Works

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...

Above the ashes straight and tall,
Through ferns with moisture dripping,
I climb beneath the sandstone wall,
My feet on mosses slipping.

Like ramparts round the valley's edge...

The lovely Port of Sydney
Lies laughing to the sky,
The bonny Port of Sydney,
Where the ships of nations lie.
You shall never see such beauty,
Though you sail the wide world o'er,...

When he's over a rough and unpopular shed,
With the sins of the bank and the men on his head;
When he musn't look black or indulge in a grin,
And thirty or forty men hate him like Sin,...

The Shearers squint along the pens, they squint along the 'shoots;'
The shearers squint along the board to catch the Boss's boots;
They have no time to straighten up, they have no time to stare,...

'Tis a legend of the bushmen from the days of Cunningham,
When he opened up the country and the early squatters came.
Tis the old tale of a fortune missed by men who did seek,...

You wonder why so many would be buried in the sea,
In this world of froth and bubble,
But I don't wonder, for it seems to me
That it saves such a lot of trouble.
And there ain't no undertaker,...

I was drifting in the drizzle past the Cecil in the Strand,
Which, I'm told, is very tony, and its front looks very grand;
And I somehow fell a-thinking of a pub I know so well,...

The shipping-office clerks are 'short,' the manager is gruff,
'They cannot make reductions,' and 'the fares are low enough.'
They ship us West with cattle, and we go like cattle too;...

From Crow's Nest here by Sydney town
Where crows had nests of old
I see the Range where day goes down,
The dim blue in the gold.
And sometimes wonder, half in doubt,
Has there been so much change...

Ah, better the thud of the deadly gun, and the crash of the bursting shell,
Than the terrible silence where drought is fought out there in the western hell;...

So you rode from the range where your brothers 'select,'
Through the ghostly grey bush in the dawn
You rode slowly at first, lest her heart should suspect
That you were glad to be gone;
...

The crescent moon and clock tower are fair above the wall
Across the smothered lanes of 'Loo, the stifled vice and all,
And in the shadow yonder, like cats that wait for scraps,...

So you're writing for a paper? Well, it's nothing very new
To be writing yards of drivel for a tidy little screw;
You are young and educated, and a clever chap you are,...

As the night was falling slowly down on city, town and bush,
From a slum in Jones's Alley sloped the Captain of the Push;
And he scowled towards the North, and he scowled towards the South,...

The Captains sailed from all the World, from all the world and Spain;
And each one for his country's ease, her glory and her gain;
The Captains sailed to Southern Seas, and sailed the Spanish Main;...

At a point where the old road crosses
The river, and turns to the right,
I'd camped with the team; and the hosses
Was all fixed up for the night.
I'd been to the town to carry
A load to the Cudgegong;...

The Plains lay bare on the homeward route,
And the march was heavy on man and brute;
For the Spirit of Drought was on all the land,
And the white heat danced on the glowing sand.
...

With eyes that are narrowed to pierce
To the awful horizons of land,
Through the blaze of hot days, and the fierce
White heat-waves that flow on the sand;
Through the Never Land westward and nor'ward,...

It was pleasant up the country, Mr. Banjo, where you went,
For you sought the greener patches and you travelled like a gent;
And you curse the trams and buses and the turmoil and the push,...