Dan, The Wreck
Tall, and stout, and solid-looking,
Yet a wreck;
None would think Death's finger's hooking
Him from deck.
Cause of half the fun that's started --
`Hard-case' Dan --
Isn't like a broken-hearted,
Ruined man.
Walking-coat from tail to throat is
Frayed and greened --
Like a man whose other coat is
Being cleaned;
Gone for ever round the edging
Past repair --
Waistcoat pockets frayed with dredging
After `sprats' no longer there.
Wearing summer boots in June, or
Slippers worn and old --
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poem by Henry Lawson
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The Prime of Life
OH, the strength of the toil of those twenty years, with father, and master, and men!
And the clearer brain of the business man, who has held his own for ten:
Oh, the glorious freedom from business fears, and the rest from domestic strife!
The past is dead, and the future assured, and I’m in the prime of life!
She bore me old, and they kept me old, and they worked me early and late;
I carried the loads of my selfish tribe, from seven to thirty eight:
I slaved with dad, in the dust and heat, that my brothers might enjoy—
But I rest to-day in the prime of life, and I’ll live and die a boy!
When the last crop failed, and the stock were gone, did the old man’s head go down?
No! he started business, on what was left, in the produce line in town.
They sent my brothers to boarding schools, when our way to the front we’d won—
They’d borrow, and borrow, but never had aught but contempt for the eldest son.
My brothers they went to the world away, and they left the home in strife.
They sowed wild oats in the pride of youth, and they pawned the prime of life.
They sowed too fast, and they sowed too far; and they came back one by one—
You couldn’t tell which is the eldest son and which is the youngest son.
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poem by Henry Lawson
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The Squatter, Three Cornstalks, and the Well
There was a Squatter in the land—
So runs the truthful tale I tell—
There also were three cornstalks, and
There also was the Squatter’s Well.
Singing (slowly): “Sin and sorrer, sin and sor-rer, sin and sor-r-r-rer.”
The Squatter he was full of pluck,
The Cornstalks they were full of sin,
The well it was half full of muck
That many rains had drifted in.
Singing (with increased feeling): “Sin, &c.”
The Squatter hired the Cornstalks Three
To cleanse the well of mud and clay;
And so they started willing-lee
At five-and-twenty bob a day.
Singing (apprehensively): “Sin, &c.”
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poem by Henry Lawson
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The League of Nations
Light on the towns and cities, and peace for evermore!
The Big Five met in the world's light as many had met before,
And the future of man is settled and there shall be no more war.
The lamb shall lie down with the lion, and trust with treachery;
The brave man go with the coward, and the chained mind shackle the free,
And the truthful sit with the liar ever by land and sea.
And there shall be no more passion and no more love nor hate;
No more contempt for the paltry, no more respect for the great;
And the people shall breed like rabbits and mate as animals mate.
For lo! the Big Five have said it, each with a fearsome frown;
Each for his chosen country, State, and city and town;
Each for his lawn and table and the bed where he lies him down.
Cobbler and crank and chandler, magpie and ape disguised;
Each bound to his grocery corner – these are the Five we prized;
Bleating the teaching of others whom they ever despised.
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poem by Henry Lawson
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The Army of the Rear
I listened through the music and the sounds of revelry,
And all the hollow noises of that year of Jubilee;
I heard beyond the music and beyond the local cheer,
The steady tramp of thousands that were marching in the rear.
Tramp! tramp! tramp!
They seem to shake the air,
Those never-ceasing footsteps of the outcasts in the rear.
I heard defiance ringing from the men of rags and dirt,
I heard wan woman singing that sad “Song of the Shirt”,
And o’er the sounds of menace and moaning low and drear,
I heard the steady tramping of their feet along the rear.
Tramp! tramp! tramp!
Vibrating in the air —
They’re swelling fast, those footsteps of the Army of the Rear!
I hate the wrongs I read about, I hate the wrongs I see!
The tramping of that army sounds as music unto me!
A music that is terrible, that frights the anxious ear,
Is beaten from the weary feet that tramp along the rear.
Tramp! tramp! tramp!
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poem by Henry Lawson
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Song of the Old Bullock-Driver
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
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poem by Henry Lawson
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Cromwell
They took dead Cromwell from his grave,
And stuck his head on high;
The Merry Monarch and his men,
They laughed as they passed by
The common people cheered and jeered,
To England’s deep disgrace—
The crowds who’d ne’er have dared to look
Live Cromwell in the face.
He came in England’s direst need
With law and fire and sword,
He thrashed her enemies at home
And crushed her foes abroad;
He kept his word by sea and land,
His parliament he schooled,
He made the nations understand
A Man in England ruled!
Van Tromp, with twice the English ships,
And flushed by victory—
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poem by Henry Lawson
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Talbragar
Jack Denver died on Talbragar when Christmas Eve began,
And there was sorrow round the place, for Denver was a man;
Jack Denver’s wife bowed down her head—her daughter’s grief was wild,
And big Ben Duggan by the bed stood sobbing like a child.
But big Ben Duggan saddled up, and galloped fast and far,
To raise the biggest funeral ever seen on Talbragar.
By station home
And shearing shed
Ben Duggan cried, “Jack Denver’s dead!
Roll up at Talbragar!”
He borrowed horses here and there, and rode all Christmas Eve,
And scarcely paused a moment’s time the mournful news to leave;
He rode by lonely huts and farms, until the day was done
And then he turned his horse’s head and made for Ross’s Run.
No Bushman in a single day had ridden half so far
Since Johnson brought the doctor to his wife at Talbragar.
By diggers’ camps
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poem by Henry Lawson
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Ben Duggan
Jack Denver died on Talbragar when Christmas Eve began,
And there was sorrow round the place, for Denver was a man;
Jack Denver's wife bowed down her head -- her daughter's grief was wild,
And big Ben Duggan by the bed stood sobbing like a child.
But big Ben Duggan saddled up, and galloped fast and far,
To raise the longest funeral ever seen on Talbragar.
By station home
And shearing shed
Ben Duggan cried, `Jack Denver's dead!
Roll up at Talbragar!'
He borrowed horses here and there, and rode all Christmas Eve,
And scarcely paused a moment's time the mournful news to leave;
He rode by lonely huts and farms, and when the day was done
He turned his panting horse's head and rode to Ross's Run.
No bushman in a single day had ridden half so far
Since Johnson brought the doctor to his wife at Talbragar.
By diggers' camps
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poem by Henry Lawson
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Billys 'Square Affair
Long Bill, the captain of the push, was tired of his estate,
And wished to change his life and win the love of something ‘straight’;
’Twas rumour’d that the Gory B.’s had heard Long Bill declare
That he would turn respectable and wed a ‘square affair.’
He craved the kiss of innocence; his spirit longed to rise;
The ‘Crimson Streak,’ his faithful ‘piece,’ grew hateful in his eyes;
(And though, in her entirety, the Crimson Streak ‘was there,’
I grieve to state the Crimson Streak was not a ‘square affair.’)
He wanted clothes, a masher suit, he wanted boots and hat;
His girl had earned a quid or two—he wouldn’t part with that;
And so he went to Brickfield Hill, and from a draper there
He ‘shook’ the proper kind of togs to fetch a ‘square affair.’
Long Bill went to the barber’s shop and had a shave and singe,
And from his narrow forehead combed his darling Mabel fringe;
Long Bill put on a ‘square cut’ and he brushed his boots with care,
And roved about the Gardens till he mashed a ‘square affair.’
She was a tony servant-girl from somewhere on ‘the Shore;’
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poem by Henry Lawson
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