The Tragedy

Oh, I never felt so wretched, and things never looked so blue
Since the days I gulped the physic that my Granny used to brew;
For a friend in whom I trusted, entering my room last night,
Stole a bottleful of Heenzo from the desk whereon I write.

I am certain sure he did it (though he never would let on),
For all last week he had a cold and to-day his cough is gone;
Now I'm sick and sore and sorry, and I'm sad for friendship's sake
(It was better than the cough-cure that our Granny used to make).

Oh, he might have pinched my whisky, and he might have pinched my beer,
Or all the fame or money that I make while writing here,
Oh, he might have shook the blankets and I'd not have made a row,
If he'd only left my Heenzo till the morning, anyhow.

So I've lost my faith in Mateship, which was all I had to lose
Since I lost my faith in Russia and myself and got the blues;
And so trust turns to suspicion, and so friendship turns to hate,
Even Kaiser Bill would never pinch his Heenzo from a mate.

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

Lily

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

The Leader And The Bad Girl

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

Till All the Bad Things Came Untrue

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

The Rovers

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 Peace Maker

It has a point of neither sex
But comes in guise of both,
And, doubly dangerous complex,
It is a thing to loathe,
A lady with her sweet, sad smile,
A gentleman on oath.

Strip off the mother-veil, and fur!
And signs of quiet taste.
The dead childs locket take from her
(The dead mans gift in haste)
And wash from every evil line
The layers of filling paste!

From saddened eyes the hells own glare!
From sweet mouth blasphemy!
Wrench out the gold-filled false teeth there
That twice mock honesty,
And leave the evil face awry
For married folk to see.

For foolish girl wives in despair,
For mens and childrens sakes,
Let loose the glossed and padded hair
To writhe like scorching snakes!
And strip the barren bod...

Henry Lawson

The Sorrows Of A Simple Bard

When I tell a tale of virtue and of injured innocence,
Then my publishers and lawyers are the densest of the dense:
With the blank face of an image and the nod of keep-it-dark
And a wink of mighty meaning at their confidential clerk.

(When, Oh! tell me when shall poets cease to be misunderstood?
When, Oh! When? shall people reckon rhymers can be any good?
Do their work and pay their debts and drink their pint of beer, and then,
Look in womans eyes and leave them, just like ordinary men?)

Is there literary friendship twix the sexes? dont you think?
And they wink their idiotic and exasperating wink.
Cant we kiss a clever woman without wanting any more?
And their clock-work nod is only more decided than before.

But if I should hint that theres a little wom...

Henry Lawson

The Old Stockman's Lament

Wrap me up in me stockwhip and blanket,
And bury me deep down below,
Where this piffle and sham wont disgust me,
In the land where the coolibahs grow;
For Ive stayed with some well-to-do people,
And Ive dined with some middle-class folk;
And Ive sorrowed by clock-tower and steeple
Till my heart for the Commonwealths broke.

They have flown in another direction,
Who used to clack-clack by the hour
Of this awful Freetrade and Protection,
Of our dear darling member in power,
And the Higher Religion for Dossers,
And the Need of an Object for Drunks,
Now theyre all of them Red or Blue Crossers,
With their tails sticking out of their trunks.

There are citified Martins in dozens,
The Darling Point Martins the pick,
Who used to be horrif...

Henry Lawson

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

Sweeney

It was somewhere in September, and the sun was going down,
When I came, in search of `copy', to a Darling-River town;
`Come-and-have-a-drink' we'll call it, 'tis a fitting name, I think,
And 'twas raining, for a wonder, up at Come-and-have-a-drink.

'Neath the public-house verandah I was resting on a bunk
When a stranger rose before me, and he said that he was drunk;
He apologised for speaking; there was no offence, he swore;
But he somehow seemed to fancy that he'd seen my face before.

`No erfence,' he said. I told him that he needn't mention it,
For I might have met him somewhere; I had travelled round a bit,
And I knew a lot of fellows in the bush and in the streets,
But a fellow can't remember all the fellows that he meets.

Very old and thin and dirty were th...

Henry Lawson

The Stranger's Friend

The strangest things and the maddest things, that a man can do or say,
To the chaps and fellers and coves Out Back are matters of every day;
Maybe on account of the lives they lead, or the life that their hearts discard,
But never a fool can be too mad or a hard case be too hard.

I met him in Bourke in the Union days, with which we have nought to do
(Their creed was narrow, their methods crude, but they stuck to the cause like glue).
He came into town from the Lost Soul Run for his grim half-yearly bend,
And because of a curious hobby he had, he was known as The Strangers Friend.

It is true to the region of adjectives when I say that the spree was grim,
For to go on the spree was a sacred rite, or a heathen rite, to him,
To shout for the travellers passing through to...

Henry Lawson