I would never waste the hours Of the time that is mine own, Writing verses about flowers For their own sweet sakes alone; Gushing as a schoolgirl gushes Over babies at their best,...
When God's wrath-cloud is o'er me, Affrighting heart and mind; When days seem dark before me, And days seem black behind; Those friends who think they know me, Who deem their insight keen,...
There's a class of men (and women) who are always on their guard, Cunning, treacherous, suspicious, feeling softly, grasping hard, Brainy, yet without the courage to forsake the beaten track,...
'Tis the song of many husbands, and you all must understand That you cannot call me coward now that women rule the land; I have written much for women, where I thought that they were right,...
It was built of bark and poles, and the floor was full of holes Where each leak in rainy weather made a pool; And the walls were mostly cracks lined with calico and sacks,...
When you've come to make a fortune and you haven't made your salt, And the reason of your failure isn't anybody's fault, When you haven't got a billet, and the times are very slack,...
'Call that a yarn!' said old Tom Pugh, 'What rot! I'll lay my hat I'll sling you a yarn worth more nor two Such pumped-up yarns as that.' And thereupon old Tommy 'slew' A yarn of Lambing Flat. ...
I mind the river from Mount Frome To Ballanshantie's Bridge, The Mudgee Hills, and Buckaroo, Lowe's Peak, and Granite Ridge. The 'tailers' in the creek beneath, The rugged she-oak boles,...
O bard of fortune, you deem me nought But a mark for your careless scorn. For I am the echo-less grave of thought That is strangled before it's born. You think perchance that I am a doom...
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...
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....
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. ...
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...
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,...
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...
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,...
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,...
Oh, the scene is wide an' dreary an' the sun is settin' red, An' the grey-black sky of winter's comin' closer overhead. Oh, the sun is settin' bloody with a blood-line on the snow,...