The Men Who Live It Down

I have sinned, like others, blindly, without thought and without fear,
And my best friends say it kindly, You should go away from here.
Shall I fly the paltry spirit of a narrow little town,
While the battle-drums are beating for the men who live it down?

Down the street where all men know me I can walk with level eyes,
They believe the lies about me, they can sneer, but I despise.
From my black and bitter childhood, from my dull and joyless youth,
It is I who, it is I who, I and Christ who know the truth!

I have sinned, but as a man might; like a man Ill rise again
From long nights of mental torture, from long days of care and pain.
Pass me by with eyes averted, with a shrug or with a frown,
But their heads shall bow in ashes long ere my head shall go down!

Ah! the curs, who dare not trespass, quick to sneer and quick to blame;
But the wider world is kinder, it takes long to damn a name.
Theres a heart thats worth a million and a head thats worth a crown,
And the flash of bright eyes sometimes for the men who live it down.

Theres a hand-grip close and silent, firm in trust and sympathy,
Sends the old thrill through my being, sends the old hopes up in me.
There is one wholl stand beside me when the screen is round my bed,
And the godly pass their stricture on the sinner who is dead.

When the crape is round my picture and my mad, wild spirits free,
And you realise how little you have ever known of me
When the worst is said and printed by the coward and the clown,
Then, I trust, a friend might answer, There lies one who lived it down.

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 Rhyme Of The Three Greybeards

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

An Interlude of Peace. The Fairy West

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

To The Irish Delegates

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

Rejected

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

English

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Written Out

Sing the song of the reckless, who care not what they do;
Sing the song of a sinner and the song of a writer, too,
Down in a pub in the alleys, in a dark and dirty hole,
With every soul a drunkard and the boss with never a soul.

Uncollared, unkempt, unshaven, sat the writer whose fame was fair,
And the girls of the streets were round him, and the bullies and bludgers there;
He was one of themselves and they told him the things that they had to tell,
He was studying human nature with his brothers and sisters in hell.

He was neither poor nor lonely, for a place in the world hed won,
And up in the heights of the city hed a thousand friends or none;
But he knew that his chums could wait awhile, that hed reckon with foes at last,
For he lived far into a future that he knew b...

Henry Lawson

The Afterglow

Oh, for the fire that used to glow
In those my days of old!
I never thought a man could grow
So callous and so cold.
Ah, for the heart that used to ache
For those in sorrows ways;
I often wish my heart could break
As it did in those dead days.

Along my track of storm and stress,
And it is plain to trace,
I look back from the loneliness
And the depth of my disgrace.
Twas fate and only fate I know,
But all mistakes are plain,
Tis sadder than the afterglow,
More dreary than the rain.

But still there lies a patch of sun
That neer will come again,
Those golden days when I was one
Of Natures gentlemen.
And if there is a memory
Could break me down at last,
It sure would be the thought of this,
The sunshine in the pa...

Henry Lawson

The Writer's Dream

A writer wrote of the hearts of men, and he followed their tracks afar;
For his was a spirit that forced his pen to write of the things that are.
His heart grew tired of the truths he told, for his life was hard and grim;
His land seemed barren, its people cold, yet the world was dear to him;,
So he sailed away from the Streets of Strife, he travelled by land and sea,
In search of a people who lived a life as life in the world should be.

And he reached a spot where the scene was fair, with forest and field and wood,
And all things came with the seasons there, and each of its kind was good;
There were mountain-rivers and peaks of snow, there were lights of green and gold,
And echoing caves in the cliffs below, where a world-wide ocean rolled.
The lives of men from the wear of Change a...

Henry Lawson

The Men We Might Have Been

When God's wrath-cloud is o'er me,
Affrighting heart and mind;
When days seem dark before me,
And days seem black behind;
Those friends who think they know me,
Who deem their insight keen,
They ne'er forget to show me
The man I might have been.

He's rich and independent,
Or rising fast to fame;
His bright star is ascendant,
The country knows his name;
His houses and his gardens
Are splendid to be seen;
His fault the wise world pardons,
The man I might have been.

His fame and fortune haunt me;
His virtues wave me back;
His name and prestige daunt me
When I would take the track;
But you, my friend true-hearted,
God keep our friendship green!,
You know how I was parted
From all I might have been.

But what ...

Henry Lawson

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

The Leader And The Bad Girl

Because he had sinned and suffered, because he loved the land,
And because of his wonderful sympathy, he held mens hearts in his hand.
Born and bred of the people, he knew their every whim,
And because he had struggled through poverty he could draw the poor to him:
Speaker and leader and poet, tall and handsome and strong,
With the eyes of a dog for faith and truth that blazed at the thought of a wrong.

They thought in his countrys crisis that his time had come at last,
For they measured his brilliant future by the light of his brilliant past.
At every monster meeting the thousands called his name,
And a burst of triumphant cheering greeted him when he came.
They had faith in the strength of a single man, when their fighting lines were weak,
And a pregnant silence fell on all ...

Henry Lawson