Works

The railway rattled and roared and swung
With jolting and bumping trucks.
The sun, like a billiard red ball, hung
In the Western sky: and the tireless tongue
Of the wild-eyed man in the corner told...

Roses ruddy and roses white,
What are the joys that my heart discloses?
Sitting alone in the fading light
Memories come to me here tonight
With the wonderful scent of the big red roses.
...

On the outer Barcoo where the churches are few,
And men of religion are scanty,
On a road never cross'd 'cept by folk that are lost,
One Michael Magee had a shanty.
...

When Ironbark the turtle came to Anthony's lagoon
The hills were hid behind a mist of equinoctal rain,
The ripple of the rivulets was like a cheerful tune...

I'm traveling down the Castlereagh, and I'm a station-hand,
I'm handy with the ropin' pole, I'm handy with the brand,
And I can ride a rowdy colt, or swing the axe all day,...

Now the new chum loaded his three-nought-three,
It's a small-bore gun, but his hopes were big.
"I am fed to the teeth with old ewe," said he,
"And I might be able to shoot a pig."...

You see, the thing was this way, there was me,
That rode Panopply, the Splendor mare,
And Ikey Chambers on the Iron Dook,
And Smith, the half-caste rider on Regret,...

In Doggerel Verse


He had drifted in among us as a straw drifts with the tide,
He was just a wand'ring mongrel from the weary world outside;
He was not aristocratic, being mostly ribs and hair,...

Bring me a quart of colonial beer
And some doughy damper to make good cheer,
I must make a heavy dinner;
Heavily dine and heavily sup,
Of indigestible things fill up,...

Oh, it's dreadful to think in a country like this
With its chances for work, and enjoyment
That a man like McGuinness was certain to miss
Whenever he tried for employment.
...

I am the maid of the lustrous eyes
Of great fruition,
Whom the sons of men that are over-wise
Have called Ambition.

And the world's success is the only goal
I have within me;...

Into her presence he gaily pranced,
A very fat spark, and a bit advanced.

With a Samson tread on the earth he trod,
He was stayed and gaitered, and fifty odd.

And she was a tulip just unfurled,...

I bought a run a while ago
On country rough and ridgy,
Where wallaroos and wombats grow,
The Upper Murrumbidgee.
The grass is rather scant, it's true,
But this a fair exchange is,...

Well, I've waited mighty patient while they all came rolling in,
Mister Lawson, Mister Dyson, and the others of their kin,
With their dreadful, dismal stories of the Overlander's camp,...

Dark over the face of Nature sublime!
Reign'd tyranny, warfare, and every crime;
The world a desert'no oasis green
A man-loving soul on its surface had seen;
Then mercy above a mandate sent forth...

West of Dubbo the west begins
The land of leisure and hope and trust,
Where the black man stalks with his dogs and gins
And Nature visits the settlers' sins
With the Bogan shower, that is mostly dust.
...

We read in the press that Lord Northcote is here
To take up Lord Tennyson's mission.
'Tis pleasant to find they have sent us a Peer,
And a man of exalted position....

It was while we held our races,
Hurdles, sprints and steplechases,
Up in Dandaloo,
That a crowd of Sydney stealers,
Jockeys, pugilists and spielers
Brought some horses, real heelers,...

On Western plains, where shade is not,
'Neath summer skies of cloudless blue,
Where all is dry and all is hot,
There stands the town of Dandaloo,
A township where life's total sum...

(Air: 'Little Low Log Cabin in the Lane.')

The weather had been sultry for a fortnight's time or more,
And the shearers had been driving might and main,...