The Tracks That Lie By India

Now this is not a dismal song, like some Ive sung of late,
When Ive been brooding all day long about my muddled fate;
For though Ive had a rocky time Ill never quite forget,
And though I never was so deep in trouble and in debt,
And though I never was so poor nor in a fix so tight,
The tracks that run by India are shining in my sight.

The roads that run by India, and all the ports of call,
Im going back to London first to raise the wherewithal.
Ill call at Suez and Port Said as I am going past
(I was too worried to take notes when I was that way last),
At Naples and at Genoa, and, if I get the chance,
Who knows but I might run across the pleasant land of France.

The track that runs by India goes up the hot Red Sea,
The other side of Africa is far too dull for me.
(I fear that I have missed a chance Ill never get again
To see the land of chivalry and bide awhile in Spain.)
Ill graft a year in London, and if fortune smiles on me
Ill take the track to India by France and Italy.

Tis sweet to court some foreign girl with eyes of lustrous glow,
Who does not know my language and whose language I dont know;
To loll on gently-rolling decks beneath the softening skies,
While she sits knitting opposite, and make love with our eyes,
The glance that says far more than words, the old half-mystic smile,
The track that runs by India will wait for me awhile.

The tracks that run by India to China and Japan,
The tracks where all the rovers go, the tracks that call a Man!
Im wearied of the formal lands of parson and of priest,
Of dollars and of fashions, and Im drifting towards the East;
Im tired of cant and cackle, and of sordid jobbery,
The mystery of the East hath cast its glamour over me.

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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The Outside Track

There were ten of us there on the moonlit quay,
And one on the forard hatch;
No straighter mate to his mates than he
Had ever said: Lens a match!

"Twill be long, old man, ere our glasses clink,
Twill be long ere we grip your hand!",
And we dragged him ashore for a final drink
Till the whole wide world seemed grand.

For they marry and go as the world rolls back,
They marry and vanish and die;
But their spirit shall live on the Outside Track
As long as the years go by.

The port-lights glowed in the morning mist
That rolled from the waters green;
And over the railing we grasped his fist
As the dark tide came between.

We cheered the captain and cheered the crew,
And our mate, times out of mind;
We cheered the land he was goi...

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A Voice From The City

On western plain and eastern hill
Where once my fancy ranged,
The station hands are riding still
And they are little changed.
But I have lost in London gloom
The glory of the day,
The grand perfume of wattle bloom
Is faint and far away.
Brown faces under broad-brimmed hats
The grip of wiry hands,
The gallops on the frosty flats,
Seem dreams of other lands;
The camp fire and the stars that blaze
Above the mystic plain
Are but the thoughts of vanished days
That never come again.

The evening star I seldom view,
That led me on to roam,
I never see the morning star
That used to draw me home.
But I have often longed for day
To hide the few I see,
Because they only point and say
Most bitter things to me.

I wear my l...

Henry Lawson

The Imported Servant

The Blue Sky arches oer mountain and valley,
The scene is as fair as a scene can be,
But Im breaking my heart for a London alley,
And fogs that shall never come back to me.
I choke with tears when the day is dying,
The sunsets grand and the stars are bright;
But its O! for the smell of the fried fish frying
By the flaring stalls on a Saturday night.

And this, oh, this is the lonely sequel
Of all I pictured would come to pass!
They are treating me here as a friend and equal,
But theyd say in London that theyre no class.
When I think of their kindness my tears flow faster,
The girls are free and the chaps are grand:
Its the boss and the missus for mistress and master,
And they may be right, But I dont understand.

I see the air in its warm ...

Henry Lawson

The Vagabond

White handkerchiefs wave from the short black pier
As we glide to the grand old sea,
But the song of my heart is for none to hear
If one of them waves for me.
A roving, roaming life is mine,
Ever by field or flood,
For not far back in my father's line
Was a dash of the Gipsy blood.

Flax and tussock and fern,
Gum and mulga and sand,
Reef and palm, but my fancies turn
Ever away from land;
Strange wild cities in ancient state,
Range and river and tree,
Snow and ice. But my star of fate
Is ever across the sea.

A god-like ride on a thundering sea,
When all but the stars are blind,
A desperate race from Eternity
With a gale-and-a-half behind.
A jovial spree in the cabin at night,
A song on the rolling deck,
A lark ashore wit...

Henry Lawson

Bound For The Lord-Knows-Where

Where are you going with your horse and bike,
And the townsfolk still at rest?
Where are you going, with your swag and pack,
And the night still in the West?
Your clothes are worn, and your cheques are gone,
But your eyes are free from care?
Were bushmen down for a spree in town,
And were bound for the Lord-knows-where,
Old chap, were bound for the Lord-knows-where.

(There are great dark scrubs in the Lord-knows-where,
Where they fight it out alone,
There are wide wide plains in the Lord-knows-where,
Where a mans soul is his own.
There is healthy work, there is healthy rest,
There is peace from self-torture there,
And the glorious freedom from paltriness!
And theyre bound for the Lord-knows-where.)

Now, where are you going in your Su...

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