Works

By blacksoil plains burned grey with drought
Where desert shrubs and grasses grow,
Along the Land of Furthest Out
That only Overlanders know.
I dreamed I camped on river grass...

Old Mate! In the gusty old weather,
When our hopes and our troubles were new,
In the years spent in wearing out leather,
I found you unselfish and true,
I have gathered these verses together...

Old acquaintance unforgotten,
Though you may be 'ugly brutes',
Though your leather's cracked and rotten,
Worn-out pair of Blucher boots.

'Tis the richer man before you,...

You ask me to be gay and glad
While lurid clouds of danger loom,
And vain and bad and gambling mad,
Australia races to her doom.
You bid me sing the light and fair,...

Though doctors may your name discard
And say you physicked vilely,
I would I were as good a bard
As you a doctor, Wylie!

How often, when your skill subdued
The fever ranging highly,...

Spirit girl to whom 'twas given
To revisit scenes of pain,
From the hell I thought was Heaven
You have lifted me again;
Through the world that I inherit,
Where I loved her ere she died,...

So, I've battled it through on my own, Jack,
I have done with all dreaming and doubt.
Though 'stoney' to-night and alone, Jack,
I am watching the Old Year out.
I have finished with brooding and fears,...

I gaze upon my son once more,
With eyes and heart that tire,
As solemnly he stands before
The screen drawn round the fire;
With hands behind clasped hand in hand,
Now loosely and now fast,...

When you're suffering hard for your sins, old man,
When you wake to trouble and sleep ill,
Oh, this is the clack of the middle class,
'Win back the respect of the people!'...

These are songs of the Friends I neglected,
And the Foes, too, in part;
These are songs that were mostly rejected,
But songs from my heart.

Yours truly,
Henry Lawson.

Sydney, 19/9/1910

There has been many a grander deed since man had life to give,
And thousands have gone to certain death, eyes open, that men might live;...

Farewell! The gold we send shall be a token
Of that which in our hearts is growing strong;
You asked our sympathy, and we have spoken,
'They wrong us who our brothers rob and wrong.'
...

O had you tracked where Kendall trod
I think you would be kneelin'
Three times a week and thankin' God
That you are of New Zealan'!
For this I'll say, to make it short,
An' keep my tongue from clacken,...

I thought that silence would be best,
But I a call have heard,
And, Victor, after all the rest,
I well might say a word:
The day and work is nearly done,
And ours the victory,...

One day old Trooper Campbell
Rode out to Blackman's Run,
His cap-peak and his sabre
Were glancing in the sun.
'Twas New Year's Eve, and slowly
Across the ridges low
The sad Old Year was drifting...

You lazy boy, you're here at last,
You must be wooden-legged;
Now, are you sure the gate is fast
And all the sliprails pegged
And all the milkers at the yard,
The calves all in the pen?...

Oh, never let on to your own true love
That ever you drank a drop;
That ever you played in a two-up school
Or slept in a sly-grog shop;
That ever a bad girl nursed you round,
That ever you sank so low....

Oh, the wild black swans fly westward still,
While the sun goes down in glory,
And away o'er lonely plain and hill
Still runs the same old story:
The sheoaks sigh it all day long,...

I am back from up the country, very sorry that I went,
Seeking for the Southern poets' land whereon to pitch my tent;
I have lost a lot of idols, which were broken on the track,...

And his death came in December,
When our summer was aglow,
Like a song that we remember,
Like a child's dream long ago,
And it brought Australia to him,
Her sweetest singer dead,...