The Passing Of Scotty

We throw us down on the dusty plain
When the gold has gone from the west,
But we rise and tramp on the track again,
For were tired, too tired to rest.
Darker and denser the shadows fall
That are cramping each aching brow,
Scotty the Wrinkler! youve solved it all,
Give us a wrinkle now.

But no one lieth so still in death
As the rover who never could rest;
And hes free of thought as hes free of breath,
And his hands are crossed on his breast.
You have earned your rest, you brave old tramp,
As I hope in the end we will.
Ah me! Twas a long, long way to camp
Since the days when they called you Phil.

What have they done with your quaint old soul
Now they have passed you through?
But we cant but think, as our swags we roll,
That its right, old man, with you;
You learned some truth in the storm and strife
Of the outcast battlers ways;
And you left some light in the vagabonds life
Ere you vanished beyond the haze.

One by one in the far ahead,
In the smothering haze of drought,
Where hearts are loyal and hopes are dead,
The forms of our mates fade out.
Tis a distant goal and a weary load,
But we follow the Wrinkler home,
As, staggering into the short, straight road,
From the blind branch tracks we come.

We leave our mark and we play our part
In the nations pregnant days,
And we find a place in the Bushmans heart
Ere we vanish beyond the haze.

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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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.

...

Henry Lawson

The Swagman And His Mate

From north to south throughout the year
The shearing seasons run,
The Queensland stations start to shear
When Maoriland has done;
But labours cheap and runs are wide,
And some the track must tread
From New Years Day till Christmastide
And never get a shed!
North, west, and south, south, west and north,
They lead and follow Fate,
The stoutest hearts that venture forth,
The swagman and his mate.

A restless, homeless class they are
Who tramp in Borderland.
They take their rest neath moon and star,
Their bed the desert sand,
On sunset tracks they ride and tramp,
Till speech has almost died,
And still they drift from camp to camp
In silence side by side.
They think and dream, as all men do;
Perchance their dreams are great,
Ea...

Henry Lawson

Outback

The old year went, and the new returned, in the withering weeks of drought,
The cheque was spent that the shearer earned, and the sheds were all cut out;
The publican's words were short and few, and the publican's looks were black,
And the time had come, as the shearer knew, to carry his swag Out Back.

For time means tucker, and tramp you must, where the scrubs and plains are wide,
With seldom a track that a man can trust, or a mountain peak to guide;
All day long in the dust and heat, when summer is on the track,
With stinted stomachs and blistered feet, they carry their swags Out Back.

He tramped away from the shanty there, when the days were long and hot,
With never a soul to know or care if he died on the track or not.
The poor of the city have friends in woe, no matter how...

Henry Lawson

Old Stone Chimney

The rising moon on the peaks was blending
Her silver light with the sunset glow,
When a swagman came as the day was ending
Along a path that he seemed to know.
But all the fences were gone or going,
The hand of ruin was everywhere;
The creek unchecked in its course was flowing,
For none of the old clay dam was there.

Here Time had been with his swiftest changes,
And husbandry had westward flown;
The cattle tracks in the rugged ranges
Were long ago with the scrub oergrown.
It must have needed long years to soften
The road, that as hard as rock had been;
The mountain path he had trod so often
Lay hidden now with a carpet green.

He thought at times from the mountain courses
He heard the sound of a bullock bell,
The distant gallop of stockme...

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 Roaring Days

The night too quickly passes
And we are growing old,
So let us fill our glasses
And toast the Days of Gold;
When finds of wondrous treasure
Set all the South ablaze,
And you and I were faithful mates
All through the roaring days!

Then stately ships came sailing
From every harbour's mouth,
And sought the land of promise
That beaconed in the South;
Then southward streamed their streamers
And swelled their canvas full
To speed the wildest dreamers
E'er borne in vessel's hull.

Their shining Eldorado,
Beneath the southern skies,
Was day and night for ever
Before their eager eyes.
The brooding bush, awakened,
Was stirred in wild unrest,
And all the year a human stream
Went pouring to the West.

The rough bush ...

Henry Lawson