The Man From Waterloo

It was the Man from Waterloo,
When work in town was slack,
Who took the track as bushmen do,
And humped his swag out back.

He tramped for months without a bob,
For most the sheds were full,
Until at last he got a job
At picking up the wool.

He found the work was rather rough,
But swore to see it through,
For he was made of sterling stuff,
The Man from Waterloo.

The first remark was like a stab
That fell his ear upon,
Twas, Theres another something scab
The boss has taken on!

They couldnt let the towny be,
They sneered like anything;
Theyd mock him when hed sound the g
In words that end in ing.

There came a man from Ironbark,
And at the shed he shore;
He scoffed his victuals like a shark,
And like a fiend he swore.

Hed shorn his flowing beard that day,
He found it hard to reap,
Because twas hot and in the way
While he was shearing sheep.

His loaded fork in grimy holt
Was poised, his jaws moved fast,
Impatient till his throat could bolt
The mouthful taken last.

He couldnt stand a something toff;
Much less a jackaroo;
And swore to take the trimmings off
The Man from Waterloo.

The towny saw he must be up
Or else be underneath,
And so one day, before them all,
He dared to clean his teeth.

The men came running from the shed,
And shouted, Heres a lark!
Its gone to clean its tooties! said
The man from Ironbark.

His feeble joke was much enjoyed;
He sneered as bullies do,
And with a scrubbing-brush he guyed
The Man from Waterloo.

The Jackaroo made no remark
But peeled and waded in,
And soon the Man from Ironbark
Had three teeth less to grin!

And when they knew that he could fight
They swore to see him through,
Because they saw that he was right,
The Man from Waterloo.

Now in a shop in Sydney, near
The Bottle on the Shelf,
The tale is told, with trimmings, by
The Jackaroo himself.

They made my life a hell, he said;
They wouldnt let me be;
They set the bully of the shed
To take it out of me.

The dirt was on him like a sheath,
He seldom washed his phiz;
He sneered because I cleaned my teeth,
I guess I dusted his!

I treated them as they deserved,
I signed on one or two!
They wont forget me soon, observed
The Man from Waterloo.

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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So yer travlin for yer pleasure while yer writin for the press?
An yer huntin arter copy? well, Ive heerd o that. I guess
You are gorn ter write a story that is gorn ter be yer best,
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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!
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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,
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The Man From Ironbark

It was the man from Ironbark who struck the Sydney town,
He wandered over street and park, he wandered up and down.
He loitered here, he loitered there, till he was like to drop,
Until at last in sheer despair he sought a barber's shop.
"Ere! shave my beard and whiskers off, I'll be a man of mark,
I'll go and do the Sydney toff up home in Ironbark."

The barber man was small and flash, as barbers mostly are,
He wore a strike-your-fancy sash, he smoked a huge cigar;
He was a humorist of note and keen at repartee,
He laid the odds and kept a "tote", whatever that may be,
And when he saw our friend arrive, he whispered, "Here's a lark!
Just watch me catch him all alive, this man from Ironbark."

There were some gilded youths that sat along the barber's wall.
Their eye...

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The Last Review

Turn the light down, nurse, and leave me, while I hold my last review,
For the Bush is slipping from me, and the town is going too:
Draw the blinds, the streets are lighted, and I hear the tramp of feet,
And Im weary, very weary, of the Faces in the Street.

In the dens of Grind and Heartbreak, in the streets of Never-Rest,
I have lost the scent and colour and the music of the West:
And I would recall old faces with the memories they bring,
Where are Bill and Jim and Mary and the Songs They used to Sing?

They are coming! They are coming! they are passing through the room
With the smell of gum leaves burning, and the scent of Wattle bloom!
And behind them in the timber, after dust and heat and toil,
Others sit beside the camp fire yarning while the billies boil.

...

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A Little Mistake

Tis a yarn I heard of a new-chum trap
On the edge of the Never-Never,
Where the dead men lie and the black men lie,
And the bushman lies for ever.
Twas the custom still with the local blacks
To cadge in the altogether
They had less respect for our feelings then,
And more respect for the weather.

The trooper said to the sergeants wife:
Sure, I wouldnt seem unpleasant;
But theres women and childer about the place,
And barrin a ladys present

Theres ould King Billy wid niver a stitch
For a month may the drought cremate him!
Bar the wan we put in his dirty head,
Where his old Queen Mary bate him.

God give her strength! and a peaceful reign
Though she flies in a bit av a passion
If ony wan hints that her shtoyle an ...

Henry Lawson