Tell a simple little story of a settler in the West, Where the soldier birds and farmers, and selectors never rest While the sun shines, and they often work in rainy weather, too:...
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....
The future was dark and the past was dead As they gazed on the sea once more, But a nation was born when the immigrants said "Good-bye!" as they stepped ashore! In their loneliness they were parted thus...
By the bodies and minds and souls that rot in a common sty In the city's offal-holes, where the dregs of its horrors lie; By the prayers that bubble out, but never ascend to God,...
She's not like an empress, And crowned with raven hair, She is not 'pert an' bonny,' Nor 'winsome, wee, an' fair.' But when a man's in trouble, And darkest shadows fall, She's just a little woman...
I'll tell you what you wanderers, who drift from town to town; Don't look into a good girl's eyes, until you've settled down. It's hard to go away alone and leave old chums behind,...
When you've managed with the tailor for a rig-out of a sort And you find the coat or trousers are an inch or so too short, Do not fret and swear and worry, make the tailor see you through,...
The world is narrow and ways are short, and our lives are dull and slow, For little is new where the crowds resort, and less where the wanderers go;...
Listen! The end draws nearer, Nearer the morning, or night, And I see with a vision clearer That the beginning was right! These shall be words to remember When all has been done and said,...
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,...
By our place in the midst of the furthest seas we were fated to stand alone, When the nations fly at each other's throats let Australia look to her own;...
Where the needle-woman toils Through the night with hand and brain, Till the sickly daylight shudders like a spectre at the pain, Till her eyes seem to crawl, And her brain seems to creep, ...
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...
When friends are listening round me, Jack, to hear my dying breath, And I am lying in a sleep they say will end in death, Don't notice what the doctor says, and let the nurse complain,...
With the frame of a man, and the face of a boy, and a manner strangely wild, And the great, wide, wondering, innocent eyes of a silent-suffering child; With his hideous dress and his heavy boots, he drags to Eternity,...
So the time seems come at last, And the drums go rolling past, And above them in the sunlight Labour's banners float and flow; They are marching with the sun, But I look in vain for one...
Have you seen the bush by moonlight, from the train, go running by? Blackened log and stump and sapling, ghostly trees all dead and dry; Here a patch of glassy water; there a glimpse of mystic sky?...
On the summit of Mount Clarence rotting slowly in the air Stands a tall and naked flagstaff, relic of the Russian scare, Russian scare that scares no longer, for the cry is 'All is well',...
Now the tent poles are rotting, the camp fires are dead, And the possums may gambol in trees overhead; I am humping my bluey far out on the land, And the prints of my bluchers sink deep in the sand:...