Write By Return

Clerk, corresponding,
Rooster and Comb,
Here I sit idle
Thinking of home;
I must be grafting,
Living to earn,
More correspondence,
Write by return.

Clerk in employ of
Shoddy and Woods,
Thinks that we have not
Forwarded goods.
Parcel we sent them,
Missing, I learn,
Says in his postscript:
Write by return.

Here is another
Letter from Bland,
Cheque he expected
Isnt to hand.
How we forgot it
Cannot discern,
Forward remittance,
Write by return.

Here is another,
O how they come?
Treats of a Bender
Planned by a chum.
See on the margin,
Big letters: Burn
After perusal,
Write by return.

Mail in from England,
Letters for me,
Dear little sweetheart
Over the sea.
Quite broken-hearted,
O how I yearn
Only to see you. . . .
Write by return.

One who will never
Think that Im bad
Writes me a letter
Tearful and sad.
Thinks that Im starving,
Filled with concern,
Sends me some money,
Write by return.

Letter from father,
Sent to his son,
All is forgiven,
Fat calf for one.
O that I ever
Thought he was stern,
Money for passage,
Write by return.

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

Wide Lies Australia

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

Interlude - Callaghan's Hotel

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

When The Ladies Come To The Shearing Shed

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

The Vanguard

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 Black Bordered Letter

An SO es dead in London,
An answered to the call,
An trotted through the Long Street,
With earse an plumes an all?
We was village boys an brothers,
We was warm as we could be,
In the milk-walk an the fried fish,
Up in London, im an me.

We was warm,
We was warm,
As we ad always been;
We never ad a dry word
Till she come between.

I lived round Windsor Terrace,
An im across the wye,
An when I sailed a emigrant
We never said good-bye!
He wos better than a brother,
Wot you Bushmen call a mate.
(Did he reach the rylwye stytion,
As they told me, just too late!)

We was warm,
We was warm,
As pals was ever seen;
We never ad a dry word
Till she come between.

I meant to go back om...

Henry Lawson

The Cross Roads

Once more I write a line to you,
While darker shadows fall;
Dear friends of mine who have been true,
And steadfast through it all.
If I have written bitter rhymes,
With many lines that halt,
And if I have been false at times
It was not all my fault.

To Heavens decree I would not bow,
And I sank very low,
The bitter things are written now,
And we must let them go.
But I feel softened as I write;
The better spirit springs,
And I am very sad to-night
Because of many things.

The friendships that I have abused,
The trust I did betray,
The talents that I have misused,
The gifts I threw away.
The things that did me little good,
And,well my cheeks might burn,
The kindly letters that I should
Have answered by return.

Henry Lawson

Billy Of Queensland

Queensland, he heads his letters, thats all:
The date, and the month, and the year in brief;
He often sends me a cheerful scrawl,
With an undertone of ancient grief.
The first seems familiar, but might have changed,
As often the writing of wanderers will;
He seems all over the world to have ranged,
And he signs himself William, or Billy, or Bill.

He might have been an old mate of mine,
A shearer, or one of the station hands.
(There were some of em died, who drop me a line,
Signing other names, and in other hands.
There was one who carried his swag with me
On the western tracks, when the world was young,
And now he is spouting democracy
In another land with another tongue.)

He cheers me up like an old mate, quite,
And swears at times like an...

Henry Lawson

Written Afterwards

So the days of my tramping are over,
And the days of my riding are done,
Im about as content as a rover
Will ever be under the sun;
I write, after reading your letter,
My pipe with old memories rife,
And I feel in a mood that had better
Not meet the true eyes of the wife.

You must never admit a suggestion
That old things are good to recall;
You must never consider the question:
Was I happier then, after all?
You must banish the old hope and sorrow
That make the sad pleasures of life,
You must live for To-day and To-morrow
If you want to be just to the wife.

I have changed since the first day I kissed her.
Which is due, Heaven bless her!, to her;
Im respected and trusted, Im Mister,
Addressed by the children as Sir.
And ...

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

For He Was A Jolly Good Fellow

They cheered him from the wharf, it was a glorious day:
His hand went to his scarf, his thoughts were far away.
Oh, he was Jolly Good, they sang it long and loud,
The money lender stood unknown amongst the crowd.
Hed taken him aside, while trembling fit to fall,
No friendly eye espied the last farewell of all!

He held a peevish kid, another at his knee;
The wife whom he could bid farewell, eternally
Stood nagging at his side in tones that none could hear,
And deared him, tender eyed, when passengers came near
(The cabin waits below the row and childrens squall,
And not a soul to know the bitter farce of all).

Their hearts were good as gold, each pocket spared a tray,
They pooled them as of old to drink him on his way.
His pile of luggage rose, as brave...

Henry Lawson