Our hull is seldom painted, Our decks are seldom stoned; Our sails are patched and cobbled And chains by rust marooned. Our rigging is untidy, And all things in accord:, We always sail on Friday...
Down here where the ships loom large in The gloom when the sea-storms veer, Down here on the south-west margin Of the western hemisphere, Where the might of a world-wide ocean...
Oh, the strength of the toil of those twenty years, with father, and master, and men! And the clearer brain of the business man, who has held his own for ten:...
He'd been for years in Sydney "a-acting of the goat", His name was Joseph Swallow, "the Great Australian Pote", In spite of all the stories and sketches that he wrote. ...
Set me back for twenty summers, For I'm tired of cities now, Set my feet in red-soil furrows And my hands upon the plough, With the two 'Black Brothers' trudging On the home stretch through the loam,...
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,...
When the caravans of wool-teams climbed the ranges from the West, On a spur among the mountains stood `The Bullock-drivers' Rest'; It was built of bark and saplings, and was rather rough inside,...
Now this is the song of a prison, a song of a gaol or jug, A ballad of quod or of chokey, the ultimate home of the mug. The yard where the Foolish are drafted; Hell's school where the harmless are taught;...
The centuries found me to nations unknown, My people have crowned me and made me a throne; My royal regalia is love, truth, and light, A girl called Australia, I've come to my right. ...
When I was up the country in the rough and early days, I used to work along ov Jimmy Nowlett's bullick-drays; Then the reelroad wasn't heered on, an' the bush was wild an' strange,...
The skies are brass and the plains are bare, Death and ruin are everywhere, And all that is left of the last year's flood Is a sickly stream on the grey-black mud;...
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...
I have written, long years I have written, For the sake of my people and right, I was true when the iron had bitten Deep into my soul in the night; I wrote not for praise nor for money,...
The spirits of our fathers rise not from every wave, They left the sea behind them long ago; It was many years of 'slogging,' where strong men must be brave,...
We boast no more of our bloodless flag, that rose from a nation's slime; Better a shred of a deep-dyed rag from the storms of the olden time. From grander clouds in our `peaceful skies' than ever were there before...
Pride, selfishness in every line, And on its face a frown, It stands, a sceptre in its hand, And points forever down. And who will kneel? The unemployed! Small homage pay, I ween,...
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...
Lo, the gods of Vice and Mammon from their pinnacles are hurled By the workers' new religion, which is oldest in the world; And the earth will feel her children treading firmly on the sod,...