda" and "The Man from Snowy River." His storytelling, deeply rooted in Australian culture, has cemented his legacy as one of the nation's most beloved literary figures.

Andrew Barton Paterson

Billy Barlow In Australia

Andrew Barton Paterson, Simple Poetry

That V.C.

Andrew Barton Paterson, Simple Poetry

The Ballad Of The Calliope

Andrew Barton Paterson, Simple Poetry

Frogs In Chorus

Andrew Barton Paterson, Simple Poetry

English

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A Motor Courtship

Into her presence he gaily pranced,
A very fat spark, and a bit advanced.

With a Samson tread on the earth he trod,
He was stayed and gaitered, and fifty odd.

And she was a tulip just unfurled,
The sweetest thing in the motor world.

Her body was one of which poets dreamed;
Eighteen, twenty, or so she seemed.

Her air was haughty, her spirit proud,
But properly governed, as all allowed.

"Pity," he said, "my sad condition;
My heart's in a state of advanced ignition.

"Ask me to do some desperate deed,
And I'll do it at once at my topmost speed."

"Sir," said the maiden, "pray be seated;
I fear from your bearing you're somewhat heated.

"And I trust that a timely lubrication
Of throttle will cool your circulation."...

Andrew Barton Paterson

The Old Australian Ways

The London lights are far abeam
Behind a bank of cloud,
Along the shore the gaslights gleam,
The gale is piping loud;
And down the Channel, groping blind,
We drive her through the haze
Towards the land we left behind,
The good old land of `never mind',
And old Australian ways.

The narrow ways of English folk
Are not for such as we;
They bear the long-accustomed yoke
Of staid conservancy:
But all our roads are new and strange,
And through our blood there runs
The vagabonding love of change
That drove us westward of the range
And westward of the suns.

The city folk go to and fro
Behind a prison's bars,
They never feel the breezes blow
And never see the stars;
They never hear in blossomed trees
The music low and swee...

Andrew Barton Paterson

Old Australian Ways

The London lights are far abeam
Behind a bank of cloud,
Along the shore the gaslights gleam,
The gale is piping loud;
And down the Channel, groping blind,
We drive her through the haze
Towards the land we left behind,
The good old land of "never mind",
And old Australian ways.

The narrow ways of English folk
Are not for such as we;
They bear the long-accustomed yoke
Of staid conservancy:
But all our roads are new and strange,
And through our blood there runs
The vagabonding love of change
That drove us westward of the range
And westward of the suns.

The city folk go to and fro
Behind a prison's bars,
They never feel the breezes blow
And never see the stars;
They never hear in blossomed trees
The music low and swee...

Andrew Barton Paterson

The Silent Wheel.

[From Arthur Selwyn's Note-book.]

        Through these broad streets do I fly -
        Furlongs and miles I defy,
        Till the "magnificent distance"
        Vanishes out of existence.
        Let me with pencil prolong
        Strains of the Bicycler's Song:


[The Silent Wheel.]

    Good-morning, good Pedestrian - I'm glad to see you out;
    The day is full of healthfulness, the birds are all about;
    There is a quiet breeziness in all the pleasant air -
    I hope this happy exercise will drive away your care.
                                    For I am a pedestrian -
                                    A very good pedestrian -
    And all the glowing benefit of walking I can share;
    Although I tread the atmosphere, and ...

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The Old Timer's Steeplechase

The sheep were shorn and the wool went down
At the time of our local racing;
And I'd earned a spell, I was burnt and brown,
So I rolled my swag for a trip to town
And a look at the steeplechasing.

Twas rough and ready an uncleared course
As rough as the blacks had found it;
With barbed-wire fences, topped with gorse,
And a water-jump that would drown a horse,
And the steeple three times round it.

There was never a fence the tracks to guard,,
Some straggling posts defined 'em:
And the day was hot, and the drinking hard,
Till none of the stewards could see a yard
Before nor yet behind 'em!

But the bell was rung and the nags were out,
Excepting an old outsider
Whose trainer started an awful rout,
For his boy had gone on a drinking bout...

Andrew Barton Paterson

A Voice From The Town

I thought, in the days of the droving,
Of steps I might hope to retrace,
To be done with the bush and the roving
And settle once more in my place.
With a heart that was well nigh to breaking,
In the long, lonely rides on the plain,
I thought of the pleasure of taking
The hand of a lady again.

I am back into civilization,
Once more in the stir and the strife,
But the old joys have lost their sensation,
The light has gone out of my life;
The men of my time they have married,
Made fortunes or gone to the wall;
Too long from the scene I have tarried,
And somehow, I'm out of it all.

For I go to the balls and the races
A lonely companionless elf,
And the ladies bestow all their graces
On others less grey than myself;
While the talk go...

Andrew Barton Paterson