The Water

Let others make the songs of love
For our young struggling nation;
But I will sing while eer I live
The Songs of Irrigation;
For while the white man shall beget
The white mans son and daughter,
The two most precious things for us
Shall still be wheat and water.

Weve been drought-ruined in the West,
And ever in my dreaming
I see wide miles of waving crops
And sheets of water gleaming,
On plains where fortune died of thirst
When my brave father sought her,
I see the painted barges pass
Along the winding water.

And now the glorious schemes afoot,
Our country to deliver
From drought and death on blazing waste,
By long neglected river.
Youll see the boodlers of the world
Rush in from every quarter:
They want the land,, the gold-reefed sand,
And now theyll want the water.

Bright intellects will plan the dykes,
With little gold to gild them,
Bright intellects will plan the dykes,
The people pay to build them;
And when weve made our long canals,
And lakes in every quarter,
Then ours would be the guarantee,
The Trust would own the water.

Theyd hold the bores and aqueducts,
The water-ways and barges,
And we would live, or we would starve
According to their charges;
From all the Edens in the West
Theyd bar our sons and daughters,
Theyd hold the land, ten leagues or so,
Each side the rippling waters.

But those who fight to hold their own,
The Lord and time delivers;
As we have held our railway lines,
So we shall hold our rivers.
Well find the money, as was found
The money spent in slaughter,
To build our dykes and build our dams,
And we shall own the water.

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 Song Of Australia

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

I'll Tell You What You Wanderers

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

The Seabolts Volunteers

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

What Have We All Forgotten?

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

English

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In The Storm That Is To Come

By our place in the midst of the furthest seas we were fated to stand alone,
When the nations fly at each other's throats let Australia look to her own;
Let her spend her gold on the barren west, let her keep her men at home;
For the South must look to the South for strength in the storm that is to come.

Now who shall gallop from cape to cape, and who shall defend our shores,
The crowd that stand on the kerb agape and glares at the cricket scores?
And who will hold the invader back when the shells tear up the ground,
The weeds that yelp by the cycling track while a nigger scorches round?

There may be many to man the forts in the big towns beside the sea,
But the East will call to the West for scouts in the storm that is to be:
The West cries out to the East in drought, but the ...

Henry Lawson

The Song Of The Darling River

The skies are brass and the plains are bare,
Death and ruin are everywhere,
And all that is left of the last year's flood
Is a sickly stream on the grey-black mud;
The salt-springs bubble and the quagmires quiver,
And, this is the dirge of the Darling River:

`I rise in the drought from the Queensland rain,
`I fill my branches again and again;
`I hold my billabongs back in vain,
`For my life and my peoples the South Seas drain;
`And the land grows old and the people never
`Will see the worth of the Darling River.

`I drown dry gullies and lave bare hills,
`I turn drought-ruts into rippling rills,
`I form fair island and glades all green
`Till every bend is a sylvan scene.
`I have watered the barren land ten leagues wide!
`But in vain I have trie...

Henry Lawson

My Land And I

They have eaten their fill at your tables spread,
Like friends since the land was won;
And they rise with a cry of "Australia's dead!"
With the wheeze of "Australia's done!"
Oh, the theme is stale, but they tell the tale
(How the weak old tale will keep!)
Like the crows that croak on a splintered rail,
That have gorged on a rotten sheep.

I would sing a song in your darkest hour
In your darkest hour and mine,
For I see the dawn of your wealth and power,
And I see your bright star shine.
The little men yelp and the little men lie,
And they spread the lies afar;
But we heed them never, my Land and I,
For we know how small they are.

They know you not in a paltry town,
In the streets where great hopes die,
Oh, heart that never a flood could dr...

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

Sydney Town In 91

Let us sing a song as not a
Solitary poet sings,
For our seething brain has got a
Mighty grip on earthly things;
We can feel the strength within us,
And our soul is bounding high,
And our hissing pen shall win us
Wealth and Beauty by-and-bye.

Listen to the thunder swelling
Till the mighty west vibrates!
Tis the horny-handed yelling
For the Labour candidates!
Hear the language of the frisky
Push assisting at the fun:
Liberty, and rum and whisky!
Sydney town in 91.

Whack the poor and cut a caper,
Turn the taps and shout wharroo!
For each Sydney leading paper
Has a candidate or two.
Every new one is an ember,
Lighting up this land of sin,
Clever little B, , k is member
For the Sydney Bulletin.

Wherefor...

Henry Lawson

An Interlude of Peace. The Fairy West

I.

We wrote and sang of a bush we never
Had known in youth in the Western land;
Of the dear old homes by the shining river,
The deep, clear creeks and the hills so grand.
The grass waved high on the flat and siding,
The wild flowers bloomed on the banks so fair,
And younger sons from the North came riding
To vine-clad homes in the gardens there.
We wrote and sang, and the Lord knows best,
Oh, those dear old songs of the fairy West!

We dreamed and sang of the bustling mother;
The brick-floored kitchen we saw so clear,
The pranks and jokes of the youngest brother,
The evening songs of our sisters dear.
The old man dozed in the chimney corner,
Or smoked and blinked at the cheerful blaze,
Or yarned with a crony, old Jack Horner,
Whod known...

Henry Lawson