Works

Out in the wastes of the West countrie,
Out where the white stars shine,
Grim and silent as such men be,
Rideth a man with history,
Anthony Considine.

For the ways of men are manifold...

All of us play our very best game,
Any other time.
Golf or billiards, it's all the same,
Any other time.
Lose a match and you always say,
"Just ny luck! I was 'off' today!...

Come all ye bold trainers attend to my song,
It's a rule of the A.J.C.
You mustn't train ponies, for that's very wrong
By the rules of the A.J.C.
You have to wear winkers when crossing the street,...

There is a waving of grass in the breeze
And a song in the air,
And a murmur of myriad bees
That toil everywhere.
There is scent in the blossom and bough,
And the breath of the Spring...

"Will you love me, sweet, when my hair is grey
And my cheeks shall have lost their hue?
When the charms of youth shall have passed away
Will your love as of old prove true?
...

Not for the love of women toil we, we of the craft,
Not for the people's praise;
Only because our goddess made us her own and laughed,
Claiming us all our days,
...

(Air: 'Ten Thousand Miles Away.')


Hurrah for the Roma railway! Hurrah for Cobb and Co.,
And oh! for a good fat horse or two to carry me Westward Ho'...

Of all the sickly forms of verse,
Commend me to the triolet.
It makes bad writers somewhat worse:
Of all the sickly forms of verse,
That fall beneath a reader's curse,
It is the feeblest jingle yet....

There's a sunny Southern land,
And it's there that I would be
Where the big hills stand,
In the South Countrie!
When the wattles bloom again,
Then it's time for us to go
To the old Monaro country...

The Mountains
A land of sombre, silent hills, where mountain cattle go
By twisted tracks, on sidelings deep, where giant gum trees grow
And the wind replies, in the river oaks, to the song of the stream below....

They came from the lower levels
Deep down in the Brilliant mine;
From the wastes where the whirlwind revels,
Whirling the leaves of pine.

On the western plains, where the Darling flows,...

Long ago the Gladiators,
When the call to combat came,
Marching past the massed spectators,
Hailed the Emp'ror with acclaim!
Voices ringing with the fury
Of the strife so soon to be,...

I thought, in the days of the droving,
Of steps I might hope to retrace,
To be done with the bush and the roving
And settle once more in my place.
With a heart that was well nigh to breaking,...

The sun strikes down with a blinding glare;
The skies are blue and the plains are wide,
The saltbush plains that are burnt and bare
By Walgett out on the Barwon side,
The Barwon River that wanders down...

There came a stranger to Walgett town,
To Walgett town when the sun was low,
And he carried a thirst that was worth a crown,
Yet how to quench it he did not know;...

The actor struts his little hour,
Between the limelight and the band;
The public feel the actor's power,
Yet nothing do they understand
Of all the touches here and there...

If you walk in the bush at night,
In the wonderful silence deep,
By the flickering lantern light
When the birds are all asleep
You may catch a sight of old Skinny-go-root,
Otherwise Benjamin Bandicoot....

When I was at home I was down on my luck,
And I earned a poor living by drawing a truck;
But old aunt died, and left me a thousand''Oh, oh,
I'll start on my travels,' said Billy Barlow....

No soft-skinned Durham steers are they,
No Devons plump and red,
But brindled, black, and iron-grey
That mark the mountain-bred;
For mountain-bred and mountain-broke,
With sullen eyes agleam,...

As I lie at rest on a patch of clover
In the Western Park when the day is done,
I watch as the wild black swans fly over
With their phalanx turned to the sinking sun;...