'Tis no tale of heroism, 'tis no tale of storm and strife, But of ordinary boozing, and of dull domestic life, Of the everlasting friction that most husbands must endure,...
The Separated Women Go lying through the land, For they have plenty dresses, And money, too, in hand; They married brutes and drunkards And blackguards 'frightful low', But why are they so eager...
We knew too little of the world, And you and I were good, 'Twas paltry things that wrecked our lives As well I knew they would. The people said our love was dead, But how were they to know?...
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,...
When you've come to make a fortune and you haven't made your salt, And the reason of your failure isn't anybody's fault, When you haven't got a billet, and the times are very slack,...
When the caravans of wool-teams climbed the ranges from the West, On a spur among the mountains stood `The Bullock-drivers' Rest'; It was built of bark and saplings, and was rather rough inside,...
No church-bell rings them from the Track, No pulpit lights their blindness, 'Tis hardship, drought and homelessness That teach those Bushmen kindness: The mateship born of barren lands,...
O I dreamt I shore in a shearing shed and it was a dream of joy For every one of the rouseabouts was a girl dressed up as a boy Dressed up like a page in a pantomime the prettiest ever seen...
'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,...
We hear a great commotion 'Bout the ship that comes to grief, That founders in mid-ocean, Or is driven on a reef; Because it's cheap and brittle A score of sinners drown....
Against the light of a dawning white My Skyline Riders stand, There is trouble ahead for a dark year dead And the selfish wrongs of a land; There are hurrying feet of fools to repeat...
'Call that a yarn!' said old Tom Pugh, 'What rot! I'll lay my hat I'll sling you a yarn worth more nor two Such pumped-up yarns as that.' And thereupon old Tommy 'slew' A yarn of Lambing Flat. ...
The colours of the setting sun Withdrew across the Western land, He raised the sliprails, one by one, And shot them home with trembling hand; Her brown hands clung, her face grew pale,...
I mind the river from Mount Frome To Ballanshantie's Bridge, The Mudgee Hills, and Buckaroo, Lowe's Peak, and Granite Ridge. The 'tailers' in the creek beneath, The rugged she-oak boles,...
Now this is the song of a prison, a song of a gaol or jug, A ballad of quod or of chokey, the ultimate home of the mug. The yard where the Foolish are drafted; Hell's school where the harmless are taught;...
The centuries found me to nations unknown, My people have crowned me and made me a throne; My royal regalia is love, truth, and light, A girl called Australia, I've come to my right. ...
When I was up the country in the rough and early days, I used to work along ov Jimmy Nowlett's bullick-drays; Then the reelroad wasn't heered on, an' the bush was wild an' strange,...
The skies are brass and the plains are bare, Death and ruin are everywhere, And all that is left of the last year's flood Is a sickly stream on the grey-black mud;...
O bard of fortune, you deem me nought But a mark for your careless scorn. For I am the echo-less grave of thought That is strangled before it's born. You think perchance that I am a doom...