Works

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."...

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.
...

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,...

(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'...

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...

Dwell, not with me,
For you'll never see
More than a 'possum or a kangaroo,
And now and then a cockatoo.

Oh, would you wish,
Without a dish,
Your scanty meal from a piece of bark,...

And wherefore have they come, this warlike band,
That o'er the ocean many a weary day
Have tossed; and now beside Suakim's Bay,
With faces stern and resolute, do stand,...

Let us cease our idle chatter,
Let the tears bedew our cheek,
For a man from Tallangatta
Has been missing for a week.

Where the roaring flooded Murray
Covered all the lower land,...

A Tragedy as Played at Ryde**


Macbreath Mr Henley
Macpuff Mr Terry
The Ghost

ACT I

TIME: The day before the election
SCENE: A Drummoyne tram running past a lunatic asylum....

Morgan the drover explained,
As he drank from his battered quart-pot,
Many a slut I have trained;
This is the best of the lot.

Crossing these stringybark hills,
Hungry and rocky and steep...

In this war we're always moving,
Moving on;
When we make a friend another friend has gone;
Should a woman's kindly face
Make us welcome for a space,
Then it's boot and saddle, boys, we're...

'Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that caught the cycling craze;
He turned away the good old horse that served him many days;
He dressed himself in cycling clothes, resplendent to be seen;...

Oh, Mulligan's bar was the deuce of a place
To drink, and to fight, and to gamble and race;
The height of choice spirits from near and from far
Were all concentrated on Mulligan's bar.
...

(Air: 'So Early in the Morning.')


The boss last night in the hut did say'
'We start to muster at break of day;
So be up first thing, and don't be slow;
Saddle your horses and off you go.'
...

That's his saddle on the tie-beam,
And them's his spurs up there
On the wall-plate over yonder'
You ken see they ain't a pair.

For the daddy of all the stockmen
As ever come mustering here...

Let Romanists all at the Confessional kneel,
Let the Jew with disgust turn from it,
Let the mighty Crown Prelate in Church pander zeal,
Let the Mussulman worship Mahomet.
...

Now listen to me and I'll tell you my views concerning the African war,
And the man who upholds any different views, the same is a ritten Pro-Boer!...