Works

We were challenged by The Dingoes , they're the pride of Squatter's Gap,
To a friendly game of football on the flat by Devil's Trap.
And we went along on horses, sworn to triumph in the game,...

Up a dark and fetid alley, where the offal and the slime
Of a brave and blusterous city met its misery and crime,
In a hovel reeking pestilence, and noisome as the grave,...

There's a fresh track down the paddock
Through the lightwoods to the creek,
And I notice Billy Craddock
And Maloney do not speak,
And The Snag is slyly bitter
When he's criticising Bill,...

The first one with conviction penned:
'This conflict in seven weeks will end.'

Another, later in the war,
Gave Germany just one month more.

Since then I've read predictions free,...

'No, you can't count me in, boys; I'm off it,
I'm jack of them practical jokes;
They give neither pleasure nor profit,
And the fellers that plays them are mokes.
I've got sense, though I once was a duffer,...

I heard this day, as I may no more,
The world's heart throb at my workshop door.
The sun was keen, and the day was still;
The township drowsed in, a haze of heat.
A stir far off on the sleepy hill,...

There's a wind up that licks like a flame,
And the sun is a porthole of hell.
Now evanish prim notions of shame,
And the craving to look rather well,
In pyjamas you're never a swell,...

Australia, my native land,
A stirring whisper in your ear,
'Tis time for you to understand
Your rating now is A1, dear.
You've done some rousing things of late.
That lift you from the simple state...

From her home beyond the river in the parting of the hills,
Where the wattles fleecy blossom surged and scattered in the breeze,
And the tender creepers twined about the chimneys and the sills,...

He was working on a station in the Western when I knew him,
And he came from Conongamo, up the old surveyors' track,
And the fellows all admitted that no man in Vic. could 'do him,'...

A quaint old gabled cottage sleeps between the raving hills.
To right and left are livid strife, but on the deep, wide sills
The purple pot-flowers swell and glow, and o'er the walls and eaves...

Down to it is Plugger Bill,
Lyin' crumpled, white 'n' still.
Me 'n' him
Chips in when the scrap begins,
Carin' nothin' for our skins,
Chi-iked as the 'Eavenly Twins,
Bill 'n' Jim.
...

Marching somewhat out of order when the band is cock-a-hoop,
There's a lilting kind of magic in the swagger of the troop,
Swinging all aboard the steamer with her nose toward the sea....

All was up with Richard Tanner
'Wait-a-Bit' we called him. Dead?
Yes. The braceman dropped a spanner,
Landed Richard on the head;
Cracked his skull, sir, like a teacup,
Down the pump-shaft in the well....

Dear Ned, I now take up my pen to write you these few lines,
And hopin' how they find you fit. Gorbli', it seems an age
Since Jumbo ducked the Port, 'n' drilled 'n' polished to the nines,...

As bullets come to us they're thin,
They're angular, or smooth and fat,
Some spiral are, and gimlet in,
And some are sharp, and others flat.
The slim one pink you clean and neat,...

When the horse has been unharnessed and we've flushed the old machine,
And the water o'er the sluice is running evenly and clean;
When there's thirty load before us, and the sun is high and bright,...

In politics there's room for jest;
With frequent gibes are speeches met,
And measures which are of the best
Are themes for caustic humor yet.
E'en though the pulpiteer we fret...

Skirting the swamp and the tangled scrub,
Tramping and turning amidst the trees,
Carrying nothing but blankets and grub,
Careless of pleasure and health and ease,
Hither and thither with never a goal,...

Back again 'n' nothin' missin' barrin' arf a hand,
Where an Abdul bit me, chokin' in the Holy Land.
'Struth, they got some dirty fighters in the Moslem pack,...