Henry Lawson
They were two chaps named Gory and Blanky. They were tramping from Never mineware to Smotherplace. Gory was a bad egg, and Blanky knew it; but they'd fallen in with each other on the track and agreed to travel together for the sake of company. Blanky had £25, which fact was known to Gory, who was stumped.
Every night Gory tried to get the money, which fact was known to Blanky, who never slept with more than one eye shut.
When their tracks divided, Gory said to Blanky:
"Look a-here! Where the deuce do you keep that stuff of yours? I've been tryin' to get holt of it every night when you was asleep."
"I know you have." said Blanky.
"Well, where the blazes did you put it?"
"Under your head!"
"The ---- you did!"
They grinned, shook hands, and parted; and Gory scratched his head very hard and very often as he tramped along the track.
Showing posts with label Henry Lawson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Henry Lawson. Show all posts
Saturday, January 31, 2009
THE SHAKEDOWN ON THE FLOOR
Henry Lawson
SET me back for twenty summers--
For I'm tired of cities now--
Set my feet in red-soil furrows
And my hands upon the plough,
With the two 'Black Brothers' trudging
On the home stretch through the loam--
While, along the grassy siding,
Come the cattle grazing home.
And I finish ploughing early,
And I hurry home to tea--
There's my black suit on the stretcher,
And a clean white shirt for me.
There's a dance at Rocky Rises,
And, when all the fun is o'er,
For a certain favoured party
There's a shake-down on the floor.
You remember Mary Carey,
Bushmen's favourite at the Rise?
With her sweet small freckled features,
Red-gold hair, and kind grey eyes;
Sister, daughter, to her mother,
Mother, sister, to the rest--
And of all my friends and kindred,
Mary Carey loved me best.
Far too shy, because she loved me,
To be dancing oft with me;
What cared I, because she loved me,
If the world were there to see?
But we lingered by the slip rails
While the rest were riding home,
Ere the hour before the dawning,
Dimmed the great star-clustered dome.
Small brown hands that spread the mattress
While the old folk winked to see
How she'd find an extra pillow
And an extra sheet for me.
For a moment shyly smiling,
She would grant me one kiss more--
Slip away and leave me happy
By the shake-down on the floor.
Rock me hard in steerage cabins,
Rock me soft in wide saloons,
Lay me on the sand-hill lonely
Under waning western moons;
But wherever night may find me
Till I rest for evermore
I will dream that I am happy
On the shake-down on the floor.
Ah! she often watched at sunset--
For her people told me so--
Where I left her at the slip-rails
More than fifteen years ago.
And she faded like a flower,
And she died, as such girls do,
While, away in Northern Queensland,
Working hard, I never knew.
And we suffer for our sorrows,
And we suffer for our joys,
From the old bush days when mother
Spread the shake-down for the boys.
But to cool the living fever,
Comes a cold breath to my brow,
And I feel that Mary's spirit
Is beside me, even now.
SET me back for twenty summers--
For I'm tired of cities now--
Set my feet in red-soil furrows
And my hands upon the plough,
With the two 'Black Brothers' trudging
On the home stretch through the loam--
While, along the grassy siding,
Come the cattle grazing home.
And I finish ploughing early,
And I hurry home to tea--
There's my black suit on the stretcher,
And a clean white shirt for me.
There's a dance at Rocky Rises,
And, when all the fun is o'er,
For a certain favoured party
There's a shake-down on the floor.
You remember Mary Carey,
Bushmen's favourite at the Rise?
With her sweet small freckled features,
Red-gold hair, and kind grey eyes;
Sister, daughter, to her mother,
Mother, sister, to the rest--
And of all my friends and kindred,
Mary Carey loved me best.
Far too shy, because she loved me,
To be dancing oft with me;
What cared I, because she loved me,
If the world were there to see?
But we lingered by the slip rails
While the rest were riding home,
Ere the hour before the dawning,
Dimmed the great star-clustered dome.
Small brown hands that spread the mattress
While the old folk winked to see
How she'd find an extra pillow
And an extra sheet for me.
For a moment shyly smiling,
She would grant me one kiss more--
Slip away and leave me happy
By the shake-down on the floor.
Rock me hard in steerage cabins,
Rock me soft in wide saloons,
Lay me on the sand-hill lonely
Under waning western moons;
But wherever night may find me
Till I rest for evermore
I will dream that I am happy
On the shake-down on the floor.
Ah! she often watched at sunset--
For her people told me so--
Where I left her at the slip-rails
More than fifteen years ago.
And she faded like a flower,
And she died, as such girls do,
While, away in Northern Queensland,
Working hard, I never knew.
And we suffer for our sorrows,
And we suffer for our joys,
From the old bush days when mother
Spread the shake-down for the boys.
But to cool the living fever,
Comes a cold breath to my brow,
And I feel that Mary's spirit
Is beside me, even now.
THE ROVERS
Henry Lawson
SOME born of homely parents
For ages settled down--
The steady generations
Of village, farm, and town:
And some of dusky fathers
Who wandered since the flood--
The fairest skin or darkest
Might hold the roving blood--
Some born of brutish peasants,
And some of dainty peers,
In poverty or plenty
They pass their early years;
But, born in pride of purple,
Or straw and squalid sin,
In all the far world corners
The wanderers are kin.
A rover or a rebel,
Conceived and born to roam,
As babies they will toddle
With faces turned from home;
They've fought beyond the vanguard
Wherever storm has raged,
And home is but a prison
They pace like lions caged.
They smile and are not happy;
They sing and are not gay;
They weary, yet they wander;
They love, and cannot stay;
They marry, and are single
Who watch the roving star,
For, by the family fireside,
Oh, lonely men they are!
They die of peace and quiet--
The deadly ease of life;
They die of home and comfort;
They live in storm and strife;
No poverty can tie them,
Nor wealth nor place restrain--
Girl, wife, or child might draw them,
But they'll be gone again!
Across the glowing desert;
Through naked trees and snow;
Across the rolling prairies
The skies have seen them go;
They fought to where the ocean
Receives the setting sun;--
But where shall fight the rovers
When all the lands are won?
They thirst on Greenland snowfields,
On Never-Never sands;
Where man is not to conquer
They conquer barren lands;
They feel that most are cowards,
That all depends on 'nerve,'
They lead who cannot follow,
They rule who cannot serve.
Across the plains and ranges,
Away across the seas,
On blue and green horizons
They camp by twos and threes;
They hold on stormy borders
Of states that trouble earth
The honour of the country
That only gave them birth.
Unlisted, uncommissioned,
Untaught of any school,
In far-away world corners
Unconquered tribes they rule;
The lone hand and revolver--
Sad eyes that never quail--
The lone hand and the rifle
That win where armies fail.
They slumber sound where murder
And treachery are bare--
The pluck of self-reliance,
The pluck of past despair;
Thin brown men in pyjamas--
The thin brown wiry men!--
The helmet and revolver
That lie beside the pen.
Through drought and desolation
They won the way Out Back;
The commonplace and selfish
Have followed on their track;
They conquer lands for others,
For others find the gold,
But where shall go the rovers
When all the lands are old?
A rover and a rebel--
And so the worlds commence!
Their hearts shall beat as wildly
Ten generations hence;
And when the world is crowded--
'Tis signed and sealed by Fate--
The roving blood will rise to make
The countries desolate.
SOME born of homely parents
For ages settled down--
The steady generations
Of village, farm, and town:
And some of dusky fathers
Who wandered since the flood--
The fairest skin or darkest
Might hold the roving blood--
Some born of brutish peasants,
And some of dainty peers,
In poverty or plenty
They pass their early years;
But, born in pride of purple,
Or straw and squalid sin,
In all the far world corners
The wanderers are kin.
A rover or a rebel,
Conceived and born to roam,
As babies they will toddle
With faces turned from home;
They've fought beyond the vanguard
Wherever storm has raged,
And home is but a prison
They pace like lions caged.
They smile and are not happy;
They sing and are not gay;
They weary, yet they wander;
They love, and cannot stay;
They marry, and are single
Who watch the roving star,
For, by the family fireside,
Oh, lonely men they are!
They die of peace and quiet--
The deadly ease of life;
They die of home and comfort;
They live in storm and strife;
No poverty can tie them,
Nor wealth nor place restrain--
Girl, wife, or child might draw them,
But they'll be gone again!
Across the glowing desert;
Through naked trees and snow;
Across the rolling prairies
The skies have seen them go;
They fought to where the ocean
Receives the setting sun;--
But where shall fight the rovers
When all the lands are won?
They thirst on Greenland snowfields,
On Never-Never sands;
Where man is not to conquer
They conquer barren lands;
They feel that most are cowards,
That all depends on 'nerve,'
They lead who cannot follow,
They rule who cannot serve.
Across the plains and ranges,
Away across the seas,
On blue and green horizons
They camp by twos and threes;
They hold on stormy borders
Of states that trouble earth
The honour of the country
That only gave them birth.
Unlisted, uncommissioned,
Untaught of any school,
In far-away world corners
Unconquered tribes they rule;
The lone hand and revolver--
Sad eyes that never quail--
The lone hand and the rifle
That win where armies fail.
They slumber sound where murder
And treachery are bare--
The pluck of self-reliance,
The pluck of past despair;
Thin brown men in pyjamas--
The thin brown wiry men!--
The helmet and revolver
That lie beside the pen.
Through drought and desolation
They won the way Out Back;
The commonplace and selfish
Have followed on their track;
They conquer lands for others,
For others find the gold,
But where shall go the rovers
When all the lands are old?
A rover and a rebel--
And so the worlds commence!
Their hearts shall beat as wildly
Ten generations hence;
And when the world is crowded--
'Tis signed and sealed by Fate--
The roving blood will rise to make
The countries desolate.
THE LIGHTS OF COBB AND CO.
Henry Lawson
FIRE LIGHTED, on the table a meal for sleepy men,
A lantern in the stable, a jingle now and then;
The mail coach looming darkly by light of moon and star,
The growl of sleepy voices--a candle in the bar.
A stumble in the passage of folk with wits abroad;
A swear-word from a bedroom--the shout of 'All aboard!'
'Tchk-tchk! Git-up!' 'Hold fast, there!' and down the range we go;
Five hundred miles of scattered camps will watch for Cobb and Co.
Old coaching towns already 'decaying for their sins,'
Uncounted 'Half -Way Houses,' and scores of 'Ten Mile Inns;'
The riders from the stations by lonely granite peaks;
The black-boy for the shepherds on sheep and cattle creeks;
The roaring camps of Gulgong, and many a 'Digger's Rest;'
The diggers on the Lachlan; the huts of Farthest West;
Some twenty thousand exiles who sailed for weal or woe;
The bravest hearts of twenty lands will wait for Cobb and Co.
The morning star has vanished, the frost and fog are gone,
In one of those grand mornings which but on mountains dawn;
A flask of friendly whisky--each other's hopes we share--
And throw our top-coats open to drink the mountain air.
The roads are rare to travel, and life seems all complete;
The grind of wheels on gravel, the trot of horses' feet,
The trot, trot, trot and canter, as down the spur we go--
The green sweeps to horizons blue that call for Cobb and Co.
We take a bright girl actress through western dust and damps,
To bear the home-world message, and sing for sinful camps,
To wake the hearts and break them, wild hearts that hope and ache--
(Ah! when she thinks of those days her own must nearly break!)
Five miles this side the gold-field, a loud, triumphant shout:
Five hundred cheering diggers have snatched the horses out:
With 'Auld Lang Syne' in chorus through roaring camps they go--
That cheer for her, and cheer for Home, and cheer for Cobb and Co.
Three lamps above the ridges and gorges dark and deep,
A flash on sandstone cuttings where sheer the sidings sweep,
A flash on shrouded waggons, on water ghastly white;
Weird bush and scattered remnants of rushes in the night
Across the swollen river a flash beyond the ford:
'Ride hard to warn the driver! He's drunk or mad, good Lord!'
But on the bank to westward a broad, triumphant glow--
A hundred miles shall see to-night the lights of Cobb and Co.!
Swift scramble up the siding where teams climb inch by inch;
Pause, bird-like, on the summit--then breakneck down the pinch
Past haunted half-way houses--where convicts made the bricks--
Scrub-yards and new bark shanties, we dash with five and six--
By clear, ridge-country rivers, and gaps where tracks run high,
Where waits the lonely horseman, cut clear against the sky;
Through stringy-bark and blue-gum, and box and pine we go;
New camps are stretching 'cross the plains the routes of Cobb and Co.
. . . . .
Throw down the reins, old driver--there's no one left to shout;
The ruined inn's survivor must take the horses out.
A poor old coach hereafter!--we're lost to all such things--
No bursts of songs or laughter shall shake your leathern springs
When creeping in unnoticed by railway sidings drear,
Or left in yards for lumber, decaying with the year--
Oh, who'll think how in those days when distant fields were broad
You raced across the Lachlan side with twenty-five on board.
Not all the ships that sail away since Roaring Days are done--
Not all the boats that steam from port, nor all the trains that run,
Shall take such hopes and loyal hearts--for men shall never know
Such days as when the Royal Mail was run by Cobb and Co.
The 'greyhounds' race across the sea, the 'special' cleaves the haze,
But these seem dull and slow to me compared with Roaring Days!
The eyes that watched are dim with age, and souls are weak and slow,
The hearts are dust or hardened now that broke for Cobb and Co.
FIRE LIGHTED, on the table a meal for sleepy men,
A lantern in the stable, a jingle now and then;
The mail coach looming darkly by light of moon and star,
The growl of sleepy voices--a candle in the bar.
A stumble in the passage of folk with wits abroad;
A swear-word from a bedroom--the shout of 'All aboard!'
'Tchk-tchk! Git-up!' 'Hold fast, there!' and down the range we go;
Five hundred miles of scattered camps will watch for Cobb and Co.
Old coaching towns already 'decaying for their sins,'
Uncounted 'Half -Way Houses,' and scores of 'Ten Mile Inns;'
The riders from the stations by lonely granite peaks;
The black-boy for the shepherds on sheep and cattle creeks;
The roaring camps of Gulgong, and many a 'Digger's Rest;'
The diggers on the Lachlan; the huts of Farthest West;
Some twenty thousand exiles who sailed for weal or woe;
The bravest hearts of twenty lands will wait for Cobb and Co.
The morning star has vanished, the frost and fog are gone,
In one of those grand mornings which but on mountains dawn;
A flask of friendly whisky--each other's hopes we share--
And throw our top-coats open to drink the mountain air.
The roads are rare to travel, and life seems all complete;
The grind of wheels on gravel, the trot of horses' feet,
The trot, trot, trot and canter, as down the spur we go--
The green sweeps to horizons blue that call for Cobb and Co.
We take a bright girl actress through western dust and damps,
To bear the home-world message, and sing for sinful camps,
To wake the hearts and break them, wild hearts that hope and ache--
(Ah! when she thinks of those days her own must nearly break!)
Five miles this side the gold-field, a loud, triumphant shout:
Five hundred cheering diggers have snatched the horses out:
With 'Auld Lang Syne' in chorus through roaring camps they go--
That cheer for her, and cheer for Home, and cheer for Cobb and Co.
Three lamps above the ridges and gorges dark and deep,
A flash on sandstone cuttings where sheer the sidings sweep,
A flash on shrouded waggons, on water ghastly white;
Weird bush and scattered remnants of rushes in the night
Across the swollen river a flash beyond the ford:
'Ride hard to warn the driver! He's drunk or mad, good Lord!'
But on the bank to westward a broad, triumphant glow--
A hundred miles shall see to-night the lights of Cobb and Co.!
Swift scramble up the siding where teams climb inch by inch;
Pause, bird-like, on the summit--then breakneck down the pinch
Past haunted half-way houses--where convicts made the bricks--
Scrub-yards and new bark shanties, we dash with five and six--
By clear, ridge-country rivers, and gaps where tracks run high,
Where waits the lonely horseman, cut clear against the sky;
Through stringy-bark and blue-gum, and box and pine we go;
New camps are stretching 'cross the plains the routes of Cobb and Co.
. . . . .
Throw down the reins, old driver--there's no one left to shout;
The ruined inn's survivor must take the horses out.
A poor old coach hereafter!--we're lost to all such things--
No bursts of songs or laughter shall shake your leathern springs
When creeping in unnoticed by railway sidings drear,
Or left in yards for lumber, decaying with the year--
Oh, who'll think how in those days when distant fields were broad
You raced across the Lachlan side with twenty-five on board.
Not all the ships that sail away since Roaring Days are done--
Not all the boats that steam from port, nor all the trains that run,
Shall take such hopes and loyal hearts--for men shall never know
Such days as when the Royal Mail was run by Cobb and Co.
The 'greyhounds' race across the sea, the 'special' cleaves the haze,
But these seem dull and slow to me compared with Roaring Days!
The eyes that watched are dim with age, and souls are weak and slow,
The hearts are dust or hardened now that broke for Cobb and Co.
THE BATTLING DAYS
Henry Lawson
SO, sit you down in a straight-backed chair, with your pipe and your wife content,
And cross your knees with your wisest air, and preach of the 'days mis-spent;'
Grown fat and moral apace, old man! you prate of the change 'since then'--
In spite of all, I'd as lief be back in those hard old days again.
They were hard old days; they were battling days; they were cruel at times--but then,
In spite of all, I would rather be back in those hard old days again.
The land was barren to sow wild oats in the days when we sowed our own--
('Twas little we thought or our friends believed that ours would ever be sown)
But the wild oats wave on their stormy path, and they speak of the hearts of men--
I would sow a crop if I had my time in those hard old days again.
We travel first, or we go saloon--on the planned-out trips we go,
With those who are neither rich nor poor, and we find that the life is slow;
It's 'a pleasant trip' where they cried, 'Good luck!' There was fun in the steerage then--
In spite of all, I would fain be back in those vagabond days again.
On Saturday night we've a pound to spare--a pound for a trip down town--
We took more joy in those hard old days for a hardly spared half-crown;
We took more pride in the pants we patched than the suits we have had since then--
In spite of all, I would rather be back in those comical days again.
'Twas We and the World--and the rest go hang--as the Outside tracks we trod;
Each thought of himself as a man and mate, and not as a martyred god;
The world goes wrong when your heart is strong--and this is the way with men--
The world goes right when your liver is white, and you preach of the change 'since then.'
They were hard old days; they were battling days; they were cruel times--but then,
In spite of all, we shall live to-night in those hard old days again.
SO, sit you down in a straight-backed chair, with your pipe and your wife content,
And cross your knees with your wisest air, and preach of the 'days mis-spent;'
Grown fat and moral apace, old man! you prate of the change 'since then'--
In spite of all, I'd as lief be back in those hard old days again.
They were hard old days; they were battling days; they were cruel at times--but then,
In spite of all, I would rather be back in those hard old days again.
The land was barren to sow wild oats in the days when we sowed our own--
('Twas little we thought or our friends believed that ours would ever be sown)
But the wild oats wave on their stormy path, and they speak of the hearts of men--
I would sow a crop if I had my time in those hard old days again.
We travel first, or we go saloon--on the planned-out trips we go,
With those who are neither rich nor poor, and we find that the life is slow;
It's 'a pleasant trip' where they cried, 'Good luck!' There was fun in the steerage then--
In spite of all, I would fain be back in those vagabond days again.
On Saturday night we've a pound to spare--a pound for a trip down town--
We took more joy in those hard old days for a hardly spared half-crown;
We took more pride in the pants we patched than the suits we have had since then--
In spite of all, I would rather be back in those comical days again.
'Twas We and the World--and the rest go hang--as the Outside tracks we trod;
Each thought of himself as a man and mate, and not as a martyred god;
The world goes wrong when your heart is strong--and this is the way with men--
The world goes right when your liver is white, and you preach of the change 'since then.'
They were hard old days; they were battling days; they were cruel times--but then,
In spite of all, we shall live to-night in those hard old days again.
SYDNEY-SIDE
Henry Lawson
WHERE'S the steward?--Bar-room steward? Berth? Oh, any berth will do--
I have left a three-pound billet just to come along with you.
Brighter shines the Star of Rovers on a world that's growing wide,
But I think I'd give a kingdom for a glimpse of Sydney-Side.
Run of rocky shelves at sunrise, with their base on ocean's bed;
Homes of Coogee, homes of Bondi, and the lighthouse on South Head.
For in loneliness and hardship--and with just a touch of pride--
Has my heart been taught to whisper, 'You belong to Sydney-Side.'
Oh, there never dawned a morning, in the long and lonely days,
But I thought I saw the ferries streaming out across the bays--
And as fresh and fair in fancy did the picture rise again
As the sunrise flushed the city from Woollahra to Balmain:
And the sunny water frothing round the liners black and red,
And the coastal schooners working by the loom of Bradley's Head;
And the whistles and the sirens that re-echo far and wide--
All the life and light and beauty that belong to Sydney-Side.
And the dreary cloud-line never veiled the end of one day more,
But the city set in jewels rose before me from 'The Shore.'
Round the sea-world shine the beacons of a thousand ports o' call,
But the harbour-lights of Sydney are the grandest of them all!
Toiling out beyond Coolgardie--heart and back and spirit broke,
Where the Rover's Star gleams redly in the desert by the 'soak'--
But says one mate to the other, 'Brace your lip and do not fret,
We will laugh on trains and 'buses--Sydney's in the same place yet.'
Working in the South in winter, to the waist in dripping fern,
Where the local spirit hungers for each 'saxpence' that we earn--
We can stand it for a season, for our world is growing wide,
And they all are friends and strangers who belong to Sydney-Side.
'T'other-siders! T'other-siders!' Yet we wake the dusty dead;
It is we that send the backward province fifty years ahead;
We it is that 'trim' Australia--making narrow country wide--
Yet we're always T'other-siders till we sail for Sydney-side.
WHERE'S the steward?--Bar-room steward? Berth? Oh, any berth will do--
I have left a three-pound billet just to come along with you.
Brighter shines the Star of Rovers on a world that's growing wide,
But I think I'd give a kingdom for a glimpse of Sydney-Side.
Run of rocky shelves at sunrise, with their base on ocean's bed;
Homes of Coogee, homes of Bondi, and the lighthouse on South Head.
For in loneliness and hardship--and with just a touch of pride--
Has my heart been taught to whisper, 'You belong to Sydney-Side.'
Oh, there never dawned a morning, in the long and lonely days,
But I thought I saw the ferries streaming out across the bays--
And as fresh and fair in fancy did the picture rise again
As the sunrise flushed the city from Woollahra to Balmain:
And the sunny water frothing round the liners black and red,
And the coastal schooners working by the loom of Bradley's Head;
And the whistles and the sirens that re-echo far and wide--
All the life and light and beauty that belong to Sydney-Side.
And the dreary cloud-line never veiled the end of one day more,
But the city set in jewels rose before me from 'The Shore.'
Round the sea-world shine the beacons of a thousand ports o' call,
But the harbour-lights of Sydney are the grandest of them all!
Toiling out beyond Coolgardie--heart and back and spirit broke,
Where the Rover's Star gleams redly in the desert by the 'soak'--
But says one mate to the other, 'Brace your lip and do not fret,
We will laugh on trains and 'buses--Sydney's in the same place yet.'
Working in the South in winter, to the waist in dripping fern,
Where the local spirit hungers for each 'saxpence' that we earn--
We can stand it for a season, for our world is growing wide,
And they all are friends and strangers who belong to Sydney-Side.
'T'other-siders! T'other-siders!' Yet we wake the dusty dead;
It is we that send the backward province fifty years ahead;
We it is that 'trim' Australia--making narrow country wide--
Yet we're always T'other-siders till we sail for Sydney-side.
SONG OF THE OLD BULLOCK-DRIVER
Henry Lawson
FAR BACK in the days when the blacks used to ramble
In long single file 'neath the evergreen tree,
The wool-teams in season came down from Coonamble,
And journeyed for weeks on their way to the sea,
'Twas then that our hearts and our sinews were stronger,
For those were the days when the bushman was bred.
We journeyed on roads that were rougher and longer
Than roads where the feet of our grandchildren tread.
With mates who have gone to the great Never-Never,
And mates whom I've not seen for many a day,
I camped on the banks of the Cudgegong River
And yarned at the fire by the old bullock-dray.
I would summon them back from the far Riverina,
From days that shall be from all others distinct,
And sing to the sound of an old concertina
Their rugged old songs where strange fancies were linked.
We never were lonely, for, camping together,
We yarned and we smoked the long evenings away,
And little I cared for the signs of the weather
When snug in my hammock slung under the dray.
We rose with the dawn, were it ever so chilly,
When yokes and tarpaulins were covered with frost,
And toasted the bacon and boiled the black billy,
Where high on the camp-fire the branches were tossed.
On flats where the air was suggestive of 'possums,
And homesteads and fences were hinting of change,
We saw the faint glimmer of appletree blossoms
And far in the distance the blue of the range;
And here in the rain, there was small use in flogging
The poor, tortured bullocks that tugged at the load,
When down to the axles the waggons were bogging
And traffic was making a marsh of the road.
'Twas hard on the beasts on the terrible pinches,
Where two teams of bullocks were yoked to a load,
And tugging and slipping, and moving by inches,
Half-way to the summit they clung to the road.
And then, when the last of the pinches was bested,
(You'll surely not say that a glass was a sin?)
The bullocks lay down 'neath the gum trees and rested--
The bullockies steered for the bar of the inn.
Then slowly we crawled by the trees that kept tally
Of miles that were passed on the long journey down.
We saw the wild beauty of Capertee Valley,
As slowly we rounded the base of the Crown.
But, ah! the poor bullocks were cruelly goaded
While climbing the hills from the flats and the vales;
'Twas here that the teams were so often unloaded
That all knew the meaning of 'counting your bales.'
And, oh! but the best-paying load that I carried
Was one to the run where my sweetheart was nurse.
We courted awhile, and agreed to get married,
And couple our futures for better or worse.
And as my old feet grew too weary to drag on
The miles of rough metal they met by the way,
My eldest grew up and I gave him the waggon--
He's plodding along by the bullocks to-day.
FAR BACK in the days when the blacks used to ramble
In long single file 'neath the evergreen tree,
The wool-teams in season came down from Coonamble,
And journeyed for weeks on their way to the sea,
'Twas then that our hearts and our sinews were stronger,
For those were the days when the bushman was bred.
We journeyed on roads that were rougher and longer
Than roads where the feet of our grandchildren tread.
With mates who have gone to the great Never-Never,
And mates whom I've not seen for many a day,
I camped on the banks of the Cudgegong River
And yarned at the fire by the old bullock-dray.
I would summon them back from the far Riverina,
From days that shall be from all others distinct,
And sing to the sound of an old concertina
Their rugged old songs where strange fancies were linked.
We never were lonely, for, camping together,
We yarned and we smoked the long evenings away,
And little I cared for the signs of the weather
When snug in my hammock slung under the dray.
We rose with the dawn, were it ever so chilly,
When yokes and tarpaulins were covered with frost,
And toasted the bacon and boiled the black billy,
Where high on the camp-fire the branches were tossed.
On flats where the air was suggestive of 'possums,
And homesteads and fences were hinting of change,
We saw the faint glimmer of appletree blossoms
And far in the distance the blue of the range;
And here in the rain, there was small use in flogging
The poor, tortured bullocks that tugged at the load,
When down to the axles the waggons were bogging
And traffic was making a marsh of the road.
'Twas hard on the beasts on the terrible pinches,
Where two teams of bullocks were yoked to a load,
And tugging and slipping, and moving by inches,
Half-way to the summit they clung to the road.
And then, when the last of the pinches was bested,
(You'll surely not say that a glass was a sin?)
The bullocks lay down 'neath the gum trees and rested--
The bullockies steered for the bar of the inn.
Then slowly we crawled by the trees that kept tally
Of miles that were passed on the long journey down.
We saw the wild beauty of Capertee Valley,
As slowly we rounded the base of the Crown.
But, ah! the poor bullocks were cruelly goaded
While climbing the hills from the flats and the vales;
'Twas here that the teams were so often unloaded
That all knew the meaning of 'counting your bales.'
And, oh! but the best-paying load that I carried
Was one to the run where my sweetheart was nurse.
We courted awhile, and agreed to get married,
And couple our futures for better or worse.
And as my old feet grew too weary to drag on
The miles of rough metal they met by the way,
My eldest grew up and I gave him the waggon--
He's plodding along by the bullocks to-day.
RAIN IN THE MOUNTAINS
Henry Lawson
THE VALLEY'S full of misty cloud,
Its tinted beauty drowning,
The Eucalypti roar aloud,
The mountain fronts are frowning.
The mist is hanging like a pall
From many granite ledges,
And many a little waterfall
Starts o'er the valley's edges.
The sky is of a leaden grey,
Save where the north is surly,
The driven daylight speeds away,
And night comes o'er us early.
But, love, the rain will pass full soon,
Far sooner than my sorrow,
And in a golden afternoon
The sun may set to-morrow.
THE VALLEY'S full of misty cloud,
Its tinted beauty drowning,
The Eucalypti roar aloud,
The mountain fronts are frowning.
The mist is hanging like a pall
From many granite ledges,
And many a little waterfall
Starts o'er the valley's edges.
The sky is of a leaden grey,
Save where the north is surly,
The driven daylight speeds away,
And night comes o'er us early.
But, love, the rain will pass full soon,
Far sooner than my sorrow,
And in a golden afternoon
The sun may set to-morrow.
FOREIGN LANDS
Henry Lawson
YOU may roam the wide seas over, follow, meet, and cross the sun,
Sail as far as ships can sail, and travel far as trains can run;
You may ride and tramp wherever range or plain or sea expands,
But the crowd has been before you, and you'll not find 'Foreign Lands;'
For the Early Days are over,
And no more the white-winged rover
Sinks the gale-worn coast of England bound for bays in Foreign Lands.
Foreign Lands are in the distance dim and dreamlike, faint and far,
Long ago, and over yonder, where our boyhood fancies are,
For the land is by the railway cramped as though with iron bands,
And the steamship and the cable did away with Foreign Lands.
Ah! the days of blue and gold!
When the news was six months old--
But the news was worth the telling in the days of Foreign Lands.
Here we slave the dull years hopeless for the sake of Wool and Wheat
Here the homes of ugly Commerce--niggard farm and haggard street;
Yet our mothers and our fathers won the life the heart demands--
Less than fifty years gone over, we were born in Foreign Lands.
When the gipsies stole the children still, in village tale and song,
And the world was wide to travel, and the roving spirit strong;
When they dreamed of South Sea Islands, summer seas and coral strands--
Then the bravest hearts of England sailed away to Foreign Lands,
'Fitting foreign'--flood and field--
Half the world and orders sealed--
And the first and best of Europe went to fight in Foreign Lands.
Canvas towers on the ocean--homeward bound and outward bound--
Glint of topsails over islands--splash of anchors in the sound;
Then they landed in the forests, took their strong lives in their hands,
And they fought and toiled and conquered--making homes in Foreign Lands,
Through the cold and through the drought--
Further on and further out--
Winning half the world for England in the wilds of Foreign Lands.
Love and pride of life inspired them when the simple village hearts
Followed Master Will and Harry--gone abroad to 'furrin parts'
By our townships and our cities, and across the desert sands
Are the graves of those who fought and died for us in Foreign Lands--
Gave their young lives for our sake
(Was it all a grand mistake?)
Sons of Master Will and Harry born abroad in Foreign Lands!
Ah, my girl, our lives are narrow, and in sordid days like these,
I can hate the things that banished 'Foreign Lands across the seas,'
But with all the world before us, God above us--hearts and hands,
I can sail the seas in fancy far away to Foreign Lands.
YOU may roam the wide seas over, follow, meet, and cross the sun,
Sail as far as ships can sail, and travel far as trains can run;
You may ride and tramp wherever range or plain or sea expands,
But the crowd has been before you, and you'll not find 'Foreign Lands;'
For the Early Days are over,
And no more the white-winged rover
Sinks the gale-worn coast of England bound for bays in Foreign Lands.
Foreign Lands are in the distance dim and dreamlike, faint and far,
Long ago, and over yonder, where our boyhood fancies are,
For the land is by the railway cramped as though with iron bands,
And the steamship and the cable did away with Foreign Lands.
Ah! the days of blue and gold!
When the news was six months old--
But the news was worth the telling in the days of Foreign Lands.
Here we slave the dull years hopeless for the sake of Wool and Wheat
Here the homes of ugly Commerce--niggard farm and haggard street;
Yet our mothers and our fathers won the life the heart demands--
Less than fifty years gone over, we were born in Foreign Lands.
When the gipsies stole the children still, in village tale and song,
And the world was wide to travel, and the roving spirit strong;
When they dreamed of South Sea Islands, summer seas and coral strands--
Then the bravest hearts of England sailed away to Foreign Lands,
'Fitting foreign'--flood and field--
Half the world and orders sealed--
And the first and best of Europe went to fight in Foreign Lands.
Canvas towers on the ocean--homeward bound and outward bound--
Glint of topsails over islands--splash of anchors in the sound;
Then they landed in the forests, took their strong lives in their hands,
And they fought and toiled and conquered--making homes in Foreign Lands,
Through the cold and through the drought--
Further on and further out--
Winning half the world for England in the wilds of Foreign Lands.
Love and pride of life inspired them when the simple village hearts
Followed Master Will and Harry--gone abroad to 'furrin parts'
By our townships and our cities, and across the desert sands
Are the graves of those who fought and died for us in Foreign Lands--
Gave their young lives for our sake
(Was it all a grand mistake?)
Sons of Master Will and Harry born abroad in Foreign Lands!
Ah, my girl, our lives are narrow, and in sordid days like these,
I can hate the things that banished 'Foreign Lands across the seas,'
But with all the world before us, God above us--hearts and hands,
I can sail the seas in fancy far away to Foreign Lands.
THE WRITER'S DREAM
Henry Lawson
A WRITER wrote of the hearts of men, and he followed their tracks afar;
For his was a spirit that forced his pen to write of the things that are.
His heart grew tired of the truths he told, for his life was hard and grim;
His land seemed barren, its people cold--yet the world was dear to him;--
So he sailed away from the Streets of Strife, he travelled by land and sea,
In search of a people who lived a life as life in the world should be.
And he reached a spot where the scene was fair, with forest and field and wood,
And all things came with the seasons there, and each of its kind was good;
There were mountain-rivers and peaks of snow, there were lights of green and gold,
And echoing caves in the cliffs below, where a world-wide ocean rolled.
The lives of men from the wear of Change and the strife of the world were free--
For Steam was barred by the mountain-range and the rocks of the Open Sea.
And the last that were born of a noble race - when the page of the South was fair--
The last of the conquered dwelt in peace with the last of the victors there.
He saw their hearts with the author's eyes who had written their ancient lore,
And he saw their lives as he'd dreamed of such - ah! many a year before.
And 'I'll write a book of these simple folk ere I to the world return,
'And the cold who read shall be kind for these - and the wise who read shall learn.
'Never again in a song of mine shall a jarring note be heard:
'Never again shall a page or line be marred by a bitter word;
'But love and laughter and kindly hours will the book I'll write recall,
'With chastening tears for the loss of one, and sighs for their sorrows all.
'Old eyes will light with a kindly smile, and the young eyes dance with glee--
'And the heart of the cynic will rest awhile for my simple folk and me.'
The lines ran on as he dipped his pen - ran true to his heart and ear-
Like the brighter pages of memory when every line is clear.
The pictures came and the pictures passed, like days of love and light-
He saw his chapters from first to last, and he thought it grand to write.
And the writer kissed his girlish wife, and he kissed her twice for pride:
''Tis a book of love, though a book of life! and a book you'll read!' he cried.
He was blind at first to each senseless slight (for shabby and poor he came)
From local 'Fashion' and mortgaged pride that scarce could sign its name.
What dreamer would dream of such paltry pride in a scene so fresh and fair?
But the local spirit intensified--with its pitiful shams - was there;
There were cliques wherever two houses stood (no rest for a family ghost!)
They hated each other as women could - but they hated the stranger most.
The writer wrote by day and night and he cried in the face of Fate--
'I'll cleave to my dream of life in spite of the cynical ghosts that wait.
''Tis the shyness born of their simple lives,' he said to the paltry pride--
(The homely tongues of the simple wives ne'er erred on the generous side)--
'They'll prove me true and they'll prove me kind ere the year of grace be passed,'
But the ignorant whisper of 'axe to grind!' went home to his heart at last.
The writer sat by his drift-wood fire three nights of the South-east gale,
His pen lay idle on pages vain, for his book was a fairy tale.
The world-wise lines of an elder age were plain on his aching brow,
As he sadly thought of each brighter page that would never be written now.
'I'll write no more!' But he bowed his head, for his heart was in Dreamland yet--
'The pages written I'll burn,' he said, 'and the pages thought forget.'
But he heard the hymn of the Open Sea, and the old fierce anger burned,
And he wrenched his heart from its dreamland free as the fire of his youth returned:-
'The weak man's madness, the strong man's scorn--the rebellious hate of youth
'From a deeper love of the world are born! And the cynical ghost is Truth!'
And the writer rose with a strength anew wherein Doubt could have no part;
'I'll write my book and it shall be true--the truth of a writer's heart.
'Ay! cover the wrong with a fairy tale - who never knew want or care-
'A bright green scum on a stagnant pool that will reek the longer there.
'You may starve the writer and buy the pen--you may drive it with want and fear--
'But the lines run false in the hearts of men - and false to the writer's ear.
'The bard's a rebel and strife his part, and he'll burst from his bonds anew,
'Till all pens write from a single heart! And so may the dream come true.
. . . . .
''Tis ever the same in the paths of men where money and dress are all,
'The crawler will bully whene'er he can, and the bully who can't will crawl.
'And this is the creed in the local hole, where the souls of the selfish rule;
'Borrow and cheat while the stranger's green, then sneer at the simple fool.
'Spit your spite at the men whom Fate has placed in the head-race first,
'And hate till death, with a senseless hate, the man you have injured worst!
'There are generous hearts in the grinding street, but the Hearts of the World go west;
'For the men who toil in the dust and heat of the barren lands are best!
'The stranger's hand to the stranger, yet--for a roving folk are mine -
'The stranger's store for the stranger set--and the camp-fire glow the sign!
'The generous hearts of the world, we find, thrive best on the barren sod,
'And the selfish thrive where Nature's kind (they'd bully or crawl to God!)
'I was born to write of the things that are! and the strength was given to me.
'I was born to strike at the things that mar the world as the world should be!
'By the dumb heart-hunger and dreams of youth, by the hungry tracks I've trod -
'I'll fight as a man for the sake of truth, nor pose as a martyred god.
'By the heart of "Bill" and the heart of "Jim," and the men that their hearts deem "white,"
'By the handgrips fierce, and the hard eyes dim with forbidden tears! - I'll write!
'I'll write untroubled by cultured fools, or the dense that fume and fret--
'For against the wisdom of all their schools I would stake mine instinct yet!
'For the cynical strain in the writer's song is the world, not he, to blame,
'And I'll write as I think, in the knowledge strong that thousands think the same;
'And the men who fight in the Dry Country grim battles by day, by night,
'Will believe in me, and will stand by me, and will say to the world, "He's right!"'
A WRITER wrote of the hearts of men, and he followed their tracks afar;
For his was a spirit that forced his pen to write of the things that are.
His heart grew tired of the truths he told, for his life was hard and grim;
His land seemed barren, its people cold--yet the world was dear to him;--
So he sailed away from the Streets of Strife, he travelled by land and sea,
In search of a people who lived a life as life in the world should be.
And he reached a spot where the scene was fair, with forest and field and wood,
And all things came with the seasons there, and each of its kind was good;
There were mountain-rivers and peaks of snow, there were lights of green and gold,
And echoing caves in the cliffs below, where a world-wide ocean rolled.
The lives of men from the wear of Change and the strife of the world were free--
For Steam was barred by the mountain-range and the rocks of the Open Sea.
And the last that were born of a noble race - when the page of the South was fair--
The last of the conquered dwelt in peace with the last of the victors there.
He saw their hearts with the author's eyes who had written their ancient lore,
And he saw their lives as he'd dreamed of such - ah! many a year before.
And 'I'll write a book of these simple folk ere I to the world return,
'And the cold who read shall be kind for these - and the wise who read shall learn.
'Never again in a song of mine shall a jarring note be heard:
'Never again shall a page or line be marred by a bitter word;
'But love and laughter and kindly hours will the book I'll write recall,
'With chastening tears for the loss of one, and sighs for their sorrows all.
'Old eyes will light with a kindly smile, and the young eyes dance with glee--
'And the heart of the cynic will rest awhile for my simple folk and me.'
The lines ran on as he dipped his pen - ran true to his heart and ear-
Like the brighter pages of memory when every line is clear.
The pictures came and the pictures passed, like days of love and light-
He saw his chapters from first to last, and he thought it grand to write.
And the writer kissed his girlish wife, and he kissed her twice for pride:
''Tis a book of love, though a book of life! and a book you'll read!' he cried.
He was blind at first to each senseless slight (for shabby and poor he came)
From local 'Fashion' and mortgaged pride that scarce could sign its name.
What dreamer would dream of such paltry pride in a scene so fresh and fair?
But the local spirit intensified--with its pitiful shams - was there;
There were cliques wherever two houses stood (no rest for a family ghost!)
They hated each other as women could - but they hated the stranger most.
The writer wrote by day and night and he cried in the face of Fate--
'I'll cleave to my dream of life in spite of the cynical ghosts that wait.
''Tis the shyness born of their simple lives,' he said to the paltry pride--
(The homely tongues of the simple wives ne'er erred on the generous side)--
'They'll prove me true and they'll prove me kind ere the year of grace be passed,'
But the ignorant whisper of 'axe to grind!' went home to his heart at last.
The writer sat by his drift-wood fire three nights of the South-east gale,
His pen lay idle on pages vain, for his book was a fairy tale.
The world-wise lines of an elder age were plain on his aching brow,
As he sadly thought of each brighter page that would never be written now.
'I'll write no more!' But he bowed his head, for his heart was in Dreamland yet--
'The pages written I'll burn,' he said, 'and the pages thought forget.'
But he heard the hymn of the Open Sea, and the old fierce anger burned,
And he wrenched his heart from its dreamland free as the fire of his youth returned:-
'The weak man's madness, the strong man's scorn--the rebellious hate of youth
'From a deeper love of the world are born! And the cynical ghost is Truth!'
And the writer rose with a strength anew wherein Doubt could have no part;
'I'll write my book and it shall be true--the truth of a writer's heart.
'Ay! cover the wrong with a fairy tale - who never knew want or care-
'A bright green scum on a stagnant pool that will reek the longer there.
'You may starve the writer and buy the pen--you may drive it with want and fear--
'But the lines run false in the hearts of men - and false to the writer's ear.
'The bard's a rebel and strife his part, and he'll burst from his bonds anew,
'Till all pens write from a single heart! And so may the dream come true.
. . . . .
''Tis ever the same in the paths of men where money and dress are all,
'The crawler will bully whene'er he can, and the bully who can't will crawl.
'And this is the creed in the local hole, where the souls of the selfish rule;
'Borrow and cheat while the stranger's green, then sneer at the simple fool.
'Spit your spite at the men whom Fate has placed in the head-race first,
'And hate till death, with a senseless hate, the man you have injured worst!
'There are generous hearts in the grinding street, but the Hearts of the World go west;
'For the men who toil in the dust and heat of the barren lands are best!
'The stranger's hand to the stranger, yet--for a roving folk are mine -
'The stranger's store for the stranger set--and the camp-fire glow the sign!
'The generous hearts of the world, we find, thrive best on the barren sod,
'And the selfish thrive where Nature's kind (they'd bully or crawl to God!)
'I was born to write of the things that are! and the strength was given to me.
'I was born to strike at the things that mar the world as the world should be!
'By the dumb heart-hunger and dreams of youth, by the hungry tracks I've trod -
'I'll fight as a man for the sake of truth, nor pose as a martyred god.
'By the heart of "Bill" and the heart of "Jim," and the men that their hearts deem "white,"
'By the handgrips fierce, and the hard eyes dim with forbidden tears! - I'll write!
'I'll write untroubled by cultured fools, or the dense that fume and fret--
'For against the wisdom of all their schools I would stake mine instinct yet!
'For the cynical strain in the writer's song is the world, not he, to blame,
'And I'll write as I think, in the knowledge strong that thousands think the same;
'And the men who fight in the Dry Country grim battles by day, by night,
'Will believe in me, and will stand by me, and will say to the world, "He's right!"'
BILL AND JIM FALL OUT
Henry Lawson
BILL and Jim are mates no longer--they would scorn the name of mate--
Those two bushmen hate each other with a soul-consuming hate;
Yet erstwhile they were as brothers should be (tho' they never will):
Ne'er were mates to one another half so true as Jim and Bill.
Bill was one of those who have to argue every day or die--
Though, of course, he swore 'twas Jim who always itched to argufy.
They would, on most abstract subjects, contradict each other flat
And at times in lurid language--they were mates in spite of that.
Bill believed the Bible story re the origin of him--
He was sober, he was steady, he was orthodox; while Jim,
Who, we grieve to state, was always getting into drunken scrapes,
Held that man degenerated from degenerated apes.
Bill was British to the backbone, he was loyal through and through;
Jim declared that Blucher's Prussians won the fight at Waterloo,
And he hoped the coloured races would in time wipe out the white--
And it rather strained their mateship, but it didn't burst it quite.
They battled round in Maoriland--they saw it through and through--
And argued on the rata, what it was and how it grew;
Bill believed the vine grew downward, Jim declared that it grow up--
Yet they always shared their fortunes to the final bite and sup.
Night after night they argued how the kangaroo was born,
And each one held the other's stupid theories in scorn,
Bill believed it was 'born inside,' Jim declared it was born out--
Each as to his own opinions never had the slightest doubt.
They left the earth to argue and they went among the stars,
Re conditions atmospheric, Bill believed 'the hair of Mars
'Was too thin for human bein's to exist in mortal states.'
Jim declared it was too thick, if anythin--yet they were mates
Bill for Freetrade--Jim, Protection--argued as to which was best
For the welfare of the workers--and their mateship stood the test!
They argued over what they meant and didn't mean at all,
And what they said and didn't--and were mates in spite of all.
Till one night the two together tried to light a fire in camp,
When they had a leaky billy and the wood was scarce and damp.
And...No matter: let the moral be distinctly understood:
One alone should tend the fire, while the other brings the wood.
BILL and Jim are mates no longer--they would scorn the name of mate--
Those two bushmen hate each other with a soul-consuming hate;
Yet erstwhile they were as brothers should be (tho' they never will):
Ne'er were mates to one another half so true as Jim and Bill.
Bill was one of those who have to argue every day or die--
Though, of course, he swore 'twas Jim who always itched to argufy.
They would, on most abstract subjects, contradict each other flat
And at times in lurid language--they were mates in spite of that.
Bill believed the Bible story re the origin of him--
He was sober, he was steady, he was orthodox; while Jim,
Who, we grieve to state, was always getting into drunken scrapes,
Held that man degenerated from degenerated apes.
Bill was British to the backbone, he was loyal through and through;
Jim declared that Blucher's Prussians won the fight at Waterloo,
And he hoped the coloured races would in time wipe out the white--
And it rather strained their mateship, but it didn't burst it quite.
They battled round in Maoriland--they saw it through and through--
And argued on the rata, what it was and how it grew;
Bill believed the vine grew downward, Jim declared that it grow up--
Yet they always shared their fortunes to the final bite and sup.
Night after night they argued how the kangaroo was born,
And each one held the other's stupid theories in scorn,
Bill believed it was 'born inside,' Jim declared it was born out--
Each as to his own opinions never had the slightest doubt.
They left the earth to argue and they went among the stars,
Re conditions atmospheric, Bill believed 'the hair of Mars
'Was too thin for human bein's to exist in mortal states.'
Jim declared it was too thick, if anythin--yet they were mates
Bill for Freetrade--Jim, Protection--argued as to which was best
For the welfare of the workers--and their mateship stood the test!
They argued over what they meant and didn't mean at all,
And what they said and didn't--and were mates in spite of all.
Till one night the two together tried to light a fire in camp,
When they had a leaky billy and the wood was scarce and damp.
And...No matter: let the moral be distinctly understood:
One alone should tend the fire, while the other brings the wood.
THE WAY OF THE WORLD
Henry Lawson
WHEN fairer faces turn from me,
And gayer friends grow cold,
And I have lost through poverty
The friendship bought with gold;
When I have served the selfish turn
Of some all-worldly few,
And Folly's lamps have ceased to burn,
Then I'll come back to you.
When my admirers find I'm not
The rising star they thought,
And praise or blame is all forgot
My early promise brought;
When brighter rivals lead a host
Where once I led a few,
And kinder times reward their boast,
Then I'll come back to you.
You loved me, not for what I had
Or what I might have been,
You saw the good, but not the bad,
Was kind, for that between.
I know that you'll forgive again--
That you will judge me true;
I'll be too tired to explain
When I come back to you.
WHEN fairer faces turn from me,
And gayer friends grow cold,
And I have lost through poverty
The friendship bought with gold;
When I have served the selfish turn
Of some all-worldly few,
And Folly's lamps have ceased to burn,
Then I'll come back to you.
When my admirers find I'm not
The rising star they thought,
And praise or blame is all forgot
My early promise brought;
When brighter rivals lead a host
Where once I led a few,
And kinder times reward their boast,
Then I'll come back to you.
You loved me, not for what I had
Or what I might have been,
You saw the good, but not the bad,
Was kind, for that between.
I know that you'll forgive again--
That you will judge me true;
I'll be too tired to explain
When I come back to you.
A MAY NIGHT ON THE MOUNTAINS
Henry Lawson
'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 from deaths and births,
And have they greater powers,
And greater heavens, and greater earths,
And greater Gods than ours?
Are our lies theirs, and our truth their truth,
Are they cursed for pleasure's sake,
Do they make their hells in their reckless youth
Ere they know what hells they make?
And do they toil through each weary hour
Till the tedious day is o'er,
For food that gives but the fleeting power
To toil and strive for more?
'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 from deaths and births,
And have they greater powers,
And greater heavens, and greater earths,
And greater Gods than ours?
Are our lies theirs, and our truth their truth,
Are they cursed for pleasure's sake,
Do they make their hells in their reckless youth
Ere they know what hells they make?
And do they toil through each weary hour
Till the tedious day is o'er,
For food that gives but the fleeting power
To toil and strive for more?
The Romance of the Swag (ed. vers)
Henry Lawson is one of Australia’s most popular Poets and Storytellers. Writing at the turn of the last century, his body of work included short stories, poetry, essays, humorous observations and recollections, consistently brilliant and inspired. A colourful character, sent to the Outback initially to ‘dry-out’ by his city editor, which he never quite succeeded in doing, he chronicled with wit and understanding, insight and candour, honesty and a wry, knowing grin, the characters he encountered, the lives they lead, and the hardships they faced living in the harshness of the Australian bush.
The Romance of the Swag
(ed. vers)
THE Australian swag fashion is the easiest way in the world of carrying a load… The Australian swag was born of Australia and no other land - of the Great Lone Land of magnificent distances and bright heat; the land of self-reliance, and never-give-in, and help-your-mate. The grave of many of the world's tragedies and comedies-royal and otherwise. The land where a man out of employment might shoulder his swag in Adelaide and take the track, and years later walk into a hut on the Gulf…
The swag is usually composed of a tent "fly" or strip of calico (a cover for the swag and a shelter in bad weather…), a couple of blankets, blue by custom and preference, as that colour shows the dirt less than any other (hence the name "bluey" for swag), and the core is composed of spare clothing and small personal effects. To make or "roll up" your swag: lay the fly or strip of calico on the ground, blueys on top of it; across one end, with eighteen inches or so to spare, lay your spare trousers and shirt, folded, light boots tied together by the laces toe to heel, books, bundle of old letters, portraits, or whatever little knick-knacks you have or care to carry, bag of needles, thread, pen and ink, spare patches for your pants, and bootlaces. Lay or arrange the pile so that it will roll evenly with the swag (some pack the lot in an old pillowslip or canvas bag), take a fold over of blanket and calico the whole length on each side, so as to reduce the width of the swag to, say, three feet, throw the spare end, with an inward fold, over the little pile of belongings, and then roll the whole to the other end, using your knees and judgment to make the swag tight, compact and artistic; when within eighteen inches of the loose end take an inward fold in that, and bring it up against the body of the swag. There is a strong suggestion of a roley-poley in a rag about the business, only the ends of the swag are folded in, in rings, and not tied. Fasten the swag with three or four straps, according to judgment and the supply of straps. To the top strap, for the swag is carried (and eased down in shanty bars and against walls or veranda-posts when not on the track) in a more or less vertical position--to the top strap, and lowest, or lowest but one, fasten the ends of the shoulder strap (usually a towel is preferred as being softer to the shoulder), your coat being carried outside the swag at the back, under the straps.
To the top strap fasten the string of the nose-bag, a calico bag about the size of a pillowslip, containing the tea, sugar and flour bags, bread, meat, baking-powder and salt, and brought, when the swag is carried from the left shoulder, over the right on to the chest, and so balancing the swag behind. But a swagman can throw a heavy swag in a nearly vertical position against his spine, slung from one shoulder only and without any balance, and carry it as easily as you might wear your overcoat. Some bushmen arrange their belongings so neatly and conveniently, with swag straps in a sort of harness, that they can roll up the swag in about a minute, and unbuckle it and throw it out as easily as a roll of wall-paper, and there's the bed ready on the ground with the wardrobe for a pillow. The swag is always used for a seat on the track; it is a soft seat, so trousers last a long time. And, the dust being mostly soft and silky on the long tracks out back, boots last marvellously. Fifteen miles a day is the average with the swag, but you must travel according to the water: if the next bore or tank is five miles on, and the next twenty beyond, you camp at the five-mile water to-night and do the twenty next day. But if it's thirty miles you have to do it.
Travelling with the swag in Australia is variously and picturesquely described as "humping bluey," "walking Matilda," "humping Matilda," "humping your drum," "being on the wallaby," "jabbing trotters," and "tea and sugar burglaring," but most travelling shearers now call themselves trav'lers, and say simply "on the track," or "carrying swag."
And there you have the Australian swag…
The Romance of the Swag
(ed. vers)
THE Australian swag fashion is the easiest way in the world of carrying a load… The Australian swag was born of Australia and no other land - of the Great Lone Land of magnificent distances and bright heat; the land of self-reliance, and never-give-in, and help-your-mate. The grave of many of the world's tragedies and comedies-royal and otherwise. The land where a man out of employment might shoulder his swag in Adelaide and take the track, and years later walk into a hut on the Gulf…
The swag is usually composed of a tent "fly" or strip of calico (a cover for the swag and a shelter in bad weather…), a couple of blankets, blue by custom and preference, as that colour shows the dirt less than any other (hence the name "bluey" for swag), and the core is composed of spare clothing and small personal effects. To make or "roll up" your swag: lay the fly or strip of calico on the ground, blueys on top of it; across one end, with eighteen inches or so to spare, lay your spare trousers and shirt, folded, light boots tied together by the laces toe to heel, books, bundle of old letters, portraits, or whatever little knick-knacks you have or care to carry, bag of needles, thread, pen and ink, spare patches for your pants, and bootlaces. Lay or arrange the pile so that it will roll evenly with the swag (some pack the lot in an old pillowslip or canvas bag), take a fold over of blanket and calico the whole length on each side, so as to reduce the width of the swag to, say, three feet, throw the spare end, with an inward fold, over the little pile of belongings, and then roll the whole to the other end, using your knees and judgment to make the swag tight, compact and artistic; when within eighteen inches of the loose end take an inward fold in that, and bring it up against the body of the swag. There is a strong suggestion of a roley-poley in a rag about the business, only the ends of the swag are folded in, in rings, and not tied. Fasten the swag with three or four straps, according to judgment and the supply of straps. To the top strap, for the swag is carried (and eased down in shanty bars and against walls or veranda-posts when not on the track) in a more or less vertical position--to the top strap, and lowest, or lowest but one, fasten the ends of the shoulder strap (usually a towel is preferred as being softer to the shoulder), your coat being carried outside the swag at the back, under the straps.
To the top strap fasten the string of the nose-bag, a calico bag about the size of a pillowslip, containing the tea, sugar and flour bags, bread, meat, baking-powder and salt, and brought, when the swag is carried from the left shoulder, over the right on to the chest, and so balancing the swag behind. But a swagman can throw a heavy swag in a nearly vertical position against his spine, slung from one shoulder only and without any balance, and carry it as easily as you might wear your overcoat. Some bushmen arrange their belongings so neatly and conveniently, with swag straps in a sort of harness, that they can roll up the swag in about a minute, and unbuckle it and throw it out as easily as a roll of wall-paper, and there's the bed ready on the ground with the wardrobe for a pillow. The swag is always used for a seat on the track; it is a soft seat, so trousers last a long time. And, the dust being mostly soft and silky on the long tracks out back, boots last marvellously. Fifteen miles a day is the average with the swag, but you must travel according to the water: if the next bore or tank is five miles on, and the next twenty beyond, you camp at the five-mile water to-night and do the twenty next day. But if it's thirty miles you have to do it.
Travelling with the swag in Australia is variously and picturesquely described as "humping bluey," "walking Matilda," "humping Matilda," "humping your drum," "being on the wallaby," "jabbing trotters," and "tea and sugar burglaring," but most travelling shearers now call themselves trav'lers, and say simply "on the track," or "carrying swag."
And there you have the Australian swag…
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