Australian Engineers
Ah, well! but the case seems hopeless, and the pen might write in vain;
The people gabble of old things over and over again.
For the sake of the sleek importer we slave with the pick and the shears,
While hundreds of boys in Australia long to be engineers.
A new generation has risen under Australian skies,
Boys with the light of genius deep in their dreamy eyes---
Not as of artists or poets with their vain imaginings,
But born to be thinkers and doers, and makers of wonderful things.
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poem by Henry Lawson
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Skaal
While they struggle on exhausted,
While they plough through bog and flood,
While they drag their sick and wounded
Where the tracks are drenched with blood;
While the Fates seemed joined to crush her
And her bravest hearts lie low,
I might sing one song for Russia,
Even though she be our foe.
Still be generous to foemen,
And have charity for all—
Right or wrong, fill up the wine cup;
‘Skaal!’ unto all brave men—‘Skaal!’
While they suffer, cold and hungry,
All the heart-break of defeat,
And the twice heroic rearguard
Grimly holds the grim retreat;
While they fight the last alive on
Fields where countless corpses are,
We might drop one tear for Ivan,
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poem by Henry Lawson
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The Empty Glass
THERE ARE three lank bards in a borrowed room—
Ah! The number is one too few—
They have deemed their home and the bars unfit
For the thing that they have to do.
Three glasses they fill with the Land’s own wine,
And the bread of life they pass.
Their glasses they take, which they slowly raise—
And they drink to an empty glass.
(There’s a greater glare in the street to-night,
And a louder rush and roar,
There’s a mad crowd yelling the winner’s name,
And howling the cricket score:
Oh! The bright moonlight on the angels white,
And the tombs and the monuments grand—
And down by the water at Waverley
There’s a little lone mound of sand.)
Oh, the drinkers would deem them drunk or mad,
And the barmaid stare and frown—
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poem by Henry Lawson
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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 sergeant’s wife:
‘Sure, I wouldn’t seem unpleasant;
‘But there’s women and childer about the place,
‘And—barrin’ a lady’s present—
‘There’s 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—
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poem by Henry Lawson
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The Squatter’s Daughter
OUT in the west, where runs are wide,
And days than ours are hotter,
Not very far from Lachlan Side
There dwelt a wealthy squatter.
Of old opinions he was full—
An Englishman, his sire,
Was hated long where peasants pull
Their forelocks to the squire.
He loved the good old British laws,
And Royalty’s regalia,
And oft was heard to growl because
They wouldn’t fit Australia.
This squatter had a lovely child—
An angel bright we thought her;
And all the stockmen rude and wild
Adored the squatter’s daughter.
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poem by Henry Lawson
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Do You Think That I Do Not Know?
They say that I never have written of love,
As a writer of songs should do;
They say that I never could touch the strings
With a touch that is firm and true;
They say I know nothing of women and men
In the fields where Love's roses grow,
And they say I must write with a halting pen
Do you think that I do not know?
When the love-burst came, like an English Spring,
In days when our hair was brown,
And the hem of her skirt was a sacred thing
And her hair was an angel's crown.
The shock when another man touched her arm,
Where the dancers sat round in a row;
The hope and despair, and the false alarm
Do you think that I do not know?
By the arbour lights on the western farms,
You remember the question put,
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poem by Henry Lawson
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When the Ladies Come to the Shearing Shed
‘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.)
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poem by Henry Lawson
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The Drums of Battersea
They can’t hear in West o’ London, where the worst dine with the best—
Deaf to all save lies and laughter, they can’t hear in London West—
Tailored brutes and splendid harlots, and the parasites that be—
They can’t hear the warning thunder of the Drums of Battersea.
More drums! War drums!
Drums of Misery—
Beating from the hearts of men—the Drums of Battersea.
Where the hearses hurry ever, and where man lives like a beast,
They can feel the war-drums beating—men of Hell! and London East.
And the far-off foreign farmers, fighting fiercely to be free,
Found new courage in the echo of the Drums of Battersea.
More drums! War drums!
Beating for the free—
Beating on the hearts of men—the Drums of Battersea.
And the drummers! Ah! the drummers!—stern and haggard men are those
Standing grimly at their meetings; and their washed and mended clothes
Speak of worn-out wives behind them and of grinding poverty—
But the English of the English beat the Drums of Battersea!
More drums! War drums!
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poem by Henry Lawson
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The Old Stockman's Lament
Wrap me up in me stockwhip and blanket,
And bury me deep down below,
Where this piffle and sham won’t disgust me,
In the land where the coolibahs grow;
For I’ve stayed with some well-to-do people,
And I’ve dined with some middle-class folk;
And I’ve sorrowed by clock-tower and steeple
Till my heart for the Commonwealth’s broke.
They have flown in another direction,
Who used to clack-clack by the hour
Of “this awful Freetrade and Protection,”
Of our dear darling member “in power,”
And the Higher Religion for Dossers,
And the Need of an Object for Drunks—
Now they’re all of them Red or Blue Crossers,
With their tails sticking out of their trunks.
There are citified Martins in dozens—
The Darling Point Martins the pick—
Who used to be horrified cousins
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poem by Henry Lawson
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The Great Grey Plain
Out West, where the stars are brightest,
Where the scorching north wind blows,
And the bones of the dead gleam whitest,
And the sun on a desert glows --
Yet within the selfish kingdom
Where man starves man for gain,
Where white men tramp for existence --
Wide lies the Great Grey Plain.
No break in its awful horizon,
No blur in the dazzling haze,
Save where by the bordering timber
The fierce, white heat-waves blaze,
And out where the tank-heap rises
Or looms when the sunlights wane,
Till it seems like a distant mountain
Low down on the Great Grey Plain.
No sign of a stream or fountain,
No spring on its dry, hot breast,
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poem by Henry Lawson
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