'Where are you going with your horse and bike, And the townsfolk still at rest? Where are you going, with your swag and pack, And the night still in the West?...
At a point where the old road crosses The river, and turns to the right, I'd camped with the team; and the hosses Was all fixed up for the night. I'd been to the town to carry A load to the Cudgegong;...
Not to the sober and staid, Leading a quiet life, But to men whose paths are laid Ever through storm and strife, Here is a song from me, Sent to the tragic West, Message of sympathy...
But what's the use of writing 'bush', Though editors demand it, For city folk, and farming folk, Can never understand it. They're blind to what the bushman sees The best with eyes shut tightest,...
Of his beauty, or stature, or colour of hair I hadn't the slightest hint, But he comes to me as a little man, with a scrubby beard and a squint, With a heart somewhere if it wasn't there, and an Irish terrier nose,...
The rafters are open to sun, moon, and star, Thistles and nettles grow high in the bar, The chimneys are crumbling, the log fires are dead, And green mosses spring from the hearthstone instead....
Tall, and stout, and solid-looking, Yet a wreck; None would think Death's finger's hooking Him from deck. Cause of half the fun that's started, `Hard-case' Dan, Isn't like a broken-hearted,...
I've done with joys an' misery, An' why should I repine? There's no one knows the past but me An' that ol' dog o' mine. We camp an' walk an' camp an' walk, An' find it fairly good;...
They say that I never have written of love, As a writer of songs should do; They say that I never could touch the strings With a touch that is firm and true; They say I know nothing of women and men...
They lie, the men who tell us in a loud decisive tone That want is here a stranger, and that misery's unknown; For where the nearest suburb and the city proper meet...
Sons of Australia, be loyal and true to her, Fling out the flag of the Southern Cross! Sing a loud song to be joyous and new to her, Fling out the flag of the Southern Cross!...
The cross-cut and the crowbar cross, and hang them on the wall, And make a greenhide rack to fit the wedges and the maul, The 'done' long-handled shovel and the thong-bound axe that fell,...
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,...
If they missed my face in Farmers' Arms When the landlord lit the lamp, They would grin and say in their country way, 'Oh! he's down at the Gipsy camp!' But they'd read of things in the Daily Mail...
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....
They lifted her out of a story Too sordid and selfish by far, They left me the innocent glory Of love that was pure as a star; They left me all guiltless of 'evil'...