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.'

June 17, 1867

September 2, 1922

English

Henry Lawson

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'GS' or the Fourth Cook

He has notions of Australia from the tales that hes been told,
Land of leggings and revolvers, land of savages and gold;
So he begs old shirts, and someone patches up his worn-out duds.
He is shipped as general servant, scrubbing pots and peeling spuds
(In the steamers grimy alley, hating man and peeling spuds).

There is little time to comfort, there is little time to cry,
He will come back with a fortune, Well be happy by-and-by!
Scarcely time to kiss his sweetheart, barely time to change his duds,
Ere they want him at the galley, and they set him peeling spuds
(With a butchers knife, a bucket, and, say, half a ton of spuds).

And he peels em hard to Plymouth, peels em fast to drown his grief,
Peels em while his stomach sickens on the road to Teneriffe;
Pee...

Henry Lawson

1891

Now, Yankee inventors can beat a retreat,
And German professors may take a back seat,
For their colours were going to lower:
Theyve invented a wonderful plough in the West,
The scientists call it the latest and best;
It ploughs, sows, and reaps without taking a rest,
And they drive it by kangaroo power.
Sing hey!
Sing ho!
Then its bully for kangaroo power!

O wondrous the changes our children shall meet,
For soon we may travel the principal street
In something far short of an hour.
The traffic shall flow without stoppage or jambs
And sharp little screeches and naughty big damns,
For soon all the hansoms and busses and trams
Shall travel by kangaroo power.
Sing hey!
Sing ho!
Then its bully for kangaroo power!

Advance, Young...

Henry Lawson

I only woke this morning
To find the world is fair,
Im going on for forty,
With scarcely one grey hair;

Im going on for forty,
Where mans strong life begins,
With scarce a sign of crows feet,
In spite of all my sins.

Then heres the living Forties!
The Forties! The Forties!
Then heres the living Forties!
Were good for ten years more.

The teens were black and bitter,
A smothered boyhoods grave,
A farm-drudge in the drought-time,
A weary workshop slave.

But twenty years have laid them,
And all the world is fair,
Well find time in the Forties,
To have some boyhood there.

Then heres the wide, free Forties,
The Forties! The Forties!
Then heres the wide, free Forties!
Were good for ten years...

Henry Lawson

A Backward Glance

It is well when youve lived in clover,
To mourn for the days gone by,
Would I live the same life over
Could I live again? Not I!
But, knowing the false from the real,
I would strive to ascend:
I would seek out my boyhoods ideal,
And follow it to the end.

Henry Lawson

A Bush Girl

She's milking in the rain and dark,
As did her mother in the past.
The wretched shed of poles and bark,
Rent by the wind, is leaking fast.
She sees the home-roof black and low,
Where, balefully, the hut-fire gleams,
And, like her mother, long ago,
She has her dreams; she has her dreams.
The daybreak haunts the dreary scene,
The brooding ridge, the blue-grey bush,
The yard where all her years have been,
Is ankle-deep in dung and slush;
She shivers as the hour drags on,
Her threadbare dress of sackcloth seems,
But, like her mother, years agone,
She has her dreams; she has her dreams.

The sullen breakfast where they cut
The blackened junk. The lowering face,
As though a crime were in the hut,
As though a curse was on the place;
T...

Henry Lawson

A Dan Yell

I wish Id never gone to board
In that house where I met
The touring lady from abroad,
Who mocks my nightmares yet.
I wish, I wish that she had saved
Her news of what shed seen,
That Dan OConnor is clean shaved
And parts his hair between.

The ladies down at Manly now,
And widows understood,
No more deplore their marriage vow
Or hopeless widowhood.
For Dan OConnor is the same
As though hed never been,
Since Daniel shaved that shave of shame,
And combed his hair between.

No more, Oh Bards, in Danyel tones
Hell voice our several fames,
And nevermore hell mix our bones
As once he mixed our names.
Let Southern minstrels dree their weird
And lay their sad harps down,
For Dan OConnors shorn of beard
And cracked a...

Henry Lawson

A Derry On A Cove

Twas in the felons dock he stood, his eyes were black and blue;
His voice with grief was broken, and his nose was broken, too;
He muttered, as that broken nose he wiped upon his cap,
Its orfal when the pleece has got a derry on a chap.

I am a honest workin cove, as any bloke can see,
Its just because the pleece has got a derry, sir, on me;
Oh, yes, the legal gents can grin, I say it aint no joke,
Its cruel when the pleece has got a derry on a bloke.

Why dont you go to work? he said (he muttered, Why dont you?).
Yer honer knows as well as me there aint no work to do.
And when I try to find a job Im shaddered by a trap,
Its awful when the pleece has got a derry on a chap.

I sighd and shed a tearlet for that noble nature marred,
...

Henry Lawson

A Fantasy Of War

From Australia.

Oh, tell me, God of Battles! Oh, say what is to come!
The King is in his trenches, the millionaire at home;
The Kaiser with his toiling troops, the Czar is at the front.
Oh! Tell me, God of Battles! Who bears the battles brunt?
The Queen knits socks for soldiers, the Empress does the same,
And know no more than peasant girls which nation is to blame.
The wounded live to fight again, or live to slave for bread;
The Slain have graves above the Slain the Dead are with the Dead.
The widowed young shall wed or not, the widowed old remain
And all the nations of the world prepare for war again!
But ere that time shall be, O God, say what shall here befall!
Ten millions at the battle fronts, and were five millions all!
The world You made was wide, O God, the ...

Henry Lawson

A Little Mistake

Tis a yarn I heard of a new-chum trap
On the edge of the Never-Never,
Where the dead men lie and the black men lie,
And the bushman lies for ever.
Twas the custom still with the local blacks
To cadge in the altogether
They had less respect for our feelings then,
And more respect for the weather.

The trooper said to the sergeants wife:
Sure, I wouldnt seem unpleasant;
But theres women and childer about the place,
And barrin a ladys present

Theres ould King Billy wid niver a stitch
For a month may the drought cremate him!
Bar the wan we put in his dirty head,
Where his old Queen Mary bate him.

God give her strength! and a peaceful reign
Though she flies in a bit av a passion
If ony wan hints that her shtoyle an ...

Henry Lawson

A Mate Can Do No Wrong

We learnt the creed at Hungerford,
We learnt the creed at Bourke;
We learnt it in the good times
And learnt it out of work.
We learnt it by the harbour-side
And on the billabong:
"No matter what a mate may do,
A mate can do no wrong!"
Hes like a king in this respect
(No matter what they do),
And, king-like, shares in storm and shine
The Throne of Life with you.
We learnt it when we were in gaol
And put it in a song:
"No matter what a mate may do,
A mate can do no wrong!"
Theyll say he said a bitter word
When hes away or dead.
Were loyal to his memory,
No matter what he said.
And we should never hesitate,
But strike out good and strong,
And jolt the slanderer on the jaw,
A mate can do no wrong!

Henry Lawson

A May Night On The Mountains

Tis a wonderful time when these hours begin,
These long small hours of night,
When grass is crisp, and the air is thin,
And the stars come close and bright.
The moon hangs caught in a silvery veil,
From clouds of a steely grey,
And the hard, cold blue of the sky grows pale
In the wonderful Milky Way.
There is something wrong with this star of ours,
A mortal plank unsound,
That cannot be charged to the mighty powers
Who guide the stars around.
Though man is higher than bird or beast,
Though wisdom is still his boast,
He surely resembles Nature least,
And the things that vex her most.

Oh, say, some muse of a larger star,
Some muse of the Universe,
If they who people those planets far
Are better than we, or worse?
Are they exempted fr...

Henry Lawson

A Mixed Battle Song

Lo! the Boars tail is salted, and the Kangaroos exalted,
And his right eye is extinguished by a man-o-warsmans cap;
He is flying round the fences where the Southern Sea commences,
And hes very much excited for a quiet sort of chap.
For his ships have had a scrap and theyve marked it on the map
Where the H.M.A.S. Sydney dropped across a German trap.
So the Kangaroos a-chasing of his Blessed Self, and racing
From Cape York right round to Leeuwin, from the coast to Nevertire;
And of him need be no more said, save that to the tail aforesaid
Is the Blue Australian Ensign firmly fixed with copper wire.
(When hes filled the map with white men therell be little to desire.)
I was sulky, I was moody (Im inclined to being broody)
When the news appeared in Sydney, bringing joy and ...

Henry Lawson

A New John Bull

A tall, slight, English gentleman,
With an eyeglass to his eye;
He mostly says Good-Bai to you,
When he means to say Good-bye;
He shakes hands like a ladies man,
For all the world to see,
But they know, in Corners of the World.
No ladies man is he.
A tall, slight English gentleman,
Who hates to soil his hands;
He takes his mothers drawing-room
To the most outlandish lands;
And when, through Hells we dream not of,
His battery prevails,
He cleans the grime of gunpowder
And blue blood from his nails.

Hes what our blokes in Egypt call
A decent kinder cove.
And if the Pyramids should fall?
Hed merely say Bai Jove!
And if the stones should block his path
For a twelve-month, or a day,
Hed call on Sergeant Whatsisname<...

Henry Lawson

A Prouder Man Than You

If you fancy that your people came of better stock than mine,
If you hint of higher breeding by a word or by a sign,
If you're proud because of fortune or the clever things you do,
Then I'll play no second fiddle: I'm a prouder man than you!

If you think that your profession has the more gentility,
And that you are condescending to be seen along with me;
If you notice that I'm shabby while your clothes are spruce and new,
You have only got to hint it: I'm a prouder man than you!

If you have a swell companion when you see me on the street,
And you think that I'm too common for your toney friend to meet,
So that I, in passing closely, fail to come within your view,
Then be blind to me for ever: I'm a prouder man than you!

If your character be blameless, if your ou...

Henry Lawson

A Slight Misunderstanding At The Jasper Gate

Oh, do you hear the argument, far up above the skies?
The voice of old Saint Peter, in expostulation rise?
Growing shrill, and ever shriller, at the thing thats being done;
More in sorrow than in anger, like our old Jack Robertson.
Old Saint Peters had his troubles heaps of troubles, great and small,
Since he kept the gates of Heaven but this last one covers all!
It is not a crowing rooster thats a sight and sound hes useter,
Simulated by some impish spirit that he knows full well;
It is simply Drake, of Devon, who is breaking out of Heaven,
With a crew of pirate brethren, to come down once more to Hell!
Oh, do you hear the distant sound, that seems to come and go,
As thunder does in summer time, when faraway and low?
Or the croon beneath the church bells, when theyre peal...

Henry Lawson

A Song For The Sydney Poor or, The Australian Marseillaise

Sing the strong, proud song of Labour,
Toss the ringing music high;
Libertys a nearer neighbour
Than she was in days gone by.
Workmens weary wives and daughters
Sing the songs of liberty;
Men hail men across the waters,
Men reply across the sea.

We are marching on and onward
To the silver-streak of dawn,
To the dynasty of mankind
We are marching on.

Long the rich have been protected
By the walls that cant endure;
By the walls that they erected
To divide them from the poor.
Crumbling now, they should not trust them,
For their end is drawing near;
Walls of Cant and walls of Custom,
Walls of Ignorance and Fear.

Tyrants, grip your weapons firmer,
Grip them firmly by the helves;
For the poor begin to murmur
Lo...

Henry Lawson

A Song Of Brave Men

Man, is the Sea your master? Sea, and is man your slave?,
This is the song of brave men who never know they are brave:
Ceaselessly watching to save you, stranger from foreign lands,
Soundly asleep in your state room, full sail for the Goodwin Sands!
Life is a dream, they tell us, but life seems very real,
When the lifeboat puts out from Ramsgate, and the buggers put out from Deal!

A gun from the lightship!, a rocket!, a cry of, "Turn out, me lad!"
"Ship on the Sands!" they're shouting, and a rush of the oilskin-clad.
The lifeboat leaping and swooping, in the wake of the fighting tug,
And the luggers afloat in Hell's water, Oh, "tourist", with cushion and rug!,
Think of the freezing fury, without one minute's relief,
When they stood all night in the blackness by the wreck of the ...

Henry Lawson

A Song Of Brave Men

Man, is the Sea your master? Sea, and is man your slave?,
This is the song of brave men who never know they are brave:
Ceaselessly watching to save you, stranger from foreign lands,
Soundly asleep in your state room, full sail for the Goodwin Sands!
Life is a dream, they tell us, but life seems very real,
When the lifeboat puts out from Ramsgate, and the buggers put out from Deal!

A gun from the lightship!, a rocket!, a cry of, Turn out, me lad!
Ship on the Sands! theyre shouting, and a rush of the oilskin-clad.
The lifeboat leaping and swooping, in the wake of the fighting tug,
And the luggers afloat in Hells water, Oh, tourist, with cushion and rug!,
Think of the freezing fury, without one minutes relief,
When they stood all night in the blackness by the wreck of the ...

Henry Lawson

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