The Rose

We love the land when the world goes round,
And deep, deep down in her thorny ground,
Where nobody comes, and nobody knows,
We love the Rose. Oh! we love the Rose.

And none to tell us, and none to teach
By the western hedge or the shelving beach,
But all of us know what everyone knows,
We love the Rose. Oh! we love the Rose.

We love the rose when our day is dead,
And they lay their roses upon our bed;
Too late! Too late! in our last repose!
But we love the Rose. Ah! we love the Rose.

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

Write By Return

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

The Battling Days

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

Foreign Lands

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

The Never-Never Country

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Little Native Rose

There is a lasting little flower,
That everybody knows,
Yet none has thought to think about
The little Native Rose.

The wattle and the waratah,
The world has heard of those;
But who, outside Australia, kens
The little Native Rose.

Yet first for faint, far off perfume,
That lives where memory goes;
And first of all for fadelessness,
The little Native Rose.

Henry Lawson

Waratah And Wattle

Though poor and in trouble I wander alone,
With rebel cockade in my hat,
Though friends may desert me, and kindred disown,
My country will never do that!
You may sing of the Shamrock, the Thistle, the rose,
Or the three in a bunch, if you will;
But I know of a country that gathered all those,
And I love the great land where the Waratah grows.
And the Wattle-bough blooms on the hill.

Australia! Australia! so fair to behold-
While the blue sky is arching above;
The stranger should never have need to be told,
That the Wattle-bloom means that her heart is of gold.
And the Waratah's red with her love.

Australia! Australia! most beautiful name,
Most kindly and bountiful land;
I would die every death that might save her from shame,
If a black cloud s...

Henry Lawson

The Bush Girl

So you rode from the range where your brothers select,
Through the ghostly grey bush in the dawn
You rode slowly at first, lest her heart should suspect
That you were glad to be gone;

You had scarcely the courage to glance back at her
By the homestead receding from view,
And you breathed with relief as you rounded the spur,
For the world was a wide world to you.

Grey eyes that grow sadder than sunset or rain,
Fond heart that is ever more true
Firm faith that grows firmer for watching in vain
Shell wait by the sliprails for you.

Ah! The world is a new and a wide one to you,
But the world to your sweetheart is shut,
For a change never comes to the lonely Bush girl
From the stockyard, the bush, and the hut;

And the only relief from the ...

Henry Lawson

Do You Think That I Do Not Know?

They say that I never have written of love,
As a writer of songs should do;
They say that I never could touch the strings
With a touch that is firm and true;
They say I know nothing of women and men
In the fields where Love's roses grow,
And they say I must write with a halting pen
Do you think that I do not know?

When the love-burst came, like an English Spring,
In days when our hair was brown,
And the hem of her skirt was a sacred thing
And her hair was an angel's crown.
The shock when another man touched her arm,
Where the dancers sat round in a row;
The hope and despair, and the false alarm
Do you think that I do not know?

By the arbour lights on the western farms,
You remember the question put,
While you held her warm in your quiveri...

Henry Lawson

The Lily Of St Leonards

Tis sunrise over Watson,
Where I sailed out to sea,
On that wild run to London
That wrecked and ruined me.

The beauty of the morning
On bluff and point and bay,
But the Lily of St Leonards
Was fairer than the day.

O Lily of St Leonards!
And I was mad to roam,
She died with loving words for me
Three days ere I came home.

As fair as lily whiteness,
As pure as lily gold,
And bright with childlike brightness
And wise as worlds of old.

Her heart for all was beating
And all hearts were her own,
Like sunshine through the Lily
Her purity was shown.

O Lily of St Leonards!
My night is on the track,
Tis well you never lived to see
The wreck that I came back.

A leaden sky shuts over
A sobbi...

Henry Lawson

Lachlan Side

Region of damper and junk and tea,
Region of pastures wide!
The fairest spots in the world to me
Are out on the Lachlan Side.

CHORUS:
        Im off to the Lachlan Side,
                Where the bright lagoons are wide;
                I long for river and grass and tree,
                And someone dearer than all to me,
                Far out on the Lachlan Side.

My heart was hardened against advice
And reason I would not see,
For by the ocean a paradise
The city appeared to me.

CHORUS:
                Im off to the Lachlan Side, etc.

Not I for a bumpkins fate, I cried,
Ill not be a country clown!
A lifes too slow on the Lachlan Side;
Ill go to the shining town!

CHORUS:
        ...

Henry Lawson