Henry Lawson

The second time I lived on earth
Was several hundred years ago;
And, royal by my second birth,
I know as much as most men know.
I was a king who held the reins
As never modern monarch can;
I was a king, and I had brains,
And, what was more, I was a man!

Called to the throne in stormy times,
When things were at their very worst,
I had to fight, and not with rhymes,
My own self and my kindred first;
And after that my friends and foes,
And great abuses born of greed;
And when I’d fairly conquered those,
I ruled the land a king indeed.

I found a deal of rottenness,
Such as in modern towns we find;
I camped my poor in palaces
And tents upon the plain behind.
I marked the hovels, dens and drums
In that fair city by the sea.
...

When the kindly hours of darkness, save for light of moon and star,
Hide the picture on the signboard over Doughty's Horse Bazaar;
When the last rose-tint is fading on the distant mulga scrub,
Then the Army prays for Watty at the entrance of his pub.

Now, I often sit at Watty's when the night is very near,
With a head that's full of jingles and the fumes of bottled beer,
For I always have a fancy that, if I am over there
When the Army prays for Watty, I'm included in the prayer.

Watty lounges in his arm-chair, in its old accustomed place,
With a fatherly expression on his round and passive face;
And his arms are clasped before him in a calm, contented way,
And he nods his head and dozes when he hears the Army pray.

And I wonder does he ponder on the distant year...

Oh, the scene is wide an’ dreary an’ the sun is settin’ red,
An’ the grey-black sky of winter’s comin’ closer overhead.
Oh, the sun is settin’ bloody with a blood-line on the snow,
An’ across it to the westward you can see old Bruin go;
You can see old Shaggy go,
You can see the brown Bear go,
An’ he’s draggin’ one leg arter, an’ he’s travellin’ pretty slow.

We can send a long shot arter, but he doesn’t seem to know,
There’s a thin red line behind him where it’s dripped across the snow;
He is weary an’ he’s wounded, with his own blood he’s half-blind,
He is licked an’ he’s defeated, an’ he’s left some cubs behind;
Yes, he’s left some cubs behind;
Oh, he’s left some cubs behind;
To the tune of sixty thousand he has left some cubs behind.

Oh, they’ve pulled hi...

On a lonely selection far out in the West
An old woman works all the day without rest,
And she croons, as she toils 'neath the sky's glassy dome,
`Sure I'll keep the ould place till the childer come home.'

She mends all the fences, she grubs, and she ploughs,
She drives the old horse and she milks all the cows,
And she sings to herself as she thatches the stack,
`Sure I'll keep the ould place till the childer come back.'

It is five weary years since her old husband died;
And oft as he lay on his deathbed he sighed
`Sure one man can bring up ten children, he can,
An' it's strange that ten sons cannot keep one old man.'

Whenever the scowling old sundowners come,
And cunningly ask if the master's at home,
`Be off,' she replies, `with your blarney and cant...

Let us sing in tear-choked numbers how the Duke of Clarence went,
Just to make a royal sorrow rather more pre-eminent.
Ladies sighed and sobbed and drivelled, toadies spoke with bated breath,
And the banners floating half-mast made a mockery of death,
And they said Australia sorrowed for the Prince’s death, they lied!
She had done with kings and princes ere the Duke of Clarence died.

What’s a death in lofty places? What’s a noble birth?, say I,
To the poor who die in hundreds, as a man should never die?
Can they shed a tear, or sorrow for a royal dunce’s fate?
No! for royalty has taught them how to sing the songs of hate;
O’er the sounds of grief in Europe, and the lands across the tide
Rose the growl of revolution, when the Duke of Clarence died.

We, it matters not h...

‘The ladies are coming,’ the super says
To the shearers sweltering there,
And ‘the ladies’ means in the shearing shed:
‘Don’t cut ’em too bad. Don’t swear.’
The ghost of a pause in the shed’s rough heart,
And lower is bowed each head;
And nothing is heard, save a whispered word,
And the roar of the shearing-shed.

The tall, shy rouser has lost his wits,
And his limbs are all astray;
He leaves a fleece on the shearing-board,
And his broom in the shearer’s way.
There’s a curse in store for that jackaroo
As down by the wall he slants,
And the ringer bends with his legs askew
And wishes he’d ‘patched them pants.’

They are girls from the city. (Our hearts rebel
As we squint at their dainty feet.)
And they gush and say in a girly way
That ‘...

When you wear a cloudy collar and a shirt that isn't white,
And you cannot sleep for thinking how you'll reach to-morrow night,
You may be a man of sorrows, and on speaking terms with Care,
And as yet be unacquainted with the Demon of Despair;
For I rather think that nothing heaps the trouble on your mind
Like the knowledge that your trousers badly need a patch behind.

I have noticed when misfortune strikes the hero of the play,
That his clothes are worn and tattered in a most unlikely way;
And the gods applaud and cheer him while he whines and loafs around,
And they never seem to notice that his pants are mostly sound;
But, of course, he cannot help it, for our mirth would mock his care,
If the ceiling of his trousers showed the patches of repair.

You are none the le...

When you fear the barber’s mirror when you go to get a crop,
Or in sorrow every morning comb your hair across the top:
When you titivate and do the little things you never used,
It is close upon the season when your sins come home to roost.

Many were the sins of others and you never were to blame,
Some were sins you shared in common, you must suffer all the same;
Some were sins of wasted hours with the wine cup or a mate,
But you cannot share the burden, and they come in duplicate.

Oh! you’ll find the fowls are heavy and their claws are sharp and deep,
They will bow your head in working, they will jerk you from your sleep,
And so many hands are eager just to give your back a boost
On the road to wreck and ruin when your sins come home to roost.

But you don’t let...

I remarked that man is saddest, and his heart is filled with woe,
When he hasn’t any money, and his pants begin to go;
But I think I was mistaken, and there are many times I find
When you do not care a candle if your pants are gone behind;
For a fellow mostly loses all ambition, hope, and pride,
When, to put the matter mildly, he is bad in his inside.

Bobby Burns was down on toothache, and it troubled him no doubt;
But you know a man can always have a molar taken out,
And be all right then, excepting for the duller pain that comes
To the hollow that is lying like a gully in the gums.
But you can’t extract your innards, they must stay within your hide,
And you’ve got to moan and cuss it, when you’re bad in your inside.

You dunno what to take for it, you dunno what to d...

Who’ll wear the beaten colours, and cheer the beaten men?
Who’ll wear the beaten colours, till our time comes again?
Where sullen crowds are densest, and fickle as the sea,
Who’ll wear the beaten colours, and wear them home with me?

We closed the bars and gambling dens and voted straight and clean,
Our women walked while motor cars were whirling round the scene,
The Potts Point Vote was one for Greed and Ease and Luxury
With all to hold, and coward gold, and beaten folk are we.

Who’ll wear the beaten colours, with hands and pockets clean?
(I wore the beaten colours since I was seventeen)
I wore them up, and wore them down, Outback and across the sea,
Who’ll wear the beaten colours, and wear them home with me?

We wore them back from Ladysmith to where the peace w...

O my prow vas plack mit curses,
Ven I dries to write dose verses;
Ven I dries to write dot boem,
Dot de best was effer been.
All in vain my peer I guzzles,
But I gannod solve dot broblem,
“Who’s dot Western Pulleteen?”

Und I swear mit pleets and dvonder,
Und I ferry often wonder,
Would dot paber’s cirgulation
Shusta little pigger been,
If dey toog deir seissor-pinchers,
Shust to cut some leetle inches
From that smarty-smarty writer
Of dot Western Pulleeteen.

“Let dose mountains fall and hide us”
Gry benighded odersiders,
Shame come round and woe betide us,
Und our fellow men deride us
If we effer yet can find oud
“Who’s dot Western Pull-it-in?”

HENRICH HERTZBERG LAWSON

I remain, Yours etc.,
JOE SWALLOW

There was a tracker in the force
Of wondrous sight (the story ran):,
He never failed to track a horse,
He never failed to find his man.

They brought him from a distant town
Once more to gain reward and praise,
Nor dreamed the man he hunted down
Had saved his life in bygone days.

Away across the farthest run,
And far across the stony plain,
The outlaw’s horse’s tracks, each one,
Unto the black man’s eyes were plain.

Those tracks across the ranges wide
Right well he knew that he could trace,
And oft he turned aside to hide
The tears upon his dusky face.

Now was his time, for he could claim
Reward and praise if he prevailed!
Now was the time to win him fame,
When all the other blacks had failed.

He struggled well ...

Wide lies Australia! The seas that surround her
Flow for her unity, all states in one.
Never has Custom nor Tyranny bound her,
Never was conquest so peacefully won.
Fair lies Australia! with all things within her
Meet for a Nation, the greatest to be:
Free to the White Man to woo and to win her:
Those who'd be happy and those who'd be free.

Free to live fully and free to live cleanly,
Free to give learning to daughter and son;
Free to act nobly but not to act meanly,
Free to forget what the old lands had done.
Free to be Brothers! Our hymn and our sermon
To keep for the White World the balance of Power,
Welcoming all, be they British or German,
All come to help us, we'll wait for the hour.

Out in the West where the flood-water gathers,
Out in ...

When my last long-beer has vanished and the truth is left unsaid;
When each sordid care is banished from my chair and from my bed,
And my common people sadly murmur: "'Arry Lawson dead,"

When the man I was denounces all the things that I was not,
When the true souls stand like granite, while the souls of liars not,
When the quids I gave are counted, and the trays I cadged forgot;

Shall my spirit see the country that it wrote for once again?
Shall it see the old selections, and the common street and lane?
Shall it pass across the Black Soil and across the Red Soil Plain?

Shall it see the gaunt Bushwoman "slave until she's fit to drop",
For the distant trip to Sydney, all depending on the crop?
Or the twinkling legs of kiddies, running to the lollie-shop?

Sh...

In the parlour of the shanty where the lives have all gone wrong,
When a singer or reciter gives a story or a song,
Where the poet’s heart is speaking to their hearts in every line,
Till the hardest curse and blubber at the thoughts of Auld Lang Syne;
Then a boozer lurches forward with an oath for all disguise,
Prayers and curses in his soul, and tears and liquor in his eyes,
Grasps the singer or reciter with a death-grip by the hand:
‘That’s the truth, bloke! Sling it at ’em! Oh! Gorbli’me, that was grand!
‘Don’t mind me; I’ve got ’em. You know! What’s yer name, bloke! Don’t yer see?
‘Who’s the bloke what wrote the po’try? Will yer write it down fer me?’
And the backblocks’ bard goes through it, ever seeking as he goes
For the line of least resistance to the hearts of men he knows;

’Tis William Street, the link street,
That seems to stand alone;
’Tis William Street, the vague street,
With terraces of stone:
That starts with clean, cool pockets,
And ancient stable ways,
And built by solid landlords
And in more solid days.

Beginning where the shadow streets
Of vacant wealth begin,
Street William runs down sadly
Across the vale of sin.
’Tis William Street, the haggard,
Where all the streets are mean
That’s trying to be honest,
That’s trying to keep clean.

’Tis William Street with method,
And nought of show or pride,
That tries to keep its business
Upon the right-hand side.
No pavement exhibition
Of carcases and slops;
But old-established principles
In old-established shops.

’Tis Will...

In Windsor Terrace, number four,
I’ve taken my abode,
A little crescent from the street,
A bight from City Road;
And, hard up and in exile, I
To many fancies yield;
For it was here Micawber lived
And David Copperfield.

A bed, a table, and a chair,
A bottle and a cup.
The landlord’s waiting even now
For something to turn up.
The landlady is spiritless,
They both seem tired of life;
They cannot fight the battle like
Micawber and his wife.

But in the little open space
That lies back from the street,
The same old ancient, shabby clerk
Is sitting on a seat.
The same sad characters go by,
The ragged children play,
And things have very little changed
Since Dickens passed away.

Some seek religion in their grief...

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
Isn’t 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 sw...