Works

When I tell a tale of virtue and of injured innocence,
Then my publishers and lawyers are the densest of the dense:
With the blank face of an image and the nod of keep-it-dark...

I have written, long years I have written,
For the sake of my people and right,
I was true when the iron had bitten
Deep into my soul in the night;
I wrote not for praise nor for money,...

There's a wind that blows out of the South in the drought,
And we pray for the touch of his breath
When siroccos come forth from the North-West and North,
Or in dead calms of fever and death....

We come with peace and reason,
We come with love and light,
To banish black self-treason
And everlasting night.

We know no god nor devil,
We neither drive nor lead,
We come to banish evil...

The spirits of our fathers rise not from every wave,
They left the sea behind them long ago;
It was many years of 'slogging,' where strong men must be brave,...

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,...

(A Dirge of Sin and Sorrow, Sung by Joe Swallow)

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.
...

We boast no more of our bloodless flag, that rose from a nation's slime;
Better a shred of a deep-dyed rag from the storms of the olden time.
From grander clouds in our `peaceful skies' than ever were there before...

Pride, selfishness in every line,
And on its face a frown,
It stands, a sceptre in its hand,
And points forever down.
And who will kneel? The unemployed!
Small homage pay, I ween,...

'Twas the glowing log of a picnic fire where a red light should not be,
Or the curtained glow of a sick room light in a window that faced the sea....

The strangest things and the maddest things, that a man can do or say,
To the chaps and fellers and coves Out Back are matters of every day;...

There's the whitebox and pine on the ridges afar,
Where the iron-bark, blue-gum, and peppermint are;
There is many another, but dearest to me,
And the king of them all was the stringy-bark tree.
...

From north to south throughout the year
The shearing seasons run,
The Queensland stations start to shear
When Maoriland has done;
But labour's cheap and runs are wide,
And some the track must tread...

A cloud of dust on the long white road,
And the teams go creeping on
Inch by inch with the weary load;
And by the power of the green-hide goad
The distant goal is won.
...

The fields are fair in autumn yet, and the sun's still shining there,
But we bow our heads and we brood and fret, because of the masks we wear;
Or we nod and smile the social while, and we say we're doing well,...

Trio East is dead and the West is done, and again our course lies thus
South-east by Fate and the Rising Sun where the Three Kings* wait for us....

We, three men of commerce,
Striving wealth to raise,
See but little promise
In the coming days;
Though our hearts are brittle,
Hardened near to stone,
We can think a little...

There is a quiet gentleman a-motoring in France
(Oh, don't you hear the honking of a British motor-car?),
Like any quiet gentleman that you may meet by chance,...

Now this is not a dismal song, like some I've sung of late,
When I've been brooding all day long about my muddled fate;
For though I've had a rocky time I'll never quite forget,...

Oh, I never felt so wretched, and things never looked so blue
Since the days I gulped the physic that my Granny used to brew;
For a friend in whom I trusted, entering my room last night,...