The Weather Prophet

Ow can it rain.' the old man said, 'with things the way they are?
You've got to learn off ant and bee, and jackaroo and galah;
And no man never saw it rain, for fifty years at least,
Not when the blessed parakeets are flyinn' to the east!'

The weeks went by, the squatter wrote to tell his bank the news.
'It's still as dry as dust,' he said, 'I'm feeding all the ewes;
The overdraft would sink a ship, but make your mind at rest,
It's all right now, the parakeets are flyin' to the west!'

Andrew Barton Paterson

Andrew Barton Paterson, also known as Banjo Paterson, was an Australian bush poet, journalist, and author. Renowned for his poignant and humorous depictions of rural Australia, he wrote iconic works like "Waltzing Matilda" and "The Man from Snowy River." His storytelling, deeply rooted in Australian culture, has cemented his legacy as one of the nation's most beloved literary figures.

Andrew Barton Paterson

Bottle-O!

Andrew Barton Paterson, Simple Poetry

In Defence Of The Bush

Andrew Barton Paterson, Simple Poetry

A Bush Christening

Andrew Barton Paterson, Simple Poetry

The Diggers

Andrew Barton Paterson, 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.

A Mountain Station

I bought a run a while ago
On country rough and ridgy,
Where wallaroos and wombats grow,
The Upper Murrumbidgee.
The grass is rather scant, it's true,
But this a fair exchange is,
The sheep can see a lovely view
By climbing up the ranges.

And She-oak Flat's the station's name,
I'm not surprised at that, sirs:
The oaks were there before I came,
And I supplied the flat, sirs.
A man would wonder how it's done,
The stock so soon decreases,
They sometimes tumble off the run
And break themselves to pieces.

I've tried to make expenses meet,
But wasted all my labours;
The sheep the dingoes didn't eat
Were stolen by the neighbours.
They stole my pears, my native pears,
Those thrice-convicted felons,
And ravished from me unaware...

Andrew Barton Paterson

A Ballad Of Ducks

The railway rattled and roared and swung
With jolting and bumping trucks.
The sun, like a billiard red ball, hung
In the Western sky: and the tireless tongue
Of the wild-eyed man in the corner told
This terrible tale of the days of old,
And the party that ought to have kept the ducks.

"Well, it ain't all joy bein' on the land
With an overdraft that'd knock you flat;
And the rabbits have pretty well took command;
But the hardest thing for a man to stand
Is the feller who says 'Well I told you so!
You should ha' done this way, don't you know!',
I could lay a bait for a man like that.

"The grasshoppers struck us in ninety-one
And what they leave, well, it ain't de luxe.
But a growlin' fault-findin' son of a gun
Who'd lent some money to stock our ...

Andrew Barton Paterson

An Answer to Various Bards

Well, I've waited mighty patient while they all came rolling in,
Mister Lawson, Mister Dyson, and the others of their kin,
With their dreadful, dismal stories of the Overlander's camp,
How his fire is always smoky, and his boots are always damp;
And they paint it so terrific it would fill one's soul with gloom,
But you know they're fond of writing about "corpses" and "the tomb".
So, before they curse the bushland, they should let their fancy range,
And take something for their livers, and be cheerful for a change.
Now, for instance, Mr Lawson, well, of course, we almost cried
At the sorrowful description how his "little 'Arvie" died,
And we lachrymosed in silence when "His Father's mate" was slain;
Then he went and killed the father, and we had to weep again.
Ben Duggan and Jack ...

Andrew Barton Paterson

The Lung Fish

The Honorable Ardleigh Wyse
Was every fisherman's despair;
He caught his fish on floating flies,
In fact he caught them in the air,
And wet-fly men, good sports, perhaps,
He called "those chuck-and-chance-it chaps".

And then the Fates that sometimes play
A joke on such as me and you
Deported him up Queensland way
To act as a station jackaroo.
The boundary rider said, said he,
"You fish dry fly? Well, so do we.

"These barramundi are the blokes
To give you all the sport you need:
For when the big lagoons and soaks
Are dried right down to mud and weed
They don't sit there and raise a roar,
They pack their traps and come ashore.

"And all these rods and reels you lump
Along the creek from day to day
Would only give a man the hu...

Andrew Barton Paterson

The Old Australian Ways

The London lights are far abeam
Behind a bank of cloud,
Along the shore the gaslights gleam,
The gale is piping loud;
And down the Channel, groping blind,
We drive her through the haze
Towards the land we left behind,
The good old land of `never mind',
And old Australian ways.

The narrow ways of English folk
Are not for such as we;
They bear the long-accustomed yoke
Of staid conservancy:
But all our roads are new and strange,
And through our blood there runs
The vagabonding love of change
That drove us westward of the range
And westward of the suns.

The city folk go to and fro
Behind a prison's bars,
They never feel the breezes blow
And never see the stars;
They never hear in blossomed trees
The music low and swee...

Andrew Barton Paterson

Old Australian Ways

The London lights are far abeam
Behind a bank of cloud,
Along the shore the gaslights gleam,
The gale is piping loud;
And down the Channel, groping blind,
We drive her through the haze
Towards the land we left behind,
The good old land of "never mind",
And old Australian ways.

The narrow ways of English folk
Are not for such as we;
They bear the long-accustomed yoke
Of staid conservancy:
But all our roads are new and strange,
And through our blood there runs
The vagabonding love of change
That drove us westward of the range
And westward of the suns.

The city folk go to and fro
Behind a prison's bars,
They never feel the breezes blow
And never see the stars;
They never hear in blossomed trees
The music low and swee...

Andrew Barton Paterson