Our fathers toiled for bitter bread While idlers thrived beside them; But food to eat and clothes to wear Their native land denied them. They left their native land in spite Of royalties' regalia,...
Australia's a big country An' Freedom's humping bluey, An' Freedom's on the wallaby Oh! don't you hear 'er cooey? She's just begun to boomerang, She'll knock the tyrants silly,...
The Channel fog has lifted, And see where we have come! Round all the world we've drifted, A hundred years from "home". The fields our parents longed for, Ah! we shall ne'er know how,...
The crescent moon and clock tower are fair above the wall Across the smothered lanes of 'Loo, the stifled vice and all, And in the shadow yonder, like cats that wait for scraps,...
He has notions of Australia from the tales that he's been told, Land of leggings and revolvers, land of savages and gold; So he begs old shirts, and someone patches up his worn-out duds....
He's gone to England for a wife Among the ladies there; And yet I know a lass he deemed The rarest of the rare. He's gone to England for a wife; And rich and proud is he....
So at last a toll they'll levy For the passing fool who sings, Take the harp grown dull and heavy (With the dried blood on the strings) Let us sing, and sing right gaily, For the wreath is on our brow,...
It's oh! for a rivet in marriage bonds, And a splice in the knot untied, The sanctity of the marriage tie Is growing more sanctified! They're getting mixed up in society, There's an awful family row,...
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...
My father-in-law is a careworn man, And a silent man is he; But he summons a smile as well as he can Whenever he meets with me. The sign we make with a silent shake That speaks of the days gone by,...
Once I wrote a little poem which I thought was very fine, And I showed the printer's copy to a critic friend of mine, First he praised the thing a little, then he found a little fault;...
Emblems of storm and danger, Spindrift and mountain stern, Plants that welcome the stranger, Seaweed, tussock, and fern. Known to the world-wide ranger, Who sailed on the 'Never Return,'...
Here's never a bough to be tossed in the breeze, For it's long since the forest was green; And round all the trunks of the naked white trees The marks of the death-ring are seen....
Sing the strong, proud song of Labour, Toss the ringing music high; Liberty's a nearer neighbour Than she was in days gone by. Workmen's weary wives and daughters Sing the songs of liberty;...
Some carry their swags in the Great North-West, Where the bravest battle and die, And a few have gone to their last long rest, And a few have said: Good-bye! The coast grows dim, and it may be long...
He longed to be a Back-Blocks Bard, And fame he wished to win, He wrote at night and studied hard (He read The Bulletin); He sent in 'stuff' unceasingly, But couldn't get it through;...
Ah, better the thud of the deadly gun, and the crash of the bursting shell, Than the terrible silence where drought is fought out there in the western hell;...
The crescent moon and clock tower are fair above the wall Across the smothered lanes of 'Loo, the stifled vice and all, And in the shadow yonder, like cats that wait for scraps,...