The Men Who Come Behind

There's a class of men (and women) who are always on their guard,
Cunning, treacherous, suspicious, feeling softly, grasping hard,
Brainy, yet without the courage to forsake the beaten track,
Cautiously they feel their way behind a bolder spirits back.

If you save a bit of money, and you start a little store,
Say, an oyster-shop, for instance, where there wasnt one before,
When the shop begins to pay you, and the rent is off your mind,
You will see another started by a chap that comes behind.

So it is, and so it might have been, my friend, with me and you,
When a friend of both and neither interferes between the two;
They will fight like fiends, forgetting in their passion mad and blind,
That the row is mostly started by the folk who come behind.

They will stick to you like sin will, while your money comes and goes,
But theyll leave you when you havent got a shilling in your clothes.
You may get some help above you, but youll nearly always find
That you cannot get assistance from the men who come behind.

There are many, far too many, in the world of prose and rhyme,
Always looking for anothers footsteps on the sands of time.
Journalistic imitators are the meanest of mankind;
And the grandest themes are hackneyed by the pens that come behind.

If you strike a novel subject, write it up, and do not fail,
They will rhyme and prose about it till your very own is stale,
As they raved about the region that the wattle-boughs perfume
Till the reader cursed the bushman and the stink of wattle-bloom.

They will follow in your footsteps while youre groping for the light;
But theyll run to get before you when they see youre going right;
And theyll trip you up and baulk you in their blind and greedy heat,
Like a stupid pup that hasnt learned to trail behind your feet.

Take your loads of sin and sorrow on more energetic backs!
Go and strike across the country where there are not any tracks!
And, we fancy that the subject could be further treated here,
But well leave it to be hackneyed by the fellows in the rear.

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

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Those Foreign Engineers

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English

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The Ballad Of The Rousabout

A Rouseabout of rouseabouts, from any land, or none,
I bear a nick-name of the bush, and Im, a womans son;
I came from where I campd last night, and, at the day-dawn glow,
I rub the darkness from my eyes, roll up my swag, and go.

Some take the track for bitter pride, some for no pride at all,
(But, to us all the world is wide when driven to the wall)
Some take the track for gain in life, some take the track for loss,
And some of us take up the swag as Christ took up the Cross.

Some take the track for faith in men, some take the track for doubt,
Some flee a squalid home to work their own salvation out.
Some dared not see a mothers tears nor meet a fathers face,
Born of good Christian families some leap, head-long, from Grace.

Oh we are men who fought and ros...

Henry Lawson

Since Then

I met Jack Ellis in town to-day,
Jack Ellis, my old mate, Jack,
Ten years ago, from the Castlereagh,
We carried our swags together away
To the Never-Again, Out Back.

But times have altered since those old days,
And the times have changed the men.
Ah, well! there's little to blame or praise,
Jack Ellis and I have tramped long ways
On different tracks since then.

His hat was battered, his coat was green,
The toes of his boots were through,
But the pride was his! It was I felt mean,
I wished that my collar was not so clean,
Nor the clothes I wore so new.

He saw me first, and he knew 'twas I,
The holiday swell he met.
Why have we no faith in each other? Ah, why?,
He made as though he would pass me by,
For he thought that I might fo...

Henry Lawson

The Scamps

Of home, name and wealth and ambition bereft,
We are children of fortune and luck:
They deny theres a shred of our characters left,
But they cannot deny us the pluck!
We are vagabond scamps, we are kings over all,
There is little on earth we desire,
We are devils who stand with our backs to the wall,
And who call on the cowards to fire!

There are some of us here who were noble and good,
And who learnt in ingratitudes schools,
They were born of the selfish and misunderstood,
They were soft, they were smoodgers or fools.
With their hands in their pockets to help every friend
In a fix, and they never asked how:
Beware of them you who have money to lend,
For its little youd get from them now.

There are some of us here who were lovers of old,

Henry Lawson

The Bard Of Furthest Out

He longed to be a Back-Blocks Bard,
And fame he wished to win,
He wrote at night and studied hard
(He read The Bulletin);
He sent in stuff unceasingly,
But couldnt get it through;
And so, at last, he came to me
To see what I could do.

The poets light was in his eye,
He aimed to be a man;
He bought a bluey and a fly,
A brand new billy-can.
I showed him how to roll his swag
And sling it with the best;
I gave him my old water-bag,
And pointed to the west.

Now you can take the train as far
As Blazes if you like,
The wealthy go by motor-car
(Some travellers go by bike);
They race it through without a rest,
And find it very tame,
But if you tramp it to the west
Youll get there just the same.

(No matt...

Henry Lawson

The Shearers

No church-bell rings them from the Track,
No pulpit lights their blindness,
Tis hardship, drought and homelessness
That teach those Bushmen kindness:
The mateship born of barren lands,
Of toil and thirst and danger,
The camp-fare for the stranger set,
The first place to the stranger.

They do the best they can to-day,
Take no thought of the morrow;
Their way is not the old-world way,
They live to lend and borrow.
When shearings done and cheques gone wrong,
They call it time to slither,
They saddle up and say So-long!
And ride, the Lord knows whither.

And though he may be brown or black,
Or wrong man there or right man,
The mate thats honest to his mates
They call that man a white man!
They tramp in mateship side by side,...

Henry Lawson

Shearers

No church-bell rings them from the Track,
No pulpit lights their blindness,
Tis hardship, drought and homelessness
That teach those Bushmen kindness:
The mateship born of barren lands,
Of toil and thirst and danger,
The camp-fare for the stranger set,
The first place to the stranger.

They do the best they can to-day,
Take no thought of the morrow;
Their way is not the old-world way,
They live to lend and borrow.
When shearings done and cheques gone wrong,
They call it time to slither,
They saddle up and say So-long!
And ride, the Lord knows whither.

And though he may be brown or black,
Or wrong man there or right man,
The mate thats honest to his mates
They call that man a white man!
They tramp in mateship side by side,...

Henry Lawson