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diff --git a/old/52066-0.txt b/old/52066-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 6dcbf99..0000000 --- a/old/52066-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6147 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Verses popular and humorous, by Henry Lawson - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Verses popular and humorous - -Author: Henry Lawson - -Release Date: May 14, 2016 [EBook #52066] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VERSES POPULAR AND HUMOROUS *** - - - - -Produced by MWS, Bryan Ness, Chuck Greif and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - - - - - - - POPULAR AND HUMOROUS VERSES - - [Illustration] - - - - - VERSES - POPULAR AND HUMOROUS - - BY - HENRY LAWSON - - AUTHOR OF “WHEN THE WORLD WAS WIDE AND OTHER VERSES,” - “WHILE THE BILLY BOILS,” AND “ON THE TRACK AND - OVER THE SLIPRAILS” - - [Illustration: “_A hundred miles shall see to-night the lights of Cobb - and Co.!_”] - - SYDNEY - ANGUS AND ROBERTSON - LONDON: THE AUSTRALIAN BOOK COMPANY - 38 WEST SMITHFIELD, E.C. - 1900 - - SYDNEY: - WEBSDALE, SHOOSMITH AND CO., PRINTERS, - 117 CLARENCE STREET. - - - - -PREFACE - - -My acknowledgments of the courtesy of the editors and proprietors of the -newspapers in which most of these verses were first published are due -and are gratefully discharged on the eve of my departure for England. -Chief among them is the Sydney _Bulletin_; others are the Sydney _Town -and Country Journal_, _Freeman’s Journal_, and _Truth_, and the _New -Zealand Mail_. - -A few new pieces are included in the collection. - -H. L. - -_Sydney, March 17th, 1900._ - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE - -THE PORTS OF THE OPEN SEA - Down here where the ships loom large in 1 - -THE THREE KINGS - The East is dead and the West is done, - and again our course lies thus:-- 5 - -THE OUTSIDE TRACK - There were ten of us there on the moonlit quay, 8 - -SYDNEY-SIDE - Where’s the steward?--Bar-room steward? - Berth? Oh, any berth will do-- 10 - -THE ROVERS - Some born of homely parents 13 - -FOREIGN LANDS - You may roam the wide seas over, follow, - meet, and cross the sun, 18 - -MARY LEMAINE - Jim Duff was a ‘native,’ as wild as could be; 22 - -THE SHAKEDOWN ON THE FLOOR - Set me back for twenty summers-- 25 - -REEDY RIVER - Ten miles down Reedy River 28 - -OLD STONE CHIMNEY - The rising moon on the peaks was blending 31 - -SONG OF THE OLD BULLOCK-DRIVER - Far Back in the days when the blacks - used to ramble 35 - -THE LIGHTS OF COBB AND CO. - Fire lighted, on the table a meal for sleepy men, 39 - -HOW THE LAND WAS WON - The future was dark and the past was dead 45 - -THE BOSS OVER THE BOARD - When he’s over a rough and unpopular - shed, 48 - -WHEN THE LADIES COME TO THE SHEARING SHED - ‘The ladies are coming,’ the super says 52 - -THE BALLAD OF THE ROUSEABOUT - A rouseabout of rouseabouts, from any - land--or none-- 55 - -YEARS AFTER THE WAR IN AUSTRALIA - The big rough boys from the runs out - back were first where the balls flew free, 60 - -THE OLD JIMMY WOODSER - The old Jimmy Woodser comes into the bar, 67 - -THE CHRIST OF THE ‘NEVER’ - With eyes that seem shrunken to pierce 69 - -THE CATTLE-DOG’S DEATH - The plains lay bare on the homeward route, 71 - -THE SONG OF THE DARLING RIVER - The skies are brass and the plains are bare, 73 - -RAIN IN THE MOUNTAINS - The valley’s full of misty cloud, 75 - -A MAY NIGHT ON THE MOUNTAINS - ’Tis a wonderful time when these hours begin, 76 - -THE NEW CHUM JACKAROO - Let bushmen think as bushmen will, 78 - -THE DONS OF SPAIN - The Eagle screams at the beck of trade, - so Spain, as the world goes round, 81 - -THE BURSTING OF THE BOOM - The shipping office clerks are ‘short,’ the - manager is gruff-- 84 - -ANTONY VILLA - Over there, above the jetty, stands the - mansion of the Vardens, 90 - -SECOND CLASS WAIT HERE - On suburban railway stations--you may - see them as you pass-- 96 - -THE SHIPS THAT WON’T GO DOWN - We hear a great commotion 99 - -THE MEN WE MIGHT HAVE BEEN - When God’s wrath-cloud is o’er me 101 - -THE WAY OF THE WORLD - When fairer faces turn from me, 103 - -THE BATTLING DAYS - So, sit you down in a straight-backed - chair, with your pipe and your wife content, 105 - -WRITTEN AFTERWARDS - So the days of my tramping are over, 108 - -THE UNCULTURED RHYMER TO HIS CULTURED CRITICS - Fight through ignorance, want, and care-- 111 - -THE WRITER’S DREAM - A writer wrote of the hearts of men, and - he followed their tracks afar; 113 - -THE JOLLY DEAD MARCH - If I ever be worthy or famous-- 121 - -MY LITERARY FRIEND - Once I wrote a little poem which I - thought was very fine, 125 - -MARY CALLED HIM ‘MISTER’ - They’d parted but a year before--she - never thought he’d come, 127 - -REJECTED - She says she’s very sorry, as she sees you to the gate; 130 - -O’HARA, J.P. - James Patrick O’Hara, the Justice of Peace, 134 - -BILL AND JIM FALL OUT - Bill and Jim are mates no longer--they - would scorn the name of mate-- 138 - -THE PAROO - It was a week from Christmas-time, 142 - -THE GREEN-HAND ROUSEABOUT - Call this hot? I beg your pardon. Hot!--you - don’t know what it means. 146 - -THE MAN FROM WATERLOO - It was the Man from Waterloo, 151 - -SAINT PETER - Now, I think there is a likeness 155 - -THE STRANGER’S FRIEND - The strangest things, and the maddest - things, that a man can do or say, 158 - -THE GOD-FORGOTTEN ELECTION - Pat M‘Durmer brought the tidings to the - town of God-Forgotten: 162 - -THE BOSS’S BOOTS - The shearers squint along the pens, they - squint along the ‘shoots;’ 168 - -THE CAPTAIN OF THE PUSH - As the night was falling slowly down on - city, town and bush, 174 - -BILLY’S ‘SQUARE AFFAIR’ - Long Bill, the captain of the push, was - tired of his estate, 181 - -A DERRY ON A COVE - ’Twas in the felon’s dock he stood, his - eyes were black and blue; 185 - -RISE YE! RISE YE! - Rise ye! rise ye! noble toilers! claim - your rights with fire and steel! 187 - -THE BALLAD OF MABEL CLARE - Ye children of the Land of Gold, 190 - -CONSTABLE M‘CARTHY’S INVESTIGATIONS - Most unpleasantly adjacent to the haunts - of lower orders 196 - -AT THE TUG-OF-WAR - ’Twas in a tug-of-war where I--the - guvnor’s hope and pride-- 205 - -HERE’S LUCK! - Old Time is tramping close to-day--you - hear his bluchers fall, 208 - -THE MEN WHO COME BEHIND - There’s a class of men (and women) who - are always on their guard-- 211 - -THE DAYS WHEN WE WENT SWIMMING - The breezes waved the silver grass, 214 - -THE OLD BARK SCHOOL - It was built of bark and poles, and the - floor was full of holes 216 - -TROUBLE ON THE SELECTION - You lazy boy, you’re here at last, 220 - -THE PROFESSIONAL WANDERER - When you’ve knocked about the country--been - away from home for years; 222 - -A LITTLE MISTAKE - ’Tis a yarn I heard of a new-chum ‘trap’ 225 - -A STUDY IN THE “NOOD” - He was bare--we don’t want to be rude-- 228 - -A WORD TO TEXAS JACK - Texas Jack, you are amusin’. By Lord - Harry, how I laughed 231 - -THE GROG-AN’-GRUMBLE STEEPLECHASE - ’Twixt the coastline and the border lay - the town of Grog-an’-Grumble 237 - -BUT WHAT’S THE USE - But what’s the use of writing ‘bush’-- 242 - - - - -VIGNETTES BY FRANK P. MAHONY - - -PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR _facing title page_ - -THE LIGHTS OF COBB AND CO. _title page_ - -MY LITERARY FRIEND _page_ xvi. - -[Illustration: - - _“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....”_ - -_page 125._ -] - - - - - THE PORTS OF THE OPEN SEA - - - 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 - Round the youngest land rolls free-- - Storm-bound from the world’s commotion, - Lie the Ports of the Open Sea. - - By the bluff where the grey sand reaches - To the kerb of the spray-swept street, - By the sweep of the black sand beaches - From the main-road travellers’ feet, - By the heights like a work Titanic, - Begun ere the gods’ work ceased, - By a bluff-lined coast volcanic - Lie the Ports of the wild South-east. - - By the steeps of the snow-capped ranges, - By the scarped and terraced hills-- - Far away from the swift life-changes, - From the wear of the strife that kills-- - Where the land in the Spring seems younger - Than a land of the Earth might be-- - Oh! the hearts of the rovers hunger - For the Ports of the Open Sea. - - But the captains watch and hearken - For a sign of the South Sea wrath-- - Let the face of the South-east darken, - And they turn to the ocean path. - Ay, the sea-boats dare not linger, - Whatever the cargo be; - When the South-east lifts a finger - By the Ports of the Open Sea. - - South by the bleak Bluff faring, - North where the Three Kings wait, - South-east the tempest daring-- - Flight through the storm-tossed strait; - Yonder a white-winged roamer - Struck where the rollers roar-- - Where the great green froth-flaked comber - Breaks down on a black-ribbed shore. - - For the South-east lands are dread lands - To the sailor in the shrouds, - Where the low clouds loom like headlands, - And the black bluffs blur like clouds. - When the breakers rage to windward - And the lights are masked a-lee, - And the sunken rocks run inward - To a Port of the Open Sea. - - But oh! for the South-east weather-- - The sweep of the three-days’ gale-- - When, far through the flax and heather, - The spindrift drives like hail. - Glory to man’s creations - That drive where the gale grows gruff, - When the homes of the sea-coast stations - Flash white from the dark’ning bluff! - - When the swell of the South-east rouses - The wrath of the Maori sprite, - And the brown folk flee their houses - And crouch in the flax by night, - And wait as they long have waited-- - In fear as the brown folk be-- - The wave of destruction fated - For the Ports of the Open Sea. - - * * * * * - - Grey cloud to the mountain bases, - Wild boughs that rush and sweep; - On the rounded hills the tussocks - Like flocks of flying sheep; - A lonely storm-bird soaring - O’er tussock, fern and tree; - And the boulder beaches roaring - The Hymn of the Open Sea. - - - - - THE THREE KINGS[A] - - [A] Three sea-girt pinnacles off North Cape, New Zealand. - - - The East is dead and the West is done, and again our course lies thus:-- - South-east by Fate and the Rising Sun where the Three Kings wait for us. - _When our hearts are young and the world is wide, and the heights seem grand - to climb-- - We are off and away to the Sydney-side; but the Three Kings bide their - time._ - - ‘I’ve been to the West,’ the digger said: he was bearded, bronzed and old; - ‘Ah, the smothering curse of the East is wool, and the curse of the West is - gold. - ‘I went to the West in the golden boom, with Hope and a life-long mate, - ‘They sleep in the sand by the Boulder Soak, and long may the Three Kings - wait.’ - - ‘I’ve had my fling on the Sydney-side,’ said a black-sheep to the sea, - ‘Let the young fool learn when he can’t be taught: I’ve learnt what’s good - for me.’ - And he gazed ahead on the sea-line dim--grown dim in his softened eyes-- - With a pain in his heart that was good for him--as he saw the Three Kings - rise. - - A pale girl sits on the foc’sle head--she is back, Three Kings! so soon; - But it seems to her like a life-time dead since she fled with him ‘saloon.’ - There is refuge still in the old folks’ arms for the child that loved too - well; - They will hide her shame on the Southern farm--and the Three Kings will not - tell. - - ’Twas a restless heart on the tide of life, and a false star in the skies - That led me on to the deadly strife where the Southern London lies; - But I dream in peace of a home for me, by a glorious southern sound, - As the sunset fades from a moonlit sea, and the Three Kings show us round. - - _Our hearts are young and the old hearts old, and life on the farms is - slow,_ - _And away in the world there is fame and gold--and the Three Kings watch us - go._ - _Our heads seem wise and the world seems wide, and its heights are ours to - climb,_ - _So it’s off and away in our youthful pride--but the Three Kings bide our - time._ - - - - - THE OUTSIDE TRACK - - - There were ten of us there on the moonlit quay, - And one on the for’ard hatch; - No straighter mate to his mates than he - Had ever said: ‘Len’s a match!’ - ’Twill be long, old man, ere our glasses clink, - ’Twill be long ere we grip your hand!-- - And we dragged him ashore for a final drink - Till the whole wide world seemed grand. - - For they marry and go as the world rolls back, - They marry and vanish and die; - But their spirit shall live on the Outside Track - As long as the years go by. - - The port-lights glowed in the morning mist - That rolled from the waters green; - And over the railing we grasped his fist - As the dark tide came between. - - We cheered the captain and cheered the crew, - And our mate, times out of mind; - We cheered the land he was going to - And the land he had left behind. - - We roared Lang Syne as a last farewell, - But my heart seemed out of joint; - I well remember the hush that fell - When the steamer had passed the point - We drifted home through the public bars, - We were ten times less by one - Who sailed out under the morning stars, - And under the rising sun. - - And one by one, and two by two, - They have sailed from the wharf since then; - I have said good-bye to the last I knew, - The last of the careless men. - And I can’t but think that the times we had - Were the best times after all, - As I turn aside with a lonely glass - And drink to the bar-room wall. - - But I’ll try my luck for a cheque Out Back, - Then a last good-bye to the bush; - For my heart’s away on the Outside Track, - On the track of the steerage push. - - - - - SYDNEY-SIDE - - - Where’s the steward?--Bar-room steward? Berth? Oh, any berth will do-- - I have left a three-pound billet just to come along with you. - Brighter shines the Star of Rovers on a world that’s growing wide, - But I think I’d give a kingdom for a glimpse of Sydney-Side. - - Run of rocky shelves at sunrise, with their base on ocean’s bed; - Homes of Coogee, homes of Bondi, and the lighthouse on South Head; - For in loneliness and hardship--and with just a touch of pride-- - Has my heart been taught to whisper, ‘You belong to Sydney-Side.’ - - Oh, there never dawned a morning, in the long and lonely days, - But I thought I saw the ferries streaming out across the bays-- - And as fresh and fair in fancy did the picture rise again - As the sunrise flushed the city from Woollahra to Balmain. - - And the sunny water frothing round the liners black and red, - And the coastal schooners working by the loom of Bradley’s Head; - And the whistles and the sirens that re-echo far and wide-- - All the life and light and beauty that belong to Sydney-Side. - - And the dreary cloud-line never veiled the end of one day more, - But the city set in jewels rose before me from ‘The Shore.’ - Round the sea-world shine the beacons of a thousand ports o’ call, - But the harbour-lights of Sydney are the grandest of them all! - - Toiling out beyond Coolgardie--heart and back and spirit broke, - Where the Rover’s Star gleams redly in the desert by the ‘soak’-- - But says one mate to the other, ‘Brace your lip and do not fret, - We will laugh on trains and ’buses--Sydney’s in the same place yet.’ - - Working in the South in winter, to the waist in dripping fern, - Where the local spirit hungers for each ‘saxpence’ that we earn-- - We can stand it for a season, for our world is growing wide, - And they all are friends and strangers who belong to Sydney-Side. - - ‘T’other-siders! T’other-siders!’ Yet we wake the dusty dead; - It is we that send the backward province fifty years ahead; - We it is that ‘trim’ Australia--making narrow country wide-- - Yet we’re always T’other-siders till we sail for Sydney-side. - - - - - THE ROVERS - - - Some born of homely parents - For ages settled down-- - The steady generations - Of village, farm, and town: - And some of dusky fathers - Who wandered since the flood-- - The fairest skin or darkest - Might hold the roving blood-- - - Some born of brutish peasants, - And some of dainty peers, - In poverty or plenty - They pass their early years; - But, born in pride of purple, - Or straw and squalid sin, - In all the far world corners - The wanderers are kin. - - A rover or a rebel, - Conceived and born to roam, - As babies they will toddle - With faces turned from home; - They’ve fought beyond the vanguard - Wherever storm has raged, - And home is but a prison - They pace like lions caged. - - They smile and are not happy; - They sing and are not gay; - They weary, yet they wander; - They love, and cannot stay; - They marry, and are single - Who watch the roving star, - For, by the family fireside, - Oh, lonely men _they_ are! - - They die of peace and quiet-- - The deadly ease of life; - They die of home and comfort; - They _live_ in storm and strife; - No poverty can tie them, - Nor wealth nor place restrain-- - Girl, wife, or child might draw them, - But they’ll be gone again! - - Across the glowing desert; - Through naked trees and snow; - Across the rolling prairies - The skies have seen them go; - They fought to where the ocean - Receives the setting sun;-- - But where shall fight the rovers - When all the lands are won? - - They thirst on Greenland snowfields, - On Never-Never sands; - Where man is not to conquer - They conquer barren lands; - They feel that most are cowards, - That all depends on ‘nerve,’ - They lead who cannot follow, - They rule who cannot serve. - - Across the plains and ranges, - Away across the seas, - On blue and green horizons - They camp by twos and threes; - They hold on stormy borders - Of states that trouble earth - The honour of the country - That only gave them birth. - - Unlisted, uncommissioned, - Untaught of any school, - In far-away world corners - Unconquered tribes they rule; - The lone hand and revolver-- - Sad eyes that never quail-- - The lone hand and the rifle - That win where armies fail. - - They slumber sound where murder - And treachery are bare-- - The pluck of self-reliance, - The pluck of past despair; - Thin brown men in pyjamas-- - The thin brown wiry men!-- - The helmet and revolver - That lie beside the pen. - - Through drought and desolation - They won the way Out Back; - The commonplace and selfish - Have followed on their track; - They conquer lands for others, - For others find the gold,-- - But where shall go the rovers - When all the lands are old? - - A rover and a rebel-- - And so the worlds commence! - Their hearts shall beat as wildly - Ten generations hence; - And when the world is crowded-- - ’Tis signed and sealed by Fate-- - The roving blood will rise to make - The countries desolate. - - - - - FOREIGN LANDS - - - You may roam the wide seas over, follow, meet, and cross the sun, - Sail as far as ships can sail, and travel far as trains can run; - You may ride and tramp wherever range or plain or sea expands, - But the crowd has been before you, and you’ll not find ‘Foreign Lands;’ - For the Early Days are over, - And no more the white-winged rover - Sinks the gale-worn coast of England bound for bays in Foreign Lands. - - Foreign Lands are in the distance dim and dream-like, faint and far, - Long ago, and over yonder, where our boyhood fancies are, - For the land is by the railway cramped as though with iron bands, - And the steamship and the cable did away with Foreign Lands. - Ah! the days of blue and gold! - When the news was six months old-- - But the news was worth the telling in the days of Foreign Lands. - - _Here we slave the dull years hopeless for the sake of Wool and Wheat-- - Here the homes of ugly Commerce--niggard farm and haggard street; - Yet our mothers and our fathers won the life the heart demands-- - Less than fifty years gone over, we were born in Foreign Lands._ - - When the gipsies stole the children still, in village tale and song, - And the world was wide to travel, and the roving spirit strong; - When they dreamed of South Sea Islands, summer seas and coral strands-- - Then the bravest hearts of England sailed away to Foreign Lands, - ‘Fitting foreign’--flood and field-- - Half the world and orders sealed-- - And the first and best of Europe went to fight in Foreign Lands. - - Canvas towers on the ocean--homeward bound and outward bound-- - Glint of topsails over islands--splash of anchors in the sound; - Then they landed in the forests, took their strong lives in their hands, - And they fought and toiled and conquered--making homes in Foreign Lands, - Through the cold and through the drought-- - Further on and further out-- - Winning half the world for England in the wilds of Foreign Lands. - - Love and pride of life inspired them when the simple village hearts - Followed Master Will and Harry--gone abroad to ‘furrin parts’-- - - By our townships and our cities, and across the desert sands - Are the graves of those who fought and died for us in Foreign Lands-- - Gave their young lives for our sake - (Was it all a grand mistake?) - Sons of Master Will and Harry born abroad in Foreign Lands! - - _Ah, my girl, our lives are narrow, and in sordid days like these, - I can hate the things that banished ‘Foreign Lands across the seas,’ - But with all the world before us, God above us--hearts and hands, - I can sail the seas in fancy far away to Foreign Lands._ - - - - - MARY LEMAINE - - - Jim Duff was a ‘native,’ as wild as could be; - A stealer and duffer of cattle was he, - But back in his youth he had stolen a pearl-- - Or a diamond rather--the heart of a girl; - She served with a squatter who lived on the plain, - And the name of the girl it was Mary Lemaine. - - ’Twas a drear, rainy day and the twilight was done, - When four mounted troopers rode up to the run. - They spoke to the squatter: he asked them all in. - The homestead was small and the walls they were thin; - And in the next room, with a cold in her head, - Our Mary was sewing on buttons--in bed. - - She heard a few words, but those words were enough-- - The troopers were all on the track of Jim Duff. - The super, his rival, was planning a trap - To capture the scamp in Maginnis’s Gap. - ‘I’ve warned him before, and I’ll do it again;-- - _I’ll_ save him to-night,’ whispered Mary Lemaine. - - No petticoat job--there was no time to waste, - The suit she was mending she slipped on in haste, - And five minutes later they gathered in force, - But Mary was off, on the squatter’s best horse; - With your hand on your heart, just to deaden the pain, - Ride hard to the ranges, brave Mary Lemaine! - - She rode by the ridges all sullen and strange, - And far up long gullies that ran through the range, - Till the rain cleared away, and the tears in her eyes - Caught the beams of the moon from Maginnis’s Rise. - A fire in the depths of the gums she espied-- - ‘Who’s there?’ shouted Jim. ‘It is Mary!’ she cried. - - Next morning the sun rose in splendour again, - And two loving sinners rode out on the plain; - And baffled, and angry, and hungry and damp, - The four mounted troopers rode back to the camp. - But they hushed up the business--the reason is plain, - They all had been ‘soft’ on fair Mary Lemaine. - - The squatter got back all he lost from his mob, - And old Sergeant Kennedy winked at the job; - Jim Duff keeps a shanty far out in the west, - And the sundowners call it the ‘Bushranger’s Rest.’ - But the bushranger lives a respectable life, - And the law never troubles Jim Duff or his wife. - - - - - THE SHAKEDOWN ON THE FLOOR - - - 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-- - While, along the grassy siding, - Come the cattle grazing home. - - And I finish ploughing early, - And I hurry home to tea-- - There’s my black suit on the stretcher, - And a clean white shirt for me; - There’s a dance at Rocky Rises, - And, when all the fun is o’er, - For a certain favoured party - There’s a shake-down on the floor. - - You remember Mary Carey, - Bushmen’s favourite at the Rise? - With her sweet small freckled features, - Red-gold hair, and kind grey eyes; - Sister, daughter, to her mother, - Mother, sister, to the rest-- - And of all my friends and kindred, - Mary Carey loved me best. - - Far too shy, because she loved me, - To be dancing oft with me; - What cared I, because she loved me, - If the world were there to see? - But we lingered by the slip rails - While the rest were riding home, - Ere the hour before the dawning, - Dimmed the great star-clustered dome. - - Small brown hands that spread the mattress - While the old folk winked to see - How she’d find an extra pillow - And an extra sheet for me. - For a moment shyly smiling, - She would grant me one kiss more-- - Slip away and leave me happy - By the shake-down on the floor. - - Rock me hard in steerage cabins, - Rock me soft in wide saloons, - Lay me on the sand-hill lonely - Under waning western moons; - But wherever night may find me - Till I rest for evermore-- - I will dream that I am happy - On the shake-down on the floor. - - Ah! she often watched at sunset-- - For her people told me so-- - Where I left her at the slip-rails - More than fifteen years ago. - And she faded like a flower, - And she died, as such girls do, - While, away in Northern Queensland, - Working hard, I never knew. - - And we suffer for our sorrows, - And we suffer for our joys, - From the old bush days when mother - Spread the shake-down for the boys. - But to cool the living fever, - Comes a cold breath to my brow, - And I feel that Mary’s spirit - Is beside me, even now. - - - - - REEDY RIVER - - - Ten miles down Reedy River - A pool of water lies, - And all the year it mirrors - The changes in the skies, - And in that pool’s broad bosom - Is room for all the stars; - Its bed of sand has drifted - O’er countless rocky bars. - - Around the lower edges - There waves a bed of reeds, - Where water rats are hidden - And where the wild duck breeds; - And grassy slopes rise gently - To ridges long and low, - Where groves of wattle flourish - And native bluebells grow. - - Beneath the granite ridges - The eye may just discern - Where Rocky Creek emerges - From deep green banks of fern; - And standing tall between them, - The grassy sheoaks cool - The hard, blue-tinted waters - Before they reach the pool. - - Ten miles down Reedy River - One Sunday afternoon, - I rode with Mary Campbell - To that broad bright lagoon; - We left our horses grazing - Till shadows climbed the peak, - And strolled beneath the sheoaks - On the banks of Rocky Creek. - - Then home along the river - That night we rode a race, - And the moonlight lent a glory - To Mary Campbell’s face; - And I pleaded for my future - All thro’ that moonlight ride, - Until our weary horses - Drew closer side by side. - - Ten miles from Ryan’s crossing - And five below the peak, - I built a little homestead - On the banks of Rocky Creek; - I cleared the land and fenced it - And ploughed the rich red loam, - And my first crop was golden - When I brought Mary home. - - * * * * * - - Now still down Reedy River - The grassy sheoaks sigh, - And the waterholes still mirror - The pictures in the sky; - And over all for ever - Go sun and moon and stars, - While the golden sand is drifting - Across the rocky bars; - - But of the hut I builded - There are no traces now. - And many rains have levelled - The furrows of the plough; - And my bright days are olden, - For the twisted branches wave - And the wattle blossoms golden - On the hill by Mary’s grave. - - - - - OLD STONE CHIMNEY - - - The rising moon on the peaks was blending - Her silver light with the sunset glow, - When a swagman came as the day was ending - Along a path that he seemed to know. - But all the fences were gone or going-- - The hand of ruin was everywhere; - The creek unchecked in its course was flowing, - For none of the old clay dam was there. - - Here Time had been with his swiftest changes, - And husbandry had westward flown; - The cattle tracks in the rugged ranges - Were long ago with the scrub o’ergrown. - It must have needed long years to soften - The road, that as hard as rock had been; - The mountain path he had trod so often - Lay hidden now with a carpet green. - - He thought at times from the mountain courses - He heard the sound of a bullock bell, - The distant gallop of stockmen’s horses, - The stockwhip’s crack that he knew so well: - But these were sounds of his memory only, - And they were gone from the flat and hill, - For when he listened the place was lonely, - The range was dumb and the bush was still. - - The swagman paused by the gap and faltered, - For down the gully he feared to go, - The scene in memory never altered-- - The scene before him had altered so. - But hope is strong, and his heart grew bolder, - And over his sorrows he raised his head, - He turned his swag to the other shoulder, - And plodded on with a firmer tread. - - Ah, hope is always the keenest hearer, - And fancies much when assailed by fear; - The swagman thought, as the farm drew nearer, - He heard the sounds that he used to hear. - His weary heart for a moment bounded, - For a moment brief he forgot his dread; - For plainly still in his memory sounded - The welcome bark of a dog long dead. - - A few steps more and his face grew ghostly, - Then white as death in the twilight grey; - Deserted wholly, and ruined mostly, - The Old Selection before him lay. - Like startled spectres that paused and listened, - The few white posts of the stockyard stood; - And seemed to move as the moonlight glistened - And paled again on the whitened wood. - - And thus he came, from a life long banished - To other lands, and of peace bereft, - To find the farm and the homestead vanished, - And only the old stone chimney left. - The field his father had cleared and gardened - Was overgrown with saplings now; - The rain had set and the drought had hardened - The furrows made by a vanished plough. - - And this, and this was the longed-for haven - Where he might rest from a life of woe; - He read a name on the mantel graven-- - The name was his ere he stained it so. - ‘And so remorse on my care encroaches-- - I have not suffered enough,’ he said; - ‘That name is pregnant with deep reproaches-- - The past won’t bury dishonoured dead!’ - - Ah, now he knew it was long years after, - And felt how swiftly a long year speeds; - The hardwood post and the beam and rafter - Had rotted long in the tangled weeds. - He found that time had for years been sowing - The coarse wild scrub on the homestead path, - And saw young trees by the chimney growing, - And mountain ferns on the wide stone hearth. - - He wildly thought of the evil courses - That brought disgrace on his father’s name; - The escort robbed, and the stolen horses, - The felon’s dock with its lasting shame. - ‘Ah, God! Ah, God! is there then no pardon?’ - He cried in a voice that was strained and hoarse; - He fell on the weeds that were once a garden, - And sobbed aloud in his great remorse. - - But grief must end, and his heart ceased aching - When pitying sleep to his eye-lids crept, - And home and friends who were lost in waking, - They all came back while the stockman slept. - And when he woke on the empty morrow, - The pain at his heart was a deadened pain; - And bravely bearing his load of sorrow, - He wandered back to the world again. - - - - - SONG OF THE OLD BULLOCK-DRIVER - - - Far back in the days when the blacks used to ramble - In long single file ’neath the evergreen tree, - The wool-teams in season came down from Coonamble, - And journeyed for weeks on their way to the sea. - ’Twas then that our hearts and our sinews were stronger, - For those were the days when the bushman was bred. - We journeyed on roads that were rougher and longer - Than roads where the feet of our grandchildren tread. - - With mates who have gone to the great Never-Never, - And mates whom I’ve not seen for many a day, - I camped on the banks of the Cudgegong River - And yarned at the fire by the old bullock-dray. - I would summon them back from the far Riverina, - From days that shall be from all others distinct, - And sing to the sound of an old concertina - Their rugged old songs where strange fancies were linked. - - We never were lonely, for, camping together, - We yarned and we smoked the long evenings away, - And little I cared for the signs of the weather - When snug in my hammock slung under the dray. - We rose with the dawn, were it ever so chilly, - When yokes and tarpaulins were covered with frost, - And toasted the bacon and boiled the black billy, - Where high on the camp-fire the branches were tossed. - - On flats where the air was suggestive of ’possums, - And homesteads and fences were hinting of change, - We saw the faint glimmer of appletree blossoms, - And far in the distance the blue of the range; - And here in the rain, there was small use in flogging - The poor, tortured bullocks that tugged at the load, - When down to the axles the waggons were bogging - And traffic was making a marsh of the road. - - ’Twas hard on the beasts on the terrible pinches, - Where two teams of bullocks were yoked to a load, - And tugging and slipping, and moving by inches, - Half-way to the summit they clung to the road. - And then, when the last of the pinches was bested, - (You’ll surely not say that a glass was a sin?) - The bullocks lay down ’neath the gum trees and rested-- - The bullockies steered for the bar of the inn. - - Then slowly we crawled by the trees that kept tally - Of miles that were passed on the long journey down. - We saw the wild beauty of Capertee Valley, - As slowly we rounded the base of the Crown. - But, ah! the poor bullocks were cruelly goaded - While climbing the hills from the flats and the vales; - ’Twas here that the teams were so often unloaded - That all knew the meaning of ‘counting your bales.’ - - And, oh! but the best-paying load that I carried - Was one to the run where my sweetheart was nurse. - We courted awhile, and agreed to get married, - And couple our futures for better or worse. - And as my old feet grew too weary to drag on - The miles of rough metal they met by the way, - My eldest grew up and I gave him the waggon-- - He’s plodding along by the bullocks to-day. - - - - - THE LIGHTS OF COBB AND CO. - - - Fire lighted, on the table a meal for sleepy men, - A lantern in the stable, a jingle now and then; - The mail coach looming darkly by light of moon and star, - The growl of sleepy voices--a candle in the bar; - A stumble in the passage of folk with wits abroad; - A swear-word from a bedroom--the shout of ‘All aboard!’ - ‘Tchk-tchk! Git-up!’ ‘Hold fast, there!’ and down the range we go; - Five hundred miles of scattered camps will watch for Cobb and Co. - - Old coaching towns already ‘decaying for their sins,’ - Uncounted ‘Half-Way Houses,’ and scores of ‘Ten Mile Inns;’ - The riders from the stations by lonely granite peaks; - The black-boy for the shepherds on sheep and cattle creeks; - The roaring camps of Gulgong, and many a ‘Digger’s Rest;’ - The diggers on the Lachlan; the huts of Furthest West; - Some twenty thousand exiles who sailed for weal or woe; - The bravest hearts of twenty lands will wait for Cobb and Co. - - The morning star has vanished, the frost and fog are gone, - In one of those grand mornings which but on mountains dawn; - A flask of friendly whisky--each other’s hopes we share-- - And throw our top-coats open to drink the mountain air. - The roads are rare to travel, and life seems all complete; - The grind of wheels on gravel, the trot of horses’ feet, - The trot, trot, trot and canter, as down the spur we go-- - The green sweeps to horizons blue that call for Cobb and Co. - - We take a bright girl actress through western dust and damps, - To bear the home-world message, and sing for sinful camps, - To wake the hearts and break them, wild hearts that hope and ache-- - (Ah! when she thinks of those days her own must nearly break!) - Five miles this side the gold-field, a loud, triumphant shout: - Five hundred cheering diggers have snatched the horses out: - With ‘Auld Lang Syne’ in chorus through roaring camps they go-- - That cheer for her, and cheer for Home, and cheer for Cobb and Co. - - Three lamps above the ridges and gorges dark and deep, - A flash on sandstone cuttings where sheer the sidings sweep, - A flash on shrouded waggons, on water ghastly white; - Weird bush and scattered remnants of ‘rushes in the night;’ - Across the swollen river a flash beyond the ford: - Ride hard to warn the driver! He’s drunk or mad, good Lord!’ - But on the bank to westward a broad, triumphant glow-- - A hundred miles shall see to-night the lights of Cobb and Co.! - - Swift scramble up the siding where teams climb inch by inch; - Pause, bird-like, on the summit--then breakneck down the pinch - Past haunted half-way houses--where convicts made the bricks-- - Scrub-yards and new bark shanties, we dash with five and six-- - By clear, ridge-country rivers, and gaps where tracks run high, - Where waits the lonely horseman, cut clear against the sky; - Through stringy-bark and blue-gum, and box and pine we go; - New camps are stretching ’cross the plains the routes of Cobb and Co. - - * * * * * - - Throw down the reins, old driver--there’s no one left to shout; - The ruined inn’s survivor must take the horses out. - A poor old coach hereafter!--we’re lost to all such things-- - No bursts of songs or laughter shall shake your leathern springs - When creeping in unnoticed by railway sidings drear, - Or left in yards for lumber, decaying with the year-- - Oh, who’ll think how in those days when distant fields were broad - You raced across the Lachlan side with twenty-five on board. - - Not all the ships that sail away since Roaring Days are done-- - Not all the boats that steam from port, nor all the trains that run, - Shall take such hopes and loyal hearts--for men shall never know - Such days as when the Royal Mail was run by Cobb and Co. - The ‘greyhounds’ race across the sea, the ‘special’ cleaves the haze, - But these seem dull and slow to me compared with Roaring Days! - The eyes that watched are dim with age, and souls are weak and slow, - The hearts are dust or hardened now that broke for Cobb and Co. - - - - - HOW THE LAND WAS WON - - - 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 - Because of the work to do, - A wild wide land to be won for us - By hearts and hands so few. - - The darkest land ’neath a blue sky’s dome, - And the widest waste on earth; - The strangest scenes and the least like home - In the lands of our fathers’ birth; - The loneliest land in the wide world then, - And away on the furthest seas, - A land most barren of life for men-- - And they won it by twos and threes! - - With God, or a dog, to watch, they slept - By the camp-fires’ ghastly glow, - Where the scrubs were dark as the blacks that crept - With ‘nulla’ and spear held low; - Death was hidden amongst the trees, - And bare on the glaring sand - They fought and perished by twos and threes-- - And that’s how they won the land! - - It was two that failed by the dry creek bed, - While one reeled on alone-- - The dust of Australia’s greatest dead - With the dust of the desert blown! - Gaunt cheek-bones cracking the parchment skin - That scorched in the blazing sun, - Black lips that broke in a ghastly grin-- - And that’s how the land was won! - - Starvation and toil on the tracks they went, - And death by the lonely way; - The childbirth under the tilt or tent, - The childbirth under the dray! - The childbirth out in the desolate hut - With a half-wild gin for nurse-- - That’s how the first were born to bear - The brunt of the first man’s curse! - - They toiled and they fought through the shame of it-- - Through wilderness, flood, and drought; - They worked, in the struggles of early days, - Their sons’ salvation out. - The white girl-wife in the hut alone, - The men on the boundless run, - The miseries suffered, unvoiced, unknown-- - And that’s how the land was won. - - No armchair rest for the old folk then-- - But, ruined by blight and drought, - They blazed the tracks to the camps again - In the big scrubs further out. - The worn haft, wet with a father’s sweat, - Gripped hard by the eldest son, - The boy’s back formed to the hump of toil-- - And that’s how the land was won! - - And beyond Up Country, beyond Out Back, - And the rainless belt, they ride, - The currency lad and the ne’er-do-weel - And the black sheep, side by side; - In wheeling horizons of endless haze - That disk through the Great North-west, - They ride for ever by twos and by threes-- - And that’s how they win the rest. - - - - - THE BOSS OVER THE BOARD - - - When he’s over a rough and unpopular shed, - With the sins of the bank and the men on his head; - When he musn’t look black or indulge in a grin, - And thirty or forty men hate him like Sin-- - I am moved to admit--when the total is scored-- - That it’s just a bit off for the Boss-of-the-board. - I have battled a lot, - But my dream’s never soared - To the lonely position of Boss-of-the-board. - - ’Twas a black-listed shed down the Darling: the Boss - Was a small man to see--though a big man to cross-- - We had nought to complain of--except what we thought, - And the Boss didn’t boss any more than he ought; - But the Union was booming, and Brotherhood soared, - So we hated like poison the Boss-of-the-board. - We could tolerate ‘hands’-- - We respected the cook; - But the name of a Boss was a blot in our book. - - He’d a row with Big Duggan--a rough sort of Jim-- - Or, rather, Jim Duggan was ‘laying for’ him! - His hate of Injustice and Greed was so deep - That his shearing grew rough--and he ill-used the sheep. - And I fancied that Duggan his manliness lower’d - When he took off his shirt to the Boss-of-the-board, - For the Boss was ten stone, - And the shearer full-grown, - And he might have, they said, let the crawler alone. - - Though some of us there wished the fight to the strong, - Yet we knew in our hearts that the shearer was wrong. - And the crawler was plucky, it can’t be denied, - For he had to fight Freedom and Justice beside, - But he came up so gamely, as often as floored, - That a blackleg stood up for the Boss-of-the-board! - And the fight was a sight, - And we pondered that night-- - ‘It’s surprising how some of those blacklegs can fight!’ - - Next day at the office, when sadly the wreck - Of Jim Duggan came up like a lamb for his cheque, - Said the Boss, ‘Don’t be childish! It’s all past and gone; - I am short of good shearers. You’d _better_ stay on.’ - And we fancied Jim Duggan _our_ dignity lower’d - When he stopped to oblige a damned Boss-of-the-board. - We said nothing to Jim, - For a joke might be grim, - And the subject, we saw, was distasteful to him. - - The Boss just went on as he’d done from the first, - And he favoured Big Duggan no more than the worst; - And when we’d cut out and the steamer came down-- - With the hawkers and spielers--to take us to town, - And we’d all got aboard, ’twas Jim Duggan, good Lord! - Who yelled for three cheers for the Boss-of-the-board. - ’Twas a bit off, no doubt-- - And with Freedom about-- - But a lot is forgot when a shed is cut out. - - With Freedom of Contract maintained in his shed, - And the curse of the Children of Light on his head, - He’s apt to long sadly for sweetheart or wife, - And his views be inclined to the dark side of life. - The Truth must be spread and the Cause must be shored-- - But it’s just a bit rough on the Boss-of-the-board. - I am all for the Right, - But perhaps (out of sight) - As a son or a husband or father he’s white. - - - - - WHEN THE LADIES COME TO THE SHEARING SHED - - - ‘The ladies are coming,’ the super says - To the shearers sweltering there, - And ‘the ladies’ means in the shearing shed: - ‘Don’t cut ’em too bad. Don’t swear.’ - The ghost of a pause in the shed’s rough heart, - And lower is bowed each head; - And nothing is heard, save a whispered word, - And the roar of the shearing-shed. - - The tall, shy rouser has lost his wits, - And his limbs are all astray; - He leaves a fleece on the shearing-board, - And his broom in the shearer’s way. - There’s a curse in store for that jackaroo - As down by the wall he slants-- - And the ringer bends with his legs askew - And wishes he’d ‘patched them pants.’ - - They are girls from the city. (Our hearts rebel - As we squint at their dainty feet.) - And they gush and say in a girly way - That ‘the dear little lambs’ are ‘sweet.’ - And Bill, the ringer, who’d scorn the use - Of a childish word like ‘damn,’ - Would give a pound that his tongue were loose - As he tackles a lively lamb. - - Swift thoughts of homes in the coastal towns-- - Or rivers and waving grass-- - And a weight on our hearts that we cannot define - That comes as the ladies pass. - But the rouser ventures a nervous dig - In the ribs of the next to him; - And Barcoo says to his pen-mate: ‘Twig - The style of the last un, Jim.’ - - Jim Moonlight gives her a careless glance-- - Then he catches his breath with pain-- - His strong hand shakes and the sunlights dance - As he bends to his work again. - But he’s well disguised in a bristling beard, - Bronzed skin, and his shearer’s dress; - And whatever Jim Moonlight hoped or feared - Were hard for his mates to guess. - - Jim Moonlight, wiping his broad, white brow, - Explains, with a doleful smile: - ‘A stitch in the side,’ and ‘he’s all right now’-- - But he leans on the beam awhile, - And gazes out in the blazing noon - On the clearing, brown and bare-- - She has come and gone, like a breath of June, - In December’s heat and glare. - - The bushmen are big rough boys at the best, - With hearts of a larger growth; - But they hide those hearts with a brutal jest, - And the pain with a reckless oath. - Though the Bills and Jims of the bush-bard sing - Of their life loves, lost or dead, - The love of a girl is a sacred thing - Not voiced in a shearing-shed. - - - - - THE BALLAD OF THE ROUSEABOUT - - - A rouseabout of rouseabouts, from any land--or none-- - I bear a nick-name of the bush, and I’m--a woman’s son; - I came from where I camp’d last night, and, at the day-dawn glow, - I rub the darkness from my eyes, roll up my swag, and go. - - Some take the track for bitter pride, some for no pride at all-- - (But--to us all the world is wide when driven to the wall) - Some take the track for gain in life, some take the track for loss-- - And some of us take up the swag as Christ took up the Cross. - - Some take the track for faith in men--some take the track for doubt-- - Some flee a squalid home to work their own salvation out. - Some dared not see a mother’s tears nor meet a father’s face-- - Born of good Christian families some leap, head-long, from Grace. - - Oh we are men who fought and rose, or fell from many grades; - Some born to lie, and some to pray, we’re men of many trades; - We’re men whose fathers were and are of high and low degree-- - The sea was open to us and we sailed across the sea. - - And--were our quarrels wrong or just?--has no place in my song-- - We seared our souls in puzzling as to what was right or wrong; - We judge not and we are not judged--’tis our philosophy-- - There’s something wrong with every ship that sails upon the sea. - - From shearing shed to shearing shed we tramp to make a cheque-- - Jack Cornstalk and the ne’er-do-weel--the tar-boy and the wreck. - We learn the worth of man to man--and this we learn too well-- - The shanty and the shearing shed are warmer spots in hell! - - I’ve humped my swag to Bawley Plain, and further out and on; - I’ve boiled my billy by the Gulf, and boiled it by the Swan-- - I’ve thirsted in dry lignum swamps, and thirsted on the sand, - And eked the fire with camel dung in Never-Never Land. - - I know the track from Spencer’s Gulf and north of Cooper’s Creek-- - Where falls the half-caste to the strong, ‘black velvet’ to the weak-- - (From gold-top Flossie in the Strand to half-caste and the gin-- - If they had brains, poor animals! we’d teach them how to sin.) - - I’ve tramped, and camped, and ‘shore’ and drunk with many mates Out Back-- - And every one to me is Jack because the first was Jack-- - A ‘lifer’ sneaked from jail at home--the ‘straightest’ mate I met-- - A ‘ratty’ Russian Nihilist--a British Baronet! - - I know the tucker tracks that feed--or leave one in the lurch-- - The ‘Burgoo’ (Presbyterian) track--the ‘Murphy’ (Roman Church)-- - But more the _man_, and not the _track_, so much as it appears, - For ‘battling’ is a trade to learn, and I’ve served seven years. - - We’re haunted by the past at times--and this is very bad, - And so we drink till horrors come, lest, sober, we go mad-- - So much is lost Out Back, so much of hell is realised-- - A man might skin himself alive and no one be surprised. - - A rouseabout of rouseabouts, above--beneath regard, - I know how soft is this old world, and I have learnt how hard-- - A rouseabout of rouseabouts--I know what men can feel, - I’ve seen the tears from hard eyes slip as drops from polished steel. - - I learned what college had to teach, and in the school of men - By camp-fires I have learned, or, say, unlearned it all again; - But this I’ve learned, that truth is strong, and if a man go straight - He’ll live to see his enemy struck down by time and fate! - - We hold him true who’s true to one however false he be - (There’s something wrong with every ship that lies beside the quay); - We lend and borrow, laugh and joke, and when the past is drowned, - We sit upon our swags and smoke and watch the world go round. - - - - - YEARS AFTER THE WAR IN AUSTRALIA - - - The big rough boys from the runs out back were first where the balls flew - free, - And yelled in the slang of the Outside Track: ‘By God, it’s a - Christmas spree!’ - ‘It’s not too rusty’--and ‘Wool away!--stand clear of the blazing - shoots!’-- - ‘Sheep O! Sheep O!’--‘We’ll cut out to-day’--‘Look out for the boss’s - boots!’-- - ‘What price the tally in camp to-night!’--‘What price the boys Out Back!’-- - ‘Go it, you tigers, for Right or Might and the pride of the Outside - Track!’-- - ‘Needle and thread!’--‘I have broke my comb!’--‘Now ride, you flour-bags, - ride!’-- - ‘Fight for your mates and the folk at home!’--‘Here’s for the Lachlan - side!’ - Those men of the West would sneer and scoff at the gates of hell ajar, - And oft the sight of a head cut off was hailed by a yell for ‘Tar!’ - - * * * * * - - I heard the push in the Red Redoubt, irate at a luckless shot: - ‘Look out for the blooming shell, look out!’--‘Gor’ bli’ me, but that’s - red-hot!’-- - ‘It’s Bill the Slogger--poor bloke--he’s done. A chunk of the shell was his; - I wish the beggar that fired that gun could get within reach of Liz.’ - ‘Those foreign gunners will give us rats, but I wish it was Bill they - missed.’ - ‘I’d like to get at their bleeding hats with a rock in my (something) - fist.’ - - ‘Hold up, Billy; I’ll stick to you; they’ve hit you under the belt; - If we get the waddle I’ll swag you through, if the blazing mountains melt; - You remember the night when the traps got me for stoushing a bleeding - Chow, - And you went for ’em proper and laid out three, and I won’t forget it - now.’ - And, groaning and swearing, the pug replied: ‘I’m done ... they’ve - knocked - me out! - I’d fight them all for a pound a-side, from the boss to the rouseabout. - My nut is cracked and my legs is broke, and it gives me worse than hell; - I trained for a scrap with a twelve-stone bloke, and not with a bursting - shell. - You needn’t mag, for I knowed, old chum, I _knowed_, old pal, you’d stick; - But you can’t hold out till the reg’lars come, and you’d best be nowhere - quick. - They’ve got a force and a gun ashore, both of our wings is broke; - They’ll storm the ridge in a minute more, and the best you can do is - smoke.’ - - And Jim exclaimed: ‘You can smoke, you chaps, but me--Gor’ bli’ me, no! - The push that ran from the George-street traps won’t run from a foreign - foe. - I’ll stick to the gun while she makes them sick, and I’ll stick to what’s - left of Bill.’ - And they hiss through their blackened teeth: ‘We’ll stick! by the blazing - flame, we will!’ - And long years after the war was past, they told in the town and bush - How the ridge of death to the bloody last was held by a Sydney push; - How they fought to the end in a sheet of flame, how they fought with their - rifle-stocks, - And earned, in a nobler sense, the name of their ancient weapons--‘rocks.’ - - * * * * * - - In the western camps it was ever our boast, when ’twas bad for the kangaroo: - ‘If the enemy’s forces take the coast, they must take the mountains, too; - They may force their way by the western line or round by a northern track, - But they won’t run short of a decent spree with the men who are left out - back!’ - When we burst the enemy’s ironclads and won by a run of luck, - We whooped as loudly as Nelson’s lads when a French three-decker struck; - And when the enemy’s troops prevailed the truth was never heard-- - We lied like heroes who never failed explaining how that occurred. - - You bushmen sneer in the old bush way at the newchum jackeroo, - But ‘cuffs-’n’-collers’ were out that day, and they stuck to their posts - like - glue; - I never believed that a dude could fight till a Johnny led us then; - We buried his bits in the rear that night for the honour of George-street - men. - And Jim the Ringer--he fought, he did. The regiment nicknamed Jim, - ‘Old Heads a Caser’ and ‘Heads a Quid,’ but it never was ‘tails’ with him. - The way that he rode was a racing rhyme, and the way that he finished - grand; - He backed the enemy every time, and died in a hand-to-hand! - - * * * * * - - I’ll never forget when the ringer and I were first in the Bush Brigade, - With Warrego Bill, from the Live-till-you-Die, in the last grand charge we - made. - And Billy died--he was full of sand--he said, as I raised his head: - ‘I’m full of love for my native land, but a lot too full of lead. - Tell ’em,’ said Billy, ‘and tell old dad, to look after the cattle pup;’ - But his eyes grew bright, though his voice was sad, and he said, as I held - him up: - ‘I have been happy on western farms. And once, when I first went wrong, - Around my neck were the trembling arms of the girl I’d loved so long. - Far out on the southern seas I’ve sailed, and ridden where brumbies roam, - And oft, when all on the station failed, I’ve driven the outlaw home. - I’ve spent a cheque in a day and night, and I’ve made a cheque as quick; - I struck a nugget when times were tight, and the stores had stopped our - tick. - I’ve led the field on the old bay mare, and I hear the cheering still, - When mother and sister and _she_ were there, and the old man yelled for - Bill; - But, save for _her_, could I live my while again in the old bush way, - I’d give it all for the last half-mile in the race we rode to-day!’ - And he passed away as the stars came out--he died as old heroes die-- - I heard the sound of the distant rout, and the Southern Cross was high. - - - - - THE OLD JIMMY WOODSER - - - The old Jimmy Woodser comes into the bar, - Unwelcomed, unnoticed, unknown, - Too old and too odd to be drunk with, by far; - And he glides to the end where the lunch baskets are - And they say that he tipples alone. - - His frock-coat is green and the nap is no more, - And the style of his hat is at rest. - He wears the peaked collar our grandfathers wore, - The black-ribboned tie that was legal of yore, - And the coat buttoned over his breast. - - When first he came in, for a moment I thought - That my vision or wits were astray; - For a picture and page out of Dickens he brought, - ’Twas an old file dropped in from the Chancery Court - To a wine-vault just over the way. - - But I dreamed as he tasted his bitters to-night, - And the lights in the bar-room grew dim, - That the shades of the friends of that other day’s light, - And of girls that were bright in our grandfathers’ sight, - Lifted shadowy glasses to him. - - And I opened the door as the old man passed out, - With his short, shuffling step and bowed head; - And I sighed, for I felt as I turned me about, - An odd sense of respect--born of whisky no doubt-- - For the life that was fifty years dead. - - And I thought--there are times when our memory trends - Through the future, as ’twere, on its own-- - That I, out of date ere my pilgrimage ends, - In a new fashioned bar to dead loves and dead friends - Might drink like the old man alone: - While they whisper, ‘He boozes alone.’ - - - - - THE CHRIST OF THE ‘NEVER’ - - - With eyes that seem shrunken to pierce - To the awful horizons of land, - Through the haze of hot days, and the fierce - White heat-waves that flow on the sand; - Through the Never Land westward and nor’ward, - Bronzed, bearded and gaunt on the track, - Quiet-voiced and hard-knuckled, rides forward - The Christ of the Outer Out-back. - - For the cause that will ne’er be relinquished - Spite of all the great cynics on earth-- - In the ranks of the bush undistinguished - By manner or dress--if by birth-- - God’s preacher, of churches unheeded-- - God’s vineyard, though barren the sod-- - Plain spokesman where spokesman is needed-- - Rough link ’twixt the bushman and God. - - He works where the hearts of all nations - Are withered in flame from the sky, - Where the sinners work out their salvations - In a hell-upon-earth ere they die. - In the camp or the lonely hut lying - In a waste that seems out of God’s sight, - _He’s_ the doctor--the mate of the dying - Through the smothering heat of the night. - - By his work in the hells of the shearers, - Where the drinking is ghastly and grim, - Where the roughest and worst of his hearers - Have listened bareheaded to him. - By his paths through the parched desolation - Hot rides and the terrible tramps; - By the hunger, the thirst, the privation - Of his work in the furthermost camps; - - By his worth in the light that shall search men - And prove--ay! and justify each-- - I place him in front of all churchmen - Who feel not, who _know_ not--but preach! - - - - - THE CATTLE-DOG’S DEATH - - - The plains lay bare on the homeward route, - And the march was heavy on man and brute; - For the Spirit of Drouth was on all the land, - And the white heat danced on the glowing sand. - - The best of our cattle-dogs lagged at last, - His strength gave out ere the plains were passed, - And our hearts grew sad when he crept and laid - His languid limbs in the nearest shade. - - He saved our lives in the years gone by, - When no one dreamed of the danger nigh, - And the treacherous blacks in the darkness crept - On the silent camp where the drovers slept. - - ‘The dog is dying,’ a stockman said, - As he knelt and lifted the shaggy head; - ‘’Tis a long day’s march ere the run be near, - And he’s dying fast; shall we leave him here?’ - - But the super cried, ‘There’s an answer there!’ - As he raised a tuft of the dog’s grey hair; - And, strangely vivid, each man descried - The old spear-mark on the shaggy hide. - - We laid a ‘bluey’ and coat across - The camping pack of the lightest horse, - And raised the dog to his deathbed high, - And brought him far ’neath the burning sky. - - At the kindly touch of the stockmen rude - His eyes grew human with gratitude; - And though we parched in the heat that fags, - We gave him the last of the water-bags. - - The super’s daughter we knew would chide - If we left the dog in the desert wide; - So we brought him far o’er the burning sand - For a parting stroke of her small white hand. - - But long ere the station was seen ahead, - His pain was o’er, for the dog was dead; - And the folks all knew by our looks of gloom - ’Twas a comrade’s corpse that we carried home. - - - - - THE SONG OF THE DARLING RIVER - - The only national work of the blacks was a dam or dyke of stones - across the Darling River at Brewarrina. The stones they carried - from Lord knows where--and the Lord knows how. The people of Bourke - kept up navigation for months above the town by a dam of sand-bags. - The Darling rises in blazing droughts from the Queensland rains. - There are banks and beds of good clay and rock along the river. - - - 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; - The salt-springs bubble and quagmires quiver, - And--this is the dirge of the Darling River: - - ‘I rise in the drought from the Queensland rain, - I fill my branches again and again; - I hold my billabongs back in vain, - For my life and my peoples the South Seas drain; - And the land grows old and the people never - Will see the worth of the Darling River. - - ‘I drown dry gullies and lave bare hills, - I turn drought-ruts into rippling rills-- - I form fair island and glades all green - Till every bend is a sylvan scene. - I have watered the barren land ten leagues wide! - But in vain I have tried, ah! in vain I have tried - To show the sign of the Great All Giver, - The Word to a people: O! lock your river. - - ‘I want no blistering barge aground, - But racing steamers the seasons round; - I want fair homes on my lonely ways, - A people’s love and a people’s praise-- - And rosy children to dive and swim-- - And fair girls’ feet in my rippling brim; - And cool, green forests and gardens ever’-- - Oh, this is the hymn of the Darling River. - - _The sky is brass and the scrub-lands glare, - Death and ruin are everywhere; - Thrown high to bleach, or deep in the mud - The bones lie buried by last year’s flood. - And the Demons dance from the Never Never - To laugh at the rise of the Darling River._ - - - - - RAIN IN THE MOUNTAINS - - - The valley’s full of misty cloud, - Its tinted beauty drowning, - The Eucalypti roar aloud, - The mountain fronts are frowning. - - The mist is hanging like a pall - From many granite ledges, - And many a little waterfall - Starts o’er the valley’s edges. - - The sky is of a leaden grey, - Save where the north is surly, - The driven daylight speeds away, - And night comes o’er us early. - - But, love, the rain will pass full soon, - Far sooner than my sorrow, - And in a golden afternoon - The sun may set to-morrow. - - - - - A MAY NIGHT ON THE MOUNTAINS - - - ’Tis a wonderful time when these hours begin, - These long ‘small hours’ of night, - When grass is crisp, and the air is thin, - And the stars come close and bright. - The moon hangs caught in a silvery veil, - From clouds of a steely grey, - And the hard, cold blue of the sky grows pale - In the wonderful Milky Way. - - There is something wrong with this star of ours, - A mortal plank unsound, - That cannot be charged to the mighty powers - Who guide the stars around. - Though man is higher than bird or beast, - Though wisdom is still his boast, - He surely resembles Nature least, - And the things that vex her most. - - Oh, say, some muse of a larger star, - Some muse of the Universe, - If they who people those planets far - Are better than we, or worse? - Are they exempted from deaths and births, - And have they greater powers, - And greater heavens, and greater earths, - And greater Gods than ours? - - Are our lies theirs, and our truth their truth, - Are they cursed for pleasure’s sake, - Do they make their hells in their reckless youth - Ere they know what hells they make? - And do they toil through each weary hour - Till the tedious day is o’er, - For food that gives but the fleeting power - To toil and strive for more? - - - - - THE NEW CHUM JACKAROO - - - Let bushmen think as bushmen will, - And say whate’er they choose, - I hate to hear the stupid sneer - At New Chum Jackaroos. - - He may not ride as you can ride, - Or do what you can do; - But sometimes you’d seem small beside - The New Chum Jackaroo. - - His share of work he never shirks, - And through the blazing drought, - He lives the old things down, and works - His own salvation out. - - When older, wiser chums despond - He battles brave of heart-- - ’Twas he who sailed of old beyond - The margin of the chart. - - ’Twas he who proved the world was round-- - In crazy square canoes; - The lands you’re living in were found - By New Chum Jackaroos. - - He crossed the deserts hot and bare, - From barren, hungry shores-- - The plains that you would scarcely dare - With all your tanks and bores. - - He fought a way through stubborn hills - Towards the setting sun-- - Your fathers all and Burke and Wills - Were New Chums, every one. - - When England fought with all the world - In those brave days gone by, - And all its strength against her hurled, - He held her honour high. - - By Southern palms and Northern pines-- - Where’er was life to lose-- - She held her own with thin red lines - Of New Chum Jackaroos. - - Through shot and shell and solitudes, - Wherever feet have gone, - The New Chums fought while eye-glass dudes - And Johnnies led them on. - - And though he wear a foppish coat, - And these old things forget, - In stormy times I’d give a vote - For Cuffs and Collars yet. - - - - - THE DONS OF SPAIN - - - The Eagle screams at the beck of trade, so Spain, as the world goes round, - Must wrestle the right to live or die from the sons of the land she found; - For, as in the days when the buccaneer was abroad on the Spanish Main, - The national honour is one thing dear to the hearts of the Dons of Spain. - - She has slaughtered thousands with fire and sword, as the Christian world - might know; - We murder millions, but, thank the Lord! we only starve ’em slow. - The times have changed since the days of old, but the same old facts - remain-- - We fight for Freedom, and God, and Gold, and the Spaniards fight for - Spain. - - _We_ fought with the strength of the moral right, and they, as their ships - went down, - They only fought with the grit to fight and their armour to help ’em drown. - It mattered little what chance or hope, for ever their path was plain, - The Church was the Church, and the Pope the Pope--but the Spaniards fought - for Spain. - - If Providence struck for the honest thief at times in the battle’s din-- - If ever it struck at the hypocrite--well, that’s where the Turks came in; - But this remains ere we leave the wise to argue it through in vain-- - There’s something great in the wrong that dies as the Spaniards die - for Spain. - - The foes of Spain may be kin to us who are English heart and soul, - And proud of our national righteousness and proud of the lands we stole; - But we yet might pause while those brave men die and the death-drink pledge - again-- - For the sake of the past, if you’re doomed, say I, may your death be a - grand one, Spain! - - Then here’s to the bravest of Freedom’s foes who ever with death have - stood-- - For the sake of the courage to die on steel as their fathers died on wood; - And here’s a cheer for the flag unfurled in a hopeless cause again, - For the sake of the days when the Christian world was saved by the Dons of - Spain. - - - - - THE BURSTING OF THE BOOM - - - The shipping-office clerks are ‘short,’ the manager is gruff-- - ‘They cannot make reductions,’ and ‘the fares are low enough.’ - They ship us West with cattle, and we go like cattle too; - And fight like dogs three times a day for what we get to chew.... - We’ll have the pick of empty bunks and lots of stretching room, - And go for next to nothing at the Bursting of the Boom. - - So wait till the Boom bursts!--we’ll all get a show: - Then when the Boom bursts is our time to go. - We’ll meet ’em coming back in shoals, with looks of deepest gloom, - But we’re the sort that battle through at the Bursting of the Boom. - - The captain’s easy-going when Fremantle comes in sight; - He can’t say when you’ll get ashore--‘perhaps to-morrow night;’ - Your coins are few, the charges high; you must not linger here-- - You’ll get your boxes from the hold ‘when she’s ’longside the pier.’ ... - The launch will foul the gangway, and the trembling bulwarks loom - Above a fleet of harbour craft--at the Bursting of the Boom. - - So wait till the Boom bursts!--we’ll all get a show; - He’ll ‘take you for a bob, sir,’ and where you want to go. - He’ll ‘take the big portmanteau, sir, if he might so presume’-- - You needn’t hump your luggage at the Bursting of the Boom. - - It’s loafers--Customs-loafers--and you pay and pay again; - They hinder you and cheat you from the gangway to the train; - The pubs and restaurants are full--they haven’t room for more; - They charge us each three shillings for a shakedown on the floor; - But, ‘Show this gentleman upstairs--the first front parlour room. - _We’ll_ see about your luggage, sir’--at the Bursting of the Boom. - - So wait till the Boom bursts!--we’ll all get a show; - And wait till the Boom bursts, and swear mighty low. - ‘We mostly charge a pound a week. How do you like the room?’ - And ‘Show this gentleman the bath’--at the Bursting of the Boom. - - I go down to the timber-yard (I cannot face the rent) - To get some strips of oregon to frame my hessian tent; - To buy some scraps of lumber for a table or a shelf: - The boss comes up and says I might just look round for myself; - The foreman grunts and turns away as silent as the tomb-- - The boss himself will wait on me at the Bursting of the Boom. - - So wait till the Boom bursts!--we’ll all get a load. - ‘You had better take those scraps, sir, they’re only in the road.’ - ‘Now, where the hell’s the carter?’ you’ll hear the foreman fume; - And, ‘Take that timber round at once!’ at the Bursting of the Boom. - - Each one-a-penny grocer, in his box of board and tin, - Will think it condescending to consent to take you in; - And not content with twice as much as what is just and right, - They charge and cheat you doubly, for the Boom is at its height. - It’s ‘Take it now or leave it now;’ ‘your money or your room;’-- - But ‘Who’s attending Mr. Brown?’ at the Bursting of the Boom. - - So wait till the Boom bursts!--and take what you can get, - ‘There’s not the slightest hurry, and your bill ain’t ready yet.’ - They’ll call and get your orders until the crack o’ doom, - And send them round directly, at the Bursting of the Boom. - - * * * * * - - No Country and no Brotherhood--such things are dead and cold; - A camp from all the lands or none, all mad for love of gold; - Where T’othersider number one makes slave of number two, - And the vilest women of the world the vilest ways pursue; - And men go out and slave and bake and die in agony - In western hells that God forgot, where never man should be. - I feel a prophet in my heart that speaks the one word ‘Doom!’ - And aye you’ll hear the Devil laugh at the Bursting of the Boom. - - - - - ANTONY VILLA - -_A Ballad of Ninety-three_ - - - Over there, above the jetty, stands the mansion of the Vardens, - With a tennis ground and terrace, and a flagstaff in the gardens: - They are gentlemen and ladies--they’ve been ‘toffs’ for generations, - But old Varden’s been unlucky--lost a lot in speculations. - - Troubles gathered fast upon him when the mining bubble ‘busted,’ - Then the bank suspended payment, where his little all he trusted; - And the butcher and the baker sent their bills in when they read it, - Even John, the Chow that served him, has refused to give him ‘cledit.’ - - And the daughters of the Vardens--they are beautiful as Graces-- - But the balcony’s deserted, and they rarely show their faces; - And the swells of their acquaintance never seem to venture near them, - And the bailiff says they seldom have a cup of tea to cheer them. - - They were butterflies--I always was a common caterpillar, - But I’m sorry for the ladies over there in ’Tony Villa, - Shut up there in ’Tony Villa with the bailiff and their trouble; - And the dried-up reservoir, where my tears were seems to bubble. - - Mrs. Rooney thinks it nothing when she sends a brat to ‘borry’ - Just a pinch of tea and sugar till the grocer comes temorry;’ - But it’s dif’rent with the Vardens--they would starve to death as soon as - Knuckle down. You know, they weren’t raised exactly like the Rooneys! - - * * * * * - - There is gossip in the ‘boxes’ and the drawing-rooms and gardens-- - ‘Have you heard of Varden’s failure? Have you heard about the Vardens?’ - And no doubt each toney mother on the Point across the water’s - Mighty glad about the downfall of the rivals of her daughters. - - (Tho’ the poets and the writers say that man to man’s inhuman, - I’m inclined to think it’s nothing to what woman is to woman, - More especially, the ladies, save perhaps a fellow’s mother; - And I think that men are better--they are kinder to each other.) - - * * * * * - - There’s a youngster by the jetty gathering cinders from the ashes, - He was known as ‘Master Varden’ ere the great financial crashes. - And his manner shows the dif’rence ’twixt the nurs’ry and gutter-- - But I’ve seen him at the grocer’s buying half a pound of butter. - - And his mother fights her trouble in the house across the water, - She is just as proud as Varden, though she was a ‘cocky’s’ daughter; - And at times I think I see her with the flick’ring firelight o’er her, - Sitting pale and straight and quiet, gazing vacantly before her. - - There’s a slight and girlish figure--Varden’s youngest daughter, Nettie-- - On the terrace after sunset, when the boat is near the jetty; - She is good and pure and pretty, and her rivals don’t deny it, - Though they say that Nettie Varden takes in sewing on the quiet. - - (How her sister graced the ‘circle,’ all unconscious of a lover - In the seedy ‘god’ who watched her from the gallery above her! - Shade of Poverty was on him, and the light of Wealth upon her, - But perhaps he loved her better than the swells attending on her.) - - * * * * * - - There’s a white man’s heart in Varden, spite of all the blue blood in him, - There are working men who wouldn’t stand and hear a word agin’ him; - But his name was never printed by the side of his ‘donations,’ - Save on hearts that have--in this world--very humble circulations. - - He was never stiff or hoggish--he was affable and jolly, - And he’d always say ‘Good morning’ to the deck hand on the ‘Polly;’ - He would ‘barrack’ with the newsboys on the Quay across the ferry, - And he’d very often tip ’em coming home a trifle merry. - - But his chin is getting higher, and his features daily harden - (He will not ‘give up possession’--there’s a lot of fight in Varden); - And the way he steps the gangway! oh, you couldn’t but admire it! - Just as proud as ever hero walked the plank aboard a pirate! - - He will think about the hardships that his girls were never ‘useter,’ - And it must be mighty heavy on the thoroughbred old rooster; - But he’ll never strike his colours, and I tell a lying tale if - Varden’s pride don’t kill him sooner than the bankers or the bailiff. - - You remember when we often had to go without our dinners, - In the days when Pride and Hunger fought a finish out within us; - And how Pride would come up groggy--Hunger whooping loud and louder-- - And the swells are proud as we are; they are just as proud--and prouder. - - Yes, the toffs have grit, in spite of all our sneering and our scorning-- - What’s the crowd? What’s that? God help us!-- Varden shot himself this - morning!... - There’ll be gossip in the ‘circle,’ in the drawing-rooms and gardens; - But I’m sorry for the family; yes--I’m sorry for the Vardens. - - - - - SECOND CLASS WAIT HERE - - - On suburban railway stations--you may see them as you pass-- - There are signboards on the platforms saying, ‘Wait here second class;’ - And to me the whirr and thunder and the cluck of running gear - Seem to be for ever saying, saying ‘Second class wait here’-- - ‘Wait here second class, - Second class wait here.’ - Seem to be for ever saying, saying ‘Second class wait here.’ - - And the second class were waiting in the days of serf and prince, - And the second class are waiting--they’ve been waiting ever since. - There are gardens in the background, and the line is bare and drear, - Yet they wait beneath a signboard, sneering ‘Second class wait here.’ - - I have waited oft in winter, in the mornings dark and damp, - When the asphalt platform glistened underneath the lonely lamp. - Ghastly on the brick-faced cutting ‘Sellum’s Soap’ and ‘Blower’s Beer;’ - Ghastly on enamelled signboards with their ‘Second class wait here.’ - - And the others seemed like burglars, slouched and muffled to the throats, - Standing round apart and silent in their shoddy overcoats, - And the wind among the wires, and the poplars bleak and bare, - Seemed to be for ever snarling, snarling ‘Second class wait there.’ - - Out beyond the further suburb, ’neath a chimney stack alone, - Lay the works of Grinder Brothers, with a platform of their own; - And I waited there and suffered, waited there for many a year, - Slaved beneath a phantom signboard, telling our class to wait here. - - Ah! a man must feel revengeful for a boyhood such as mine. - God! I hate the very houses near the workshop by the line; - And the smell of railway stations, and the roar of running gear, - And the scornful-seeming signboards, saying ‘Second class wait here.’ - - There’s a train with Death for driver, which is ever going past, - And there are no class compartments, and we all must go at last - To the long white jasper platform with an Eden in the rear; - And there won’t be any signboards, saying ‘Second class wait here.’ - - - - - THE SHIPS THAT WON’T GO DOWN - - - We hear a great commotion - ’Bout the ship that comes to grief, - That founders in mid-ocean, - Or is driven on a reef; - Because it’s cheap and brittle - A score of sinners drown. - But we hear but mighty little - Of the ships that won’t go down. - - Here’s honour to the builders-- - The builders of the past; - Here’s honour to the builders - That builded ships to last; - Here’s honour to the captain, - And honour to the crew; - Here’s double-column head-lines - To the ships that battle through. - - They make a great sensation - About famous men that fail, - That sink a world of chances - In the city morgue or gaol, - Who drink, or blow their brains out, - Because of ‘Fortune’s frown.’ - But we hear far too little - Of the men who won’t go down. - - The world is full of trouble, - And the world is full of wrong, - But the heart of man is noble, - And the heart of man is strong! - They say the sea sings dirges, - But I would say to you - That the wild wave’s song’s a pæan - For the men that battle through. - - - - - THE MEN WE MIGHT HAVE BEEN - - - 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-- - They ne’er forget to show me - The man I might have been. - - He’s rich and independent, - Or rising fast to fame; - His bright star is ascendant, - The country knows his name; - His houses and his gardens - Are splendid to be seen; - His fault the wise world pardons-- - The man I might have been. - - His fame and fortune haunt me; - His virtues wave me back; - His name and prestige daunt me - When I would take the track; - But you, my friend true-hearted-- - God keep our friendship green!-- - You know how I was parted - From all I might have been. - - But what avails the ache of - Remorse or weak regret? - We’ll battle for the sake of - The men we might be yet! - We’ll strive to keep in sight of - The brave, the true, and clean, - And triumph yet in spite of - The men we might have been. - - - - - THE WAY OF THE WORLD - - - When fairer faces turn from me, - And gayer friends grow cold, - And I have lost through poverty - The friendship bought, with gold; - When I have served the selfish turn - Of some all-worldly few, - And Folly’s lamps have ceased to burn, - Then I’ll come back to you. - - When my admirers find I’m not - The rising star they thought, - And praise or blame is all forgot - My early promise brought; - When brighter rivals lead a host - Where once I led a few, - And kinder times reward their boast, - Then I’ll come back to you. - - You loved me, not for what I had - Or what I might have been. - You saw the good, but not the bad, - Was kind, for that between. - I know that you’ll forgive again-- - That you will judge me true; - I’ll be too tired to explain - When I come back to you. - - - - - THE BATTLING DAYS - - - So, sit you down in a straight-backed chair, with your pipe and your wife - content, - And cross your knees with your wisest air, and preach of the ‘days - mis-spent;’ - Grown fat and moral apace, old man! you prate of the change ‘since then’-- - In spite of all, I’d as lief be back in those hard old days again. - - They were hard old days; they were battling days; they were cruel at - times--but - then, - In spite of all, I would rather be back in those hard old days again. - The land was barren to sow wild oats in the days when we sowed our own-- - (‘Twas little we thought or our friends believed that ours would ever - be sown) - But the wild oats wave on their stormy path, and they speak of the hearts - of men-- - I would sow a crop if I had my time in those hard old days again. - - We travel first, or we go saloon--on the planned-out trips we go, - With those who are neither rich nor poor, and we find that the life - is slow; - It’s ‘a pleasant trip’ where they cried, ‘Good luck!’ - There was fun in the steerage then-- - In spite of all, I would fain be back in those vagabond days again. - - On Saturday night we’ve a pound to spare--a pound for a trip down town-- - We took more joy in those hard old days for a hardly spared half-crown; - We took more pride in the pants we patched than the suits we have had since - then-- - In spite of all, I would rather be back in those comical days again. - - ’Twas We and the World--and the rest go hang--as the Outside tracks we trod; - Each thought of himself as a man and mate, and not as a martyred god; - The world goes wrong when your heart is strong--and this is the way - with men-- - The world goes right when your liver is white, and you preach of the change - ‘since then.’ - - They were hard old days; they were battling days; they were cruel times--but - then, - In spite of all, we shall live to-night in those hard old days again. - - - - - WRITTEN AFTERWARDS - - - So the days of my tramping are over, - And the days of my riding are done-- - I’m about as content as a rover - Will ever be under the sun; - I write, after reading your letter-- - My pipe with old memories rife-- - And I feel in a mood that had better - Not meet the true eyes of the wife. - - You must never admit a suggestion - That old things are good to recall; - You must never consider the question: - ‘Was I happier then, after all?’ - You must banish the old hope and sorrow - That make the sad pleasures of life, - You must live for To-day and To-morrow - If you want to be just to the wife. - - I have changed since the first day I kissed her. - Which is due--Heaven bless her!--to her; - I’m respected and trusted--I’m ‘Mister,’ - Addressed by the children as ‘Sir.’ - And I feel the respect without feigning-- - But you’d laugh the great laugh of your life - If you only saw me entertaining - An old lady friend of the wife. - - By-the-way, when you’re writing, remember - That you never went drinking with me, - And forget our last night of December, - Lest our sev’ral accounts disagree. - And, for my sake, old man, you had better - Avoid the old language of strife, - For the technical terms of your letter - May be misunderstood by the wife. - - Never hint of the girls appertaining - To the past (when you’re writing again), - For they take such a lot of explaining, - And you know how I hate to explain. - There are some things, we know to our sorrow, - That cut to the heart like a knife, - And your past is To-day and To-morrow - If you want to be true to the wife. - - I believe that the creed we were chums in - Was grand, but too abstract and bold, - And the knowledge of life only comes in - When you’re married and fathered and old. - And it’s well. You may travel as few men, - You may stick to a mistress for life; - But the world, as it is, born of woman - Must be seen through the eyes of the wife. - - No doubt you are dreaming as _I_ did - And going the careless old pace, - While my future grows dull and decided, - And the world narrows down to the Place. - Let it be. If my ‘treason’s’ resented, - _You_ may do worse, old man, in your life; - Let me dream, too, that I am contented-- - For the sake of a true little wife. - - - - - THE UNCULTURED RHYMER TO HIS CULTURED CRITICS - - - Fight through ignorance, want, and care-- - Through the griefs that crush the spirit; - Push your way to a fortune fair, - And the smiles of the world you’ll merit. - Long, as a boy, for the chance to learn-- - For the chance that Fate denies you; - Win degrees where the Life-lights burn, - And scores will teach and advise you. - - My cultured friends! you have come too late - With your bypath nicely graded; - I’ve fought thus far on my track of Fate, - And I’ll follow the rest unaided. - Must I be stopped by a college gate - On the track of Life encroaching? - Be dumb to Love, and be dumb to Hate, - For the lack of a college coaching? - - You grope for Truth in a language dead-- - In the dust ’neath tower and steeple! - What know you of the tracks we tread? - And what know you of our people? - ‘I must read this, and that, and the rest,’ - And write as the cult expects me?-- - I’ll read the book that may please me best, - And write as my heart directs me! - - You were quick to pick on a faulty line - That I strove to put my soul in: - Your eyes were keen for a ‘dash’ of mine - In the place of a semi-colon-- - And blind to the rest. And is it for such - As you I must brook restriction? - ‘I was taught too little?’ I learnt too much - To care for a pedant’s diction! - - Must I turn aside from my destined way - For a task your Joss would find me? - I come with strength of the living day, - And with half the world behind me; - I leave you alone in your cultured halls - To drivel and croak and cavil: - Till your voice goes further than college walls, - Keep out of the tracks we travel! - - - - - THE WRITER’S DREAM - - - A writer wrote of the hearts of men, and he followed their tracks afar; - For his was a spirit that forced his pen to write of the things that are. - His heart grew tired of the truths he told, for his life was hard and grim; - His land seemed barren, its people cold--yet the world was dear to him;-- - So he sailed away from the Streets of Strife, he travelled by land and sea, - In search of a people who lived a life as life in the world should be. - - And he reached a spot where the scene was fair, with forest and field and - wood, - And all things came with the seasons there, and each of its kind was good; - There were mountain-rivers and peaks of snow, there were lights of green and - gold, - And echoing caves in the cliffs below, where a world-wide ocean rolled. - The lives of men from the wear of Change and the strife of the world were - free-- - For Steam was barred by the mountain-range and the rocks of the Open Sea. - - And the last that were born of a noble race--when the page of the South was - fair-- - The last of the conquered dwelt in peace with the last of the victors there. - He saw their hearts with the author’s eyes who had written their ancient - lore, - And he saw their lives as he’d dreamed of such--ah! many a year before. - And ‘I’ll write a book of these simple folk ere I to the world return, - ‘And the cold who read shall be kind for these--and the wise who read shall - learn. - - ‘Never again in a song of mine shall a jarring note be heard: - ‘Never again shall a page or line be marred by a bitter word; - ‘But love and laughter and kindly hours will the book I’ll write recall, - ‘With chastening tears for the loss of one, and sighs for their sorrows - all. - ‘Old eyes will light with a kindly smile, and the young eyes dance with - glee-- - ‘And the heart of the cynic will rest awhile for my simple folk and me.’ - - The lines ran on as he dipped his pen--ran true to his heart and ear-- - Like the brighter pages of memory when every line is clear. - The pictures came and the pictures passed, like days of love and light-- - He saw his chapters from first to last, and he thought it grand to write. - And the writer kissed his girlish wife, and he kissed her twice for pride: - ‘’Tis a book of love, though a book of life! and a book _you’ll_ read!’ he - cried. - - He was blind at first to each senseless slight (for shabby and poor he came) - From local ‘Fashion’ and mortgaged pride that scarce could sign its name. - What dreamer would dream of such paltry pride in a scene so fresh and fair? - But the local spirit intensified--with its pitiful shams--was there; - There were cliques wherever two houses stood (no rest for a family ghost!) - They hated each other as women could--but they hated the stranger most. - - The writer wrote by day and night and he cried in the face of Fate-- - I’ll cleave to my dream of life in spite of the cynical ghosts that wait. - ‘’Tis the shyness born of their simple lives,’ he said to the paltry pride-- - (The homely tongues of the simple wives ne’er erred on the generous side)-- - ‘They’ll prove me true and they’ll prove me kind ere the year of grace be - passed,’ - But the ignorant whisper of ‘axe to grind!’ went home to his heart at last. - - The writer sat by his drift-wood fire three nights of the South-east gale, - His pen lay idle on pages vain, for his book was a fairy tale. - The world-wise lines of an elder age were plain on his aching brow, - As he sadly thought of each brighter page that would never be written now. - ‘I’ll write no more!’ But he bowed his head, for his heart was in Dreamland - yet-- - ‘The pages written I’ll burn,’ he said, ‘and the pages thought forget.’ - - But he heard the hymn of the Open Sea, and the old fierce anger burned, - And he wrenched his heart from its dreamland free as the fire of his youth - returned:-- - ‘The weak man’s madness, the strong man’s scorn--the rebellious hate - of youth - From a deeper love of the world are born! And the cynical ghost is Truth!’ - And the writer rose with a strength anew wherein Doubt could have no part; - ‘I’ll write my book and it _shall_ be true--the truth of a writer’s heart. - - ‘Ay! cover the wrong with a fairy tale--who never knew want or care-- - A bright green scum on a stagnant pool that will reek the longer there. - You may starve the writer and buy the pen--you may drive it with want and - fear-- - But the lines run false in the hearts of men--and false to the writer’s ear. - The bard’s a rebel and strife his part, and he’ll burst from his bonds anew, - Till all pens write from a single heart! And so may the dream come true. - - * * * * * - - ‘’Tis ever the same in the paths of men where money and dress are all, - The crawler will bully whene’er he can, and the bully who can’t will crawl. - And this is the creed in the local hole, where the souls of the selfish - rule; - Borrow and cheat while the stranger’s green, then sneer at the simple fool. - Spit your spite at the men whom Fate has placed in the head-race first, - And hate till death, with a senseless hate, the man you have injured worst! - - ‘There are generous hearts in the grinding street, but the Hearts of the - World - go west; - For the men who toil in the dust and heat of the barren lands are best! - ‘The stranger’s hand to the stranger, yet--for a roving folk are mine-- - ‘The stranger’s store for the stranger set--and the camp-fire glow the sign! - ‘The generous hearts of the world, we find, thrive best on the barren sod, - ‘And the selfish thrive where Nature’s kind (they’d bully or crawl to God!) - - ‘I was born to write of the things that are! and the strength was given to - me; - ‘I was born to strike at the things that mar the world as the world should - be! - ‘By the dumb heart-hunger and dreams of youth, by the hungry tracks I’ve - trod-- - ‘I’ll fight as a man for the sake of truth, nor pose as a martyred god. - ‘By the heart of “Bill” and the heart of “Jim,” and the men that _their_ - hearts - deem “white,” - ‘By the handgrips fierce, and the hard eyes dim with forbidden - tears!--I’ll write! - - ‘I’ll write untroubled by cultured fools, or the dense that fume and fret-- - ‘For against the wisdom of all their schools I would stake mine instinct - yet! - For the cynical strain in the writer’s song is the _world_, not _he_, - to blame, - And I’ll write as I think, in the knowledge strong that thousands think the - same; - And the men who fight in the Dry Country grim battles by day, by night, - Will believe in me, and will stand by me, and will say to the world, “He’s - right!”’ - - - - - THE JOLLY DEAD MARCH - - - If I ever be worthy or famous-- - Which I’m sadly beginning to doubt-- - When the angel whose place ’tis to name us - Shall say to my spirit, ‘Pass out!’ - I wish for no sniv’lling about me - (My work was the work of the land), - But I hope that my country will shout me - The price of a decent brass band. - - Thump! thump! of the drum and ‘Ta-ra-rit,’ - Thump! thump! and the music--it’s grand, - If only in dreams, or in spirit, - To ride or march after the band! - And myself and my mourners go straying, - And strolling and drifting along - With a band in the front of us playing - The tune of an old battle song! - - I ask for no ‘turn-out’ to bear me; - I ask not for railings or slabs, - And spare me! my country--oh, spare me! - The hearse and the long string of cabs! - I ask not the baton or ‘starts’ of - The bore with the musical ear, - But the music that’s blown from the hearts of - The men who work hard and drink beer. - - And let ’em strike up ‘Annie Laurie,’ - And let them burst out with ‘Lang Syne’-- - Twin voices of sadness and glory, - That have ever been likings of mine. - And give the French war-hymn deep-throated - The Watch of the Germans between, - And let the last mile be devoted - To ‘Britannia’ and ‘Wearing the Green.’ - - And if, in the end--more’s the pity-- - There is fame more than money to spare-- - There’s a van-man I know in the city - Who’ll convey me, right side up with care. - True sons of Australia, and noble, - Have gone from the long dusty way, - While the sole mourner fought down his trouble - With his pipe on the shaft of the dray. - But let them strike up ‘Annie Laurie,’ &c. - - And my spirit will join the procession-- - Will pause, if it may, on the brink-- - Nor feel the least shade of depression - When the mourners drop out for a drink; - It may be a hot day in December, - Or a cold day in June it may be, - And the drink will but help them remember - The good points the world missed in me. - And help ’em to love ‘Annie Laurie,’ - And help ’em to raise ‘Auld Lang Syne,’ &c. - - ‘Unhook the West Port’ for an orphan, - An old digger chorus revive-- - If you don’t hear a whoop from the coffin, - I am _not_ being buried alive. - But I’ll go with a spirit less bitter - Than mine own on the earth may have been, - And, perhaps, to save trouble, Saint Peter - Will pass me, two comrades between. - - And let them strike up ‘Annie Laurie,’ - And let ’em burst out with ‘Lang Syne,’ - Twin voices of sadness and glory - That have ever been likings of mine. - Let them swell the French war-hymn deep-throated - (And I’ll not buck at ‘God Save the Queen’), - But let the last mile be devoted - To ‘Britannia’ and ‘Wearing the Green.’ - - _Thump! thump! of the drums we inherit_-- - War-drums of my dreams! Oh it’s grand, - If only in fancy or spirit, - To ride or march after a band! - And we, the World-Battlers, go straying - And loving and laughing along-- - With Hope in the lead of us playing - The tune of a life-battle song! - - - - - MY LITERARY FRIEND - - - 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; - ‘The ideas are good,’ he muttered, ‘but the rhythm seems to halt.’ - - So I straighten’d up the rhythm where he marked it with his pen, - And I copied it and showed it to my clever friend again. - ‘You’ve improved the metre greatly, but the rhymes are bad,’ he said, - As he read it slowly, scratching surplus wisdom from his head. - - So I worked as he suggested (I believe in taking time), - And I burnt the ‘midnight taper’ while I straightened up the rhyme. - ‘It is better now,’ he muttered, ‘you go on and you’ll succeed, - It has got a ring about it--the ideas are what you need.’ - - So I worked for hours upon it (I go on when I commence), - And I kept in view the rhythm and the jingle and the sense, - And I copied it and took it to my solemn friend once more-- - It reminded him of something he had somewhere read before. - - * * * * * - - Now the people say I’d never put such horrors into print - If I wasn’t too conceited to accept a friendly hint, - And my dearest friends are certain that I’d profit in the end - If I’d always show my copy to a literary friend. - - - - - MARY CALLED HIM ‘MISTER’ - - - They’d parted but a year before--she never thought he’d come, - She stammer’d, blushed, held out her hand, and called him ‘_Mister_ Gum.’ - How could he know that all the while she longed to murmur ‘John.’ - He called her ‘Miss le Brook,’ and asked how she was getting on. - - They’d parted but a year before; they’d loved each other well, - But he’d been to the city, and he came back _such_ a swell. - They longed to meet in fond embrace, they hungered for a kiss-- - But Mary called him ‘Mister,’ and the idiot called her ‘Miss.’ - - He stood and lean’d against the door--a stupid chap was he-- - And, when she asked if he’d come in and have a cup of tea, - He looked to left, he looked to right, and then he glanced behind, - And slowly doffed his cabbage-tree, and said he ‘didn’t mind.’ - - She made a shy apology because the meat was tough, - And then she asked if he was sure his tea was sweet enough; - He stirred the tea and sipped it twice, and answer’d ‘plenty, quite;’ - And cut the smallest piece of beef and said that it was ‘right.’ - - She glanced at him at times and cough’d an awkward little cough; - He stared at anything but her and said, ‘I must be off.’ - That evening he went riding north--a sad and lonely ride-- - She locked herself inside her room, and there sat down and cried. - - They’d parted but a year before, they loved each other well-- - But she was such a country girl and he was such a swell; - They longed to meet in fond embrace, they hungered for a kiss-- - But Mary called him ‘Mister’ and the idiot called her ‘Miss.’ - - - - - REJECTED - - - She says she’s very sorry, as she sees you to the gate; - You calmly say ‘Good-bye’ to her while standing off a yard, - Then you lift your hat and leave her, walking mighty stiff and straight-- - But you’re hit, old man--hit hard. - - In your brain the words are burning of the answer that she gave, - As you turn the nearest corner and you stagger just a bit; - But you pull yourself together, for a man’s strong heart is brave - When it’s hit, old man--hard hit. - - You might try to drown the sorrow, but the drink has no effect; - You cannot stand the barmaid with her coarse and vulgar wit; - And so you seek the street again, and start for home direct, - When you’re hit, old man--hard hit. - - You see the face of her you lost, the pity in her smile-- - Ah! she is to the barmaid as is snow to chimney grit; - You’re a better man and nobler in your sorrow, for a while, - When you’re hit, old man--hard hit. - - And, arriving at your lodgings, with a face of deepest gloom, - You shun the other boarders and your manly brow you knit; - You take a light and go upstairs directly to your room-- - But the whole house knows you’re hit. - - You clutch the scarf and collar, and you tear them from your throat, - You rip your waistcoat open like a fellow in a fit; - And you fling them in a corner with the made-to-order coat, - When you’re hit, old man--hard hit. - - You throw yourself, despairing, on your narrow little bed, - Or pace the room till someone starts with ‘Skit! cat!--skit!’ - And then lie blindly staring at the plaster overhead-- - You are hit, old man--hard hit. - - It’s doubtful whether vanity or love has suffered worst, - So neatly in our nature are those feelings interknit, - Your heart keeps swelling up so bad, you wish that it would burst, - When you’re hit, old man--hard hit. - - You think and think, and think, and think, till you go mad almost; - Across your sight the spectres of the bygone seem to flit; - The very girl herself seems dead, and comes back as a ghost, - When you’re hit, like this--hard hit. - - You know that it’s all over--you’re an older man by years, - In the future not a twinkle, in your black sky not a split. - Ah! you’ll think it well that women have the privilege of tears, - When you’re hit, old man--hard hit. - - You long and hope for nothing but the rest that sleep can bring, - And you find that in the morning things have brightened up a bit; - But you’re dull for many evenings, with a cracked heart in a sling, - When you’re hit, old man--hard hit. - - - - - O’HARA, J.P. - - - James Patrick O’Hara, the Justice of Peace, - He bossed the P.M. and he bossed the police; - A parent, a deacon, a landlord was he-- - A townsman of weight was O’Hara, J.P. - - He gave out the prizes, foundation-stones laid, - He shone when the Governor’s visit was paid; - And twice re-elected as Mayor was he-- - The flies couldn’t roost on O’Hara, J.P. - - Now Sandy M‘Fly, of the Axe-and-the-Saw, - Was charged with a breach of the licensing law-- - He sold after hours whilst talking too free - On matters concerning O’Hara, J.P. - - And each contradicted the next witness flat, - Concerning back parlours, side-doors, and all that; - ’Twas very conflicting, as all must agree-- - Ye’d betther take care!’ said O’Hara, J.P. - - But ‘Baby,’ the barmaid, her evidence gave-- - A poor, timid darling who tried to be brave-- - ‘Now, _don’t_ be afraid--if it’s frightened ye be-- - Speak out, my good girl,’ said O’Hara, J.P. - - Her hair was so golden, her eyes were so blue, - Her face was so fair and her words seemed so true-- - So green in the ways of sweet women was he - That she jolted the heart of O’Hara, J.P. - - He turned to the other grave Justice of Peace, - And whispered, ‘You can’t always trust the police; - ‘_I’ll visit the premises during the day, - And see for myself_,’ said O’Hara, Jay Pay. - (_Case postponed._) - - * * * * * - - ’Twas early next morning, or late the same night-- - ‘’Twas early next morning’ we think would be right-- - And sounds that betokened a breach of the law - Escaped through the cracks of the Axe-and-the-Saw. - - And Constable Dogherty, out in the street, - Met Constable Clancy a bit off his beat; - He took him with finger and thumb by the ear, - And led him around to a lane in the rear. - - He pointed a blind where strange shadows were seen-- - Wild pantomime hinting of revels within-- - ‘We’ll drop on M‘Fly, if you’ll listen to me, - And prove we are right to O’Hara, J.P.’ - - But Clancy was up to the lay of the land, - He cautiously shaded his mouth with his hand-- - ‘Wisht, man! Howld yer whisht! or it’s ruined we’ll be, - It’s the justice himself--it’s O’Hara, J.P.’ - - They hish’d and they whishted, and turned themselves round, - And got themselves off like two cats on wet ground; - Agreeing to be, on their honour as men, - A deaf-dumb-and-blind institution just then. - - Inside on a sofa, two barmaids between, - With one on his knee was a gentleman seen; - And any chance eye at the keyhole could see - In less than a wink ’twas O’Hara, J.P. - - The first in the chorus of songs that were sung, - The loudest that laughed at the jokes that were sprung, - The guest of the evening, the soul of the spree-- - The daddy of all was O’Hara, J.P. - - And hard-cases chuckled, and hard-cases said - That Baby and Alice conveyed him to bed-- - In subsequent storms it was painful to see - Those hard-cases side with the sinful J.P. - - Next day, in the court, when the case came in sight, - O’Hara declared he was satisfied quite; - The case was dismissed--it was destined to be - The final ukase of O’Hara, J.P. - - The law and religion came down on him first-- - The Christian was hard but his wife was the worst! - Half ruined and half driven crazy was he-- - It made an old man of O’Hara, J.P. - - Now, young men who come from the bush, do you hear? - Who know not the power of barmaids and beer-- - _Don’t see for yourself!_ from temptation steer free, - Remember the fall of O’Hara, J.P. - - - - - BILL AND JIM FALL OUT - - - Bill and Jim are mates no longer--they would scorn the name of mate-- - Those two bushmen hate each other with a soul-consuming hate; - Yet erstwhile they were as brothers should be (tho’ they never will): - Ne’er were mates to one another half so true as Jim and Bill. - - Bill was one of those who have to argue every day or die-- - Though, of course, he swore ’twas Jim who always itched to argufy. - They would, on most abstract subjects, contradict each other flat - And at times in lurid language--they were mates in spite of that. - - Bill believed the Bible story _re_ the origin of him-- - He was sober, he was steady, he was orthodox; while Jim, - Who, we grieve to state, was always getting into drunken scrapes, - Held that man degenerated from degenerated apes. - - Bill was British to the backbone, he was loyal through and through; - Jim declared that Blucher’s Prussians won the fight at Waterloo, - And he hoped the coloured races would in time wipe out the white-- - And it rather strained their mateship, but it didn’t burst it quite. - - They battled round in Maoriland--they saw it through and through-- - And argued on the rata, what it was and how it grew; - Bill believed the vine grew downward, Jim declared that it grew up-- - Yet they always shared their fortunes to the final bite and sup. - Night after night they argued how the kangaroo was born, - And each one held the other’s stupid theories in scorn, - Bill believed it was ‘born inside,’ Jim declared it was born out-- - Each as to his own opinions never had the slightest doubt. - They left the earth to argue and they went among the stars, - _Re_ conditions atmospheric, Bill believed ‘the hair of Mars - Was too thin for human bein’s to exist in mortal states.’ - Jim declared it was too thick, if anything--yet they were mates - Bill for Freetrade--Jim, Protection--argued as to which was best - For the welfare of the workers--and their mateship stood the test! - They argued over what they meant and didn’t mean at all, - And what they said and didn’t--and were mates in spite of all. - Till one night _the two together_ tried to light a fire in camp, - When they had a leaky billy and the wood was scarce and damp. - And ... No matter: let the moral be distinctly understood: - _One_ alone should tend the fire, while the other brings the wood. - - - - - THE PAROO - - - It was a week from Christmas-time, - As near as I remember, - And half a year since in the rear - We’d left the Darling Timber. - The track was hot and more than drear; - The long day seemed forever; - But now we knew that we were near - Our camp--the Paroo River. - - With blighted eyes and blistered feet, - With stomachs out of order, - Half mad with flies and dust and heat - We’d crossed the Queensland Border. - I longed to hear a stream go by - And see the circles quiver; - I longed to lay me down and die - That night on Paroo River. - - ’Tis said the land out West is grand-- - I do not care who says it-- - It isn’t even decent scrub, - Nor yet an honest desert; - It’s plagued with flies, and broiling hot, - A curse is on it ever; - I really think that God forgot - The country round that river. - - My mate--a native of the land-- - In fiery speech and vulgar, - Condemned the flies and cursed the sand, - And doubly damned the mulga. - He peered ahead, he peered about-- - A bushman he, and clever-- - ‘Now mind you keep a sharp look-out; - ‘We must be near the river.’ - - The ‘nose-bags’ heavy on each chest - (God bless one kindly squatter!) - With grateful weight our hearts they pressed-- - We only wanted water. - The sun was setting (in the west) - In colour like a liver-- - We’d fondly hoped to camp and rest - That night on Paroo River. - - A cloud was on my mate’s broad brow, - And once I heard him mutter: - ‘I’d like to see the Darling now, - ‘God bless the Grand Old Gutter!’ - And now and then he stopped and said - In tones that made me shiver-- - ‘It cannot well be on ahead, - ‘_I think we’ve crossed the river._’ - - But soon we saw a strip of ground - That crossed the track we followed-- - No barer than the surface round, - But just a little hollowed. - His brows assumed a thoughtful frown-- - This speech he did deliver: - ‘I wonder if we’d best go down - ‘Or up the blessed river?’ - - ‘But where,’ said I, ‘’s the blooming stream?’ - And he replied, ‘We’re at it!’ - I stood awhile, as in a dream, - ‘Great Scott!’ I cried, ‘is _that_ it? - ‘Why, that is some old bridle-track!’ - He chuckled, ‘Well, I never! - ‘It’s nearly time you came out-back-- - ‘This _is_ the Paroo River!’ - - No place to camp--no spot of damp-- - No moisture to be seen there; - If e’er there was it left no sign - That it had ever been there. - But ere the morn, with heart and soul - We’d cause to thank the Giver-- - We found a muddy water-hole - Some ten miles down the river. - - - - - THE GREEN-HAND ROUSEABOUT - - - Call this hot? I beg your pardon. Hot!--you don’t know what it means. - (What’s that, waiter? lamb or mutton! Thank you--mine is beef and greens. - Bread and butter while I’m waiting. Milk? Oh, yes--a bucketful.) - I’m just in from west the Darling, ‘picking-up’ and ‘rolling wool.’ - - Mutton stewed or chops for breakfast, dry and tasteless, boiled in fat; - Bread or brownie, tea or coffee--two hours’ graft in front of that; - Legs of mutton boiled for dinner--mutton greasy-warm for tea-- - Mutton curried (gave my order, beef and plenty greens for me.) - - Breakfast, curried rice and mutton till your innards sacrifice, - And you sicken at the colour and the smell of curried rice. - All day long with living mutton--bits and belly-wool and fleece; - Blinded by the yoke of wool, and shirt and trousers stiff with grease, - Till you long for sight of verdure, cabbage-plots and water clear, - And you crave for beef and butter as a boozer craves for beer. - - * * * * * - - Dusty patch in baking mulga--glaring iron hut and shed-- - Feel and smell of rain forgotten--water scarce and feed-grass dead. - Hot and suffocating sunrise--all-pervading sheep-yard smell-- - Stiff and aching green-hand stretches--‘Slushy’ rings the bullock-bell-- - Pint of tea and hunk of brownie--sinners string towards the shed-- - Great, black, greasy crows round carcass--screen behind of dust-cloud red. - - Engine whistles. ‘Go it, tigers!’ and the agony begins, - Picking up for seven devils out of Hades--for my sins; - Picking up for seven devils, seven demons out of Hell! - Sell their souls to get the bell-sheep--half a-dozen Christs they’d sell! - Day grows hot as where they come from--too damned hot for men or brutes; - Roof of corrugated iron, six-foot-six above the shoots! - - Whiz and rattle and vibration, like an endless chain of trams; - Blasphemy of five-and-forty--prickly heat--and stink of rams! - ‘Barcoo’ leaves his pen-door open and the sheep come bucking out; - When the rouser goes to pen them, ‘Barcoo’ blasts the rouseabout. - Injury with insult added--trial of our cursing powers-- - Cursed and cursing back enough to damn a dozen worlds like ours. - - ‘Take my combs down to the grinder, will yer?’ ‘Seen my cattle-pup?’ - ‘There’s a sheep fell down in my shoot--just jump down and pick it up.’ - ‘Give the office when the boss comes.’ ‘Catch that gory sheep, old man.’ - ‘Count the sheep in my pen, will yer?’ ‘Fetch my combs back when yer can.’ - ‘When yer get a chance, old feller, will yer pop down to the hut?’ - ‘Fetch my pipe--the cook’ll show yer--and I’ll let yer have a cut.’ - - Shearer yells for tar and needle. Ringer’s roaring like a bull: - ‘Wool away, you (son of angels). Where the hell’s the (foundling) WOOL!!’ - - * * * * * - - Pound a week and station prices--mustn’t kick against the pricks-- - Seven weeks of lurid mateship--ruined soul and four pounds six. - - * * * * * - - What’s that? waiter? _me?_ stuffed mutton! Look here, waiter, to be brief, - I said beef! you blood-stained villain! Beef--moo-cow--Roast Bullock--BEEF! - - - - - THE MAN FROM WATERLOO - -(_With kind regards to “Banjo.”_) - - - It was the Man from Waterloo, - When work in town was slack, - Who took the track as bushmen do, - And humped his swag out back. - He tramped for months without a bob, - For most the sheds were full, - Until at last he got a job - At picking up the wool. - He found the work was rather rough, - But swore to see it through, - For he was made of sterling stuff-- - The Man from Waterloo. - - The first remark was like a stab - That fell his ear upon, - ’Twas--‘There’s another something scab - ‘The boss has taken on!’ - They couldn’t let the towny be-- - They sneered like anything; - They’d mock him when he’d sound the ‘g’ - In words that end in ‘ing.’ - - There came a man from Ironbark, - And at the shed he shore; - He scoffed his victuals like a shark, - And like a fiend he swore. - He’d shorn his flowing beard that day-- - He found it hard to reap-- - Because ’twas hot and in the way - While he was shearing sheep. - His loaded fork in grimy holt - Was poised, his jaws moved fast, - Impatient till his throat could bolt - The mouthful taken last. - He couldn’t stand a something toff, - Much less a jackaroo; - And swore to take the trimmings off - The Man from Waterloo. - - The towny saw he must be up - Or else be underneath, - And so one day, before them all, - He dared to clean his teeth. - - The men came running from the shed, - And shouted, ‘Here’s a lark!’ - ‘It’s gone to clean its tooties!’ said - The man from Ironbark. - His feeble joke was much enjoyed; - He sneered as bullies do, - And with a scrubbing-brush he guyed - The Man from Waterloo. - - The Jackaroo made no remark - But peeled and waded in, - And soon the Man from Ironbark - Had three teeth less to grin! - And when they knew that he could fight - They swore to see him through, - Because they saw that he was right-- - The Man from Waterloo. - - Now in a shop in Sydney, near - The Bottle on the Shelf, - The tale is told--with trimmings--by - The Jackaroo himself. - ‘They made my life a hell,’ he said; - ‘They wouldn’t let me be; - ‘They set the bully of the shed - ‘To take it out of me. - - ‘The dirt was on him like a sheath, - ‘He seldom washed his phiz; - ‘He sneered because I cleaned my teeth-- - ‘I guess I dusted his! - ‘I treated them as they deserved-- - ‘I signed on one or two! - ‘They won’t forget me soon,’ observed - The Man from Waterloo. - - - - - SAINT PETER - - - Now, I think there is a likeness - ’Twixt St. Peter’s life and mine, - For he did a lot of trampin’ - Long ago in Palestine. - He was ‘union’ when the workers - First began to organise, - And--I’m glad that old St. Peter - Keeps the gate of Paradise. - - When the ancient agitator - And his brothers carried swags, - I’ve no doubt he very often - Tramped with empty tucker-bags; - And I’m glad he’s Heaven’s picket, - For I hate explainin’ things, - And he’ll think a union ticket - Just as good as Whitely King’s. - - He denied the Saviour’s union, - Which was weak of him, no doubt; - But perhaps his feet was blistered - And his boots had given out. - And the bitter storm was rushin’ - On the bark and on the slabs, - And a cheerful fire was blazin’, - And the hut was full of ‘scabs.’ - - * * * * * - - When I reach the great head-station-- - Which is somewhere ‘off the track’-- - I won’t want to talk with angels - Who have never been out back; - They might bother me with offers - Of a banjo--meanin’ well-- - And a pair of wings to fly with, - When I only want a spell. - - I’ll just ask for old St. Peter, - And I think, when he appears, - I will only have to tell him - That I carried swag for years. - ‘I’ve been on the track,’ I’ll tell him, - ‘An’ I done the best I could,’ - And he’ll understand me better - Than the other angels would. - - He won’t try to get a chorus - Out of lungs that’s worn to rags, - Or to graft the wings on shoulders - That is stiff with humpin’ swags. - But I’ll rest about the station - Where the work-bell never rings, - Till they blow the final trumpet - And the Great Judge sees to things. - - - - - THE STRANGER’S FRIEND - - - The strangest things, and the maddest things, that a man can do or say, - To the chaps and fellers and coves Out Back are matters of every day; - Maybe on account of the lives they lead, or the life that their hearts - discard-- - But never a fool can be too mad or a ‘hard case’ be too hard. - - I met him in Bourke in the Union days--with which we have nought to do - (Their creed was narrow, their methods crude, but they stuck to ‘the cause’ - like glue). - He came into town from the Lost Soul Run for his grim half-yearly ‘bend,’ - And because of a curious hobby he had, he was known as ‘The Stranger’s - Friend.’ - - It is true to the region of adjectives when I say that the spree was ‘grim,’ - For to go on the spree was a sacred rite, or a heathen rite, to him, - To shout for the travellers passing through to the land where the lost soul - bakes-- - Till they all seemed devils of different breeds, and his pockets were - filled - with snakes. - - In the joyful mood, in the solemn mood--in his cynical stages too-- - In the maudlin stage, in the fighting stage, in the stage when all was - blue-- - From the joyful hour when his spree commenced, right through to the awful - end, - He never lost grip of his ‘fixed idee’ that he was the Stranger’s Friend. - - ‘The feller as knows, _he_ can battle around for his bloomin’ self,’ he’d - say-- - ‘I don’t give a curse for the “blanks” I know--send the hard-up bloke this - way; - Send the stranger round, and I’ll see him through,’ and, e’en as the - bushman - spoke, - The chaps and fellers would tip the wink to a casual, ‘hard-up bloke.’ - - And it wasn’t only a bushman’s ‘bluff’ to the fame of the Friend they - scored, - For he’d shout the stranger a suit of clothes, and he’d pay for the - stranger’s - board-- - The worst of it was that he’d skite all night on the edge of the stranger’s - bunk, - And never got helplessly drunk himself till he’d got the stranger drunk. - - And the chaps and the fellers would speculate--by way of a ghastly joke-- - As to who’d be caught by the ‘jim-jams’ first?--the Friend or the hard-up - bloke? - And the ‘Joker’ would say that there wasn’t a doubt as to who’d be damned - in the end, - When the Devil got hold of a hard-up bloke in the shape of the Stranger’s - Friend. - - It mattered not to the Stranger’s Friend what the rest might say or think, - He always held that the hard-up state was due to the curse of drink, - To the evils of cards, and of company: ‘But a young cove’s built that way, - And I was a bloomin’ fool meself when I started out,’ he’d say. - - At the end of the spree, in clean white ‘moles,’ clean-shaven, and cool as - ice, - He’d give the stranger a ‘bob’ or two, and some straight Out Back advice; - Then he’d tramp away for the Lost Soul Run, where the hot dust rose - like smoke, - Having done his duty to all mankind, for he’d ‘stuck to a hard-up - bloke.’ - - They’ll say ’tis a ‘song of a sot,’ perhaps, but the Song of a Sot is true. - I have ‘battled’ myself, and _you_ know, you chaps, what a man in the bush - goes through; - Let us hope when the last of his sprees is past, and his cheques and - his strength - are done, - That, amongst the sober and thrifty mates, the Stranger’s Friend has - _one_. - - - - - THE GOD-FORGOTTEN ELECTION - - - Pat M‘Durmer brought the tidings to the town of God-Forgotten: - ‘There are lively days before ye--commin Parlymint’s dissolved!’ - And the boys were all excited, for the State, of course, was ‘rotten,’ - And, in subsequent elections, God-Forgotten was involved. - There was little there to live for save in drinking beer and eating; - But we rose on this occasion ere the news appeared in print, - For the boys of God-Forgotten, at a wild, uproarious meeting, - Nominated Billy Blazes for the commin Parlymint. - - Other towns had other favourites, but the day before the battle - Bushmen flocked to God-Forgotten, and the distant sheds were still; - Sheep were left to go to glory, and neglected mobs of cattle - Went a-straying down the river at their sweet bucolic will. - William Spouter stood for Freetrade (and his votes were split by Nottin), - He had influence behind him and he also had the tin, - But across the lonely flatlands came the cry of God-Forgotten, - ‘Vote for Blazes and Protection, and the land you’re living in!’ - - Pat M‘Durmer said, ‘Ye schaymers, please to shut yer ugly faces, - Lend yer dirty ears a momint while I give ye all a hint: - _Keep ye sober till to-morrow and record yer vote for Blazes_ - If ye want to send a ringer to the commin Parlymint. - ‘As a young and growin’ township God-Forgotten’s been neglected, - And, if we’d be ripresinted, _now’s_ the moment to begin-- - Have the local towns encouraged, local industries purtected: - Vote for Blazes, and Protection, and the land ye’re livin’ in. - - ‘I don’t say that William Blazes is a perfect out-an’ outer, - I don’t say he have the larnin’, for he never had the luck; - I don’t say he have the logic, or the gift of gab, like Spouter, - I don’t say he have the practice--BUT I SAY HE HAVE THE PLUCK! - Now the country’s gone to ruin, and the Governments are rotten, - But he’ll save the public credit and purtect the public tin; - To the iverlastin’ glory of the name of God-Forgotten - Vote for Blazes and Protection, and the land ye’re livin’ in!’ - - Pat M‘D. went on the war-path, and he worked like salts and senna, - For he organised committees full of energy and push; - And those wild committees riding through the whisky-fed Gehenna - Routed out astonished voters from their humpies in the bush. - Everything on wheels was ‘rinted,’ and half-sobered drunks were shot in; - Said M‘Durmer to the driver, ‘If ye want to save yer skin, - Never stop to wet yer whistles--drive like hell to God-Forgotten, - Make the villains plump for Blazes, and the land they’re livin’ in.’ - - Half the local long-departed (for the purpose resurrected) - Plumped for Blazes and Protection, and the country where they died; - So he topped the poll by sixty, and when Blazes was elected - There was victory and triumph on the God-Forgotten side. - Then the boys got up a banquet, and our chairman, Pat M‘Durmer, - Was next day discovered sleeping in the local baker’s bin-- - All the dough had risen round him, but we heard a smothered murmur, - ‘Vote for Blazes--and Protection--and the land ye’re livin’ in.’ - - Now the great Sir William Blazes lives in London, ’cross the waters, - And they say his city mansion is the swellest in West End, - But I very often wonder if his toney sons and daughters - Ever heard of Billy Blazes who was once the ‘people’s friend.’ - Does his biassed memory linger round that wild electioneering - When the men of God-Forgotten stuck to him through thick and thin? - Does he ever, in his dreaming, hear the cry above the cheering: - ‘Vote for Blazes and Protection, and the land you’re livin’ in?’ - - * * * * * - - Ah, the bush was grand in those days, and the Western boys were daisies, - And their scheming and their dodging would outdo the wildest print; - Still my recollection lingers round the time when Billy Blazes - Was returned by God-Forgotten to the ‘Commin Parlymint’: - Still I keep a sign of canvas--’twas a mate of mine that made it-- - And its paint is cracked and powdered, and its threads are bare and thin, - Yet upon its grimy surface you can read in letters faded: - ‘Vote for Blazes and Protection, and the Land you’re livin’ in.’ - - - - - THE BOSS’S BOOTS - - - The shearers squint along the pens, they squint along the ‘shoots;’ - The shearers squint along the board to catch the Boss’s boots; - They have no time to straighten up, they have no time to stare, - But when the Boss is looking on, they like to be aware. - - _The ‘rouser’ has no soul to save. Condemn the rouseabout! - And sling ’em in, and rip ’em through, and get the bell-sheep out; - And skim it by the tips at times, or take it with the roots-- - But ‘pink’ ’em nice and pretty when you see the Boss’s boots._ - - The shearing super sprained his foot, as bosses sometimes do-- - And wore, until the shed cut out, one ‘side-spring’ and one shoe; - And though he changed his pants at times--some worn-out and some neat-- - No ‘tiger’ there could possibly mistake the Boss’s feet. - - The Boss affected larger boots than many Western men, - And Jim the Ringer swore the shoe was half as big again; - And tigers might have _heard_ the boss ere any harm was done-- - For when he passed it was a sort of dot and carry one. - - But now there comes a picker-up who sprained his ankle, too, - And limping round the shed he found the Boss’s cast-off shoe. - He went to work, all legs and arms, as green-hand rousers will, - And never dreamed of Boss’s boots--much less of Bogan Bill. - - _Ye sons of sin that tramp and shear in hot and dusty scrubs, - Just keep away from ‘headin’ ’em,’ and keep away from pubs, - And keep away from handicaps--for so your sugar scoots-- - And you may own a station yet and wear the Boss’s boots._ - - And Bogan by his mate was heard to mutter through his hair: - ‘The Boss has got a rat to-day: he’s buckin’ everywhere-- - He’s trainin’ for a bike, I think, the way he comes an’ scoots, - He’s like a bloomin’ cat on mud the way he shifts his boots.’ - - Now Bogan Bill was shearing rough and chanced to cut a teat; - He stuck his leg in front at once, and slewed the ewe a bit; - He hurried up to get her through, when, close beside his shoot, - He saw a large and ancient shoe, in mateship with a boot. - - He thought that he’d be fined all right--he couldn’t turn the ‘yoe;’ - The more he wished the boss away, the more he wouldn’t go; - And Bogan swore amenfully--beneath his breath he swore-- - And he was never known to ‘pink’ so prettily before. - - And Bogan through his bristling scalp in his mind’s eye could trace, - The cold, sarcastic smile that lurked about the Boss’s face; - He cursed him with a silent curse in language known to few, - He cursed him from his boot right up, and then down to his shoe. - - But while he shore so mighty clean, and while he screened the teat, - He fancied there was something wrong about the Boss’s feet: - The boot grew unfamiliar, and the odd shoe seemed awry, - And slowly up the trouser went the tail of Bogan’s eye. - - Then swiftly to the features from a plaited green-hide belt-- - You’d have to ring a shed or two to feel as Bogan felt-- - For ’twas his green-hand picker-up (who wore a vacant look), - And Bogan saw the Boss outside consulting with his cook. - - And Bogan Bill was hurt and mad to see that rouseabout; - And Bogan laid his ‘Wolseley’ down and knocked that rouser out; - He knocked him right across the board, he tumbled through the shoot-- - ‘I’ll learn the fool,’ said Bogan Bill, ‘to flash the Boss’s boot!’ - - The rouser squints along the pens, he squints along the shoots, - And gives his men the office when they miss the Boss’s boots. - They have no time to straighten up, they’re too well-bred to stare, - But when the Boss is looking on they like to be aware. - - _The rouser has no soul to lose--it’s blarst the rouseabout! - And rip ’em through and yell for ‘tar’ and get the bell-sheep out, - And take it with the scum at times or take it with the roots,-- - But ‘pink’ ’em nice and pretty when you see the Boss’s boots._ - - ‘Rouseabout’ and ‘picker-up’ are interchangeable terms in above - rhymes, as also ‘boss’ and ‘super’; the shed-name for the latter is - ‘Boss-over-the-board.’ The shearer is paid by the hundred, the - rouser by the week. ‘Pink ’em pretty’: to shear clean to the skin. - ‘Bell-sheep’: shearers are not supposed to take another sheep out - of pen when ‘Smoke-ho,’ breakfast or dinner bell goes, but some - time themselves to get so many sheep out, and _one as the bell - goes_, which makes more work for the rouser and entrenches on his - ‘smoke-ho,’ as he must leave his ‘board’ clean. Shearers are seldom - or never fined now. - - - - - THE CAPTAIN OF THE PUSH - - - As the night was falling slowly down on city, town and bush, - From a slum in Jones’ Alley sloped the Captain of the Push; - And he scowled towards the North, and he scowled towards the South, - As he hooked his little finger in the corners of his mouth. - Then his whistle, loud and shrill, woke the echoes of the ‘Rocks,’ - And a dozen ghouls came sloping round the corners of the blocks. - - There was nought to rouse their anger; yet the oath that each one swore - Seemed less fit for publication than the one that went before. - For they spoke the gutter language with the easy flow that comes - Only to the men whose childhood knew the brothels and the slums. - Then they spat in turns, and halted; and the one that came behind, - Spitting fiercely on the pavement, called on Heaven to strike him blind. - - Let us first describe the captain, bottle-shouldered, pale and thin, - For he was the beau-ideal of a Sydney larrikin; - E’en his hat was most suggestive of the city where we live, - With a gallows-tilt that no one, save a larrikin, can give; - And the coat, a little shorter than the writer would desire, - Showed a more or less uncertain portion of his strange attire. - - That which tailors know as ‘trousers’--known by him as ‘bloomin’ bags’-- - Hanging loosely from his person, swept, with tattered ends, the flags; - And he had a pointed sternpost to the boots that peeped below - (Which he laced up from the centre of the nail of his great toe), - And he wore his shirt uncollar’d, and the tie correctly wrong; - But I think his vest was shorter than should be in one so long. - - And the captain crooked his finger at a stranger on the kerb, - Whom he qualified politely with an adjective and verb, - And he begged the Gory Bleeders that they wouldn’t interrupt - Till he gave an introduction--it was painfully abrupt-- - ‘Here’s the bleedin’ push, me covey--here’s a (something) from the bush! - Strike me dead, he wants to join us!’ said the captain of the push. - - Said the stranger: ‘I am nothing but a bushy and a dunce; - But I read about the Bleeders in the WEEKLY GASBAG once: - Sitting lonely in the humpy when the wind began to “whoosh,” - How I longed to share the dangers and the pleasures of the push! - Gosh! I hate the swells and good ’uns--I could burn ’em in their beds; - I am with you, if you’ll have me, and I’ll break their blazing heads.’ - - ‘Now, look here,’ exclaimed the captain to the stranger from the bush, - ‘Now, look here--suppose a feller was to split upon the push, - Would you lay for him and fetch him, even if the traps were round? - Would you lay him out and kick him to a jelly on the ground? - Would you jump upon the nameless--kill, or cripple him, or both? - Speak? or else I’ll--SPEAK!’ The stranger answered, ‘My kerlonial oath!’ - - ‘Now, look here,’ exclamed the captain to the stranger from the bush, - ‘Now, look here--suppose the Bleeders let you come and join the push, - Would you smash a bleedin’ bobby if you got the blank alone? - Would you break a swell or Chinkie--split his garret with a stone? - Would you have a “moll” to keep yer--like to swear off work for good?’ - ‘Yes, my oath!’ replied the stranger. ‘My kerlonial oath! I would!’ - - ‘Now, look here,’ exclaimed the captain to that stranger from the bush, - ‘Now, look here--before the Bleeders let yer come and join the push, - You must prove that you’re a blazer--you must prove that you have grit - Worthy of a Gory Bleeder--you must show your form a bit-- - Take a rock and smash that winder?’ and the stranger, nothing loth, - Took the rock and--smash! They only muttered ‘My kerlonial oath!’ - - So they swore him in, and found him sure of aim and light of heel, - And his only fault, if any, lay in his excessive zeal; - He was good at throwing metal, but we chronicle with pain - That he jumped upon a victim, damaging the watch and chain, - Ere the Bleeders had secured them; yet the captain of the push - Swore a dozen oaths in favour of the stranger from the bush. - - Late next morn the captain, rising, hoarse and thirsty from his lair, - Called the newly-feather’d Bleeder, but the stranger wasn’t there! - Quickly going through the pockets of his ‘bloomin’ bags,’ he learned - That the stranger had been through him for the stuff his ‘moll’ had earned; - And the language that he muttered I should scarcely like to tell - (Stars! and notes of exclamation!! blank and dash will do as well). - - In the night the captain’s signal woke the echoes of the ‘Rocks,’ - Brought the Gory Bleeders sloping thro’ the shadows of the blocks; - And they swore the stranger’s action was a blood-escaping shame, - While they waited for the nameless, but the nameless never came. - And the Bleeders soon forgot him; but the captain of the push - Still is ‘laying’ round, in ballast, for the nameless ‘from the bush.’ - - - - - BILLY’S ‘SQUARE AFFAIR’ - - - Long Bill, the captain of the push, was tired of his estate, - And wished to change his life and win the love of something ‘straight’; - ’Twas rumour’d that the Gory B.’s had heard Long Bill declare - That he would turn respectable and wed a ‘square affair.’ - - He craved the kiss of innocence; his spirit longed to rise; - The ‘Crimson Streak,’ his faithful ‘piece,’ grew hateful in his eyes; - (And though, in her entirety, the Crimson Streak ‘was there,’ - I grieve to state the Crimson Streak was not a ‘square affair.’) - - He wanted clothes, a masher suit, he wanted boots and hat; - His girl had earned a quid or two--he wouldn’t part with that; - And so he went to Brickfield Hill, and from a draper there - He ‘shook’ the proper kind of togs to fetch a ‘square affair.’ - - Long Bill went to the barber’s shop and had a shave and singe, - And from his narrow forehead combed his darling Mabel fringe; - Long Bill put on a ‘square cut’ and he brushed his boots with care, - And roved about the Gardens till he mashed a ‘square affair.’ - - She was a tony servant-girl from somewhere on ‘the Shore;’ - She dressed in style that suited Bill--he could not wish for more. - While in her guileless presence he had ceased to chew or swear, - He knew the kind of barrack that can fetch a square affair. - - To thus desert his donah old was risky and a sin, - And ’twould have served him right if she had caved his garret in. - The Gory Bleeders thought it too, and warned him to take care - In case the Crimson Streak got scent of Billy’s square affair. - - He took her to the stalls; ’twas dear, but Billy said ‘Wot odds!’ - He couldn’t take his square affair amongst the crimson gods. - They wandered in the park at night, and hugged each other there-- - But, ah! the Crimson Streak got wind of Billy’s square affair! - - ‘The blank and space and stars!’ she yelled; ‘the nameless crimson dash! - I’ll smash the blanky crimson and his square affair, I’ll smash’-- - In short, she drank and raved and shrieked and tore her crimson hair, - And swore to murder Billy and to pound his square affair. - - And so one summer evening, as the day was growing dim, - She watched her bloke go out, and foxed his square affair and him. - That night the park was startled by the shrieks that rent the air-- - The ‘Streak’ had gone for Billy and for Billy’s square affair. - - The ‘gory’ push had foxed the Streak, they foxed her to the park, - And they, of course, were close at hand to see the bleedin’ lark; - A cop arrived in time to hear a ‘gory B.’ declare - Gor blar-me! here’s the Red Streak foul of Billy’s square affair.’ - - * * * * * - - Now Billy scowls about the Rocks, his manly beauty marr’d, - And Billy’s girl, upon her ’ed, is doin’ six months ’ard; - Bill’s swivel eye is in a sling, his heart is in despair, - And in the Sydney ‘Orspital lies Billy’s square affair. - - - - - A DERRY ON A COVE - - - ’Twas in the felon’s dock he stood, his eyes were black and blue; - His voice with grief was broken, and his nose was broken, too; - He muttered, as that broken nose he wiped upon his cap-- - ‘It’s orful when the p’leece has got a derry on a chap. - - ‘I am a honest workin’ cove, as any bloke can see, - It’s just because the p’leece has got a derry, sir, on me; - Oh, yes, the legal gents can grin, I say it ain’t no joke-- - It’s cruel when the p’leece has got a derry on a bloke.’ - - ‘Why don’t you go to work?’ he said (he muttered, ‘Why don’t you?’). - ‘Yer honer knows as well as me there ain’t no work to do. - And when I try to find a job I’m shaddered by a trap-- - It’s awful when the p’leece has got a derry on a chap.’ - - I sigh’d and shed a tearlet for that noble nature marred, - But, ah! the Bench was rough on him, and gave him six months’ hard. - He only said, ‘Beyond the grave you’ll cop it hot, by Jove! - There ain’t no angel p’leece to get a derry on a cove.’ - - - - - RISE YE! RISE YE! - - - Rise ye! rise ye! noble toilers! claim your rights with fire and steel! - Rise ye! for the cursed tyrants crush ye with the hiron ’eel! - They would treat ye worse than sl-a-a-ves! they would treat ye worse than - brutes! - Rise and crush the selfish tyrants! ku-r-rush them with your hob-nailed - boots! - Rise ye! rise ye! glorious toilers! - Rise ye! rise ye! noble toilers! - Erwake! er-rise! - - Rise ye! rise ye! noble toilers! tyrants come across the waves! - Will ye yield the Rights of Labour? will ye? _will_ ye still be - sl-a-a-ves?!!! - Rise ye! rise ye! mighty toilers! and revoke the rotten laws! - Lo! your wives go out a-washing while ye battle for the caws! - Rise ye! rise ye! glorious toilers! - Rise ye! rise ye! noble toilers! - Erwake! er-rise! - - Our gerlorious dawn is breaking! Lo! the tyrant trembles now! - He will sta-a-rve us here no longer! toilers will not bend or bow! - Rise ye! rise ye! noble toilers! rise! behold, revenge is near; - See the leaders of the people! come an’ ’ave a pint o’ beer! - Rise ye! rise ye! noble toilers! - Rise ye! rise ye! glorious toilers! - Erwake! er-rise! - - Lo! the poor are starved, my brothers! lo! our wives and children weep! - Lo! our women toil to keep us while the toilers are asleep! - Rise ye! rise ye! noble toilers! rise and break the tyrant’s chain! - March ye! march ye! mighty toilers! even to the battle plain! - Rise ye! rise ye! noble toilers! - Rise ye! rise ye! noble toilers! - Erwake! er-r-rise! - - - - - THE BALLAD OF MABEL CLARE - - - Ye children of the Land of Gold, - I sing a song to you, - And if the jokes are somewhat old, - The main idea’s new. - So be it sung, by hut and tent, - Where tall the native grows; - And understand, the song is meant - For singing through the nose. - - There dwelt a hard old cockatoo - On western hills far out, - Where everything is green and blue, - Except, of course, in drought; - A crimson Anarchist was he-- - Held other men in scorn-- - Yet preached that ev’ry man was free, - And also ‘ekal born.’ - - He lived in his ancestral hut-- - His missus wasn’t there-- - And there was no one with him but - His daughter, Mabel Clare. - Her eyes and hair were like the sun; - Her foot was like a mat; - Her cheeks a trifle overdone; - She was a democrat. - - A manly independence, born - Among the trees, she had, - She treated womankind with scorn, - And often cursed her dad. - She hated swells and shining lights, - For she had seen a few, - And she believed in ‘women’s rights’ - (She mostly got ’em, too). - - A stranger at the neighb’ring run - Sojourned, the squatter’s guest, - He was unknown to anyone, - But like a swell was dress’d; - He had an eyeglass to his eye, - A collar to his ears, - His feet were made to tread the sky, - His mouth was formed for sneers. - - He wore the latest toggery, - The loudest thing in ties-- - ’Twas generally reckoned he - Was something in disguise. - But who he was, or whence he came, - Was long unknown, except - Unto the squatter, who the name - And noble secret kept. - - And strolling in the noontide heat, - Beneath the blinding glare, - This noble stranger chanced to meet - The radiant Mabel Clare. - She saw at once he was a swell-- - According to her lights-- - But, ah! ’tis very sad to tell, - She met him oft of nights. - - And, strolling through a moonlit gorge, - She chatted all the while - Of Ingersoll, and Henry George, - And Bradlaugh and Carlyle: - In short, he learned to love the girl, - And things went on like this, - Until he said he was an Earl, - And asked her to be his. - - ‘Oh, say no more, Lord Kawlinee, - Oh, say no more!’ she said; - ‘Oh, say no more, Lord Kawlinee, - I wish that I was dead; - My head is in a hawful whirl, - The truth I dare not tell-- - I am a democratic girl, - And cannot wed a swell!’ - - ‘Oh love!’ he cried, ‘but you forget - That you are most unjust; - ’Twas not my fault that I was set - Within the upper crust. - Heed not the yarns the poets tell-- - Oh, darling, do not doubt - A simple lord can love as well - As any rouseabout! - - ‘For you I’ll give my fortune up-- - I’d go to work for you! - I’ll put the money in the cup - And drop the title, too. - Oh, fly with me! Oh, fly with me - Across the mountains blue! - Hoh, fly with me! _Hoh, fly with me!_----’ - That very night she flew. - - They took the train and journeyed down-- - Across the range they sped-- - Until they came to Sydney town, - Where shortly they were wed. - And still upon the western wild - Admiring teamsters tell - How Mabel’s father cursed his child - For clearing with a swell. - - ‘What ails my bird this bridal night,’ - Exclaimed Lord Kawlinee; - ‘What ails my own this bridal night-- - O love, confide in me!’ - ‘Oh now,’ she said, ‘that I am yaws - You’ll let me weep--I must-- - I did desert the people’s cause - To join the upper crust.’ - - O proudly smiled his lordship then-- - His chimney-pot he floor’d-- - ‘Look up, my love, and smile again, - For I am not a lord!’ - His eye-glass from his eye he tore, - The dickey from his breast, - And turned and stood his bride before - A rouseabout--confess’d! - - ‘Unknown I’ve loved you long,’ he said, - ‘And I have loved you true-- - A-shearing in your guv’ner’s shed - I learned to worship you. - I do not care for place or pelf, - For now, my love, I’m sure - That you will love me for myself - And not because I’m poor. - - ‘To prove your love I spent my cheque - To buy this swell rig-out; - So fling your arms about my neck - For I’m a rouseabout!’ - At first she gave a startled cry, - Then, safe from care’s alarms, - She sigh’d a soul-subduing sigh - And sank into his arms. - - He pawned the togs, and home he took - His bride in all her charms; - The proud old cockatoo received - The pair with open arms. - And long they lived, the faithful bride, - The noble rouseabout-- - And if she wasn’t satisfied - She never let it out. - - - - - CONSTABLE M‘CARTY’S INVESTIGATIONS - - - Most unpleasantly adjacent to the haunts of lower orders - Stood a ‘terrace’ in the city when the current year began, - And a notice indicated there were vacancies for boarders - In the middle house, and lodgings for a single gentleman. - Now, a singular observer could have seen but few attractions - Whether in the house, or ‘missus, or the notice, or the street, - But at last there came a lodger whose appearances and actions - Puzzled Constable M‘Carty, the policeman on the beat. - - He (the single gent) was wasted almost to emaciation, - And his features were the palest that M‘Carty ever saw, - And these indications, pointing to a past of dissipation, - Greatly strengthened the suspicions of the agent of the law. - He (the lodger--hang the pronoun!) seemed to like the stormy weather, - When the elements in battle kept it up a little late; - Yet he’d wander in the moonlight when the stars were close together, - Taking ghostly consolation in a visionary state. - - He would walk the streets at midnight, when the storm-king raised - his banner, - Walk without his old umbrella,--wave his arms above his head: - Or he’d fold them tight, and mutter, in a wild, disjointed manner, - While the town was wrapped in slumber and he should have been in bed. - Said the constable-on-duty: ‘Shure, Oi wonther phwat his trade is?’ - And the constable would watch him from the shadow of a wall, - But he never picked a pocket, and he ne’er accosted ladies, - And the constable was puzzled what to make of him at all. - - Now, M‘Carty had arrested more than one notorious dodger, - He had heard of men afflicted with the strangest kind of fads, - But he couldn’t fix the station or the business of the lodger, - Who at times would chum with cadgers, and at other times with cads. - And the constable would often stand and wonder how the gory - Sheol the stranger got his living, for he loafed the time away - And he often sought a hillock when the sun went down in glory, - Just as if he was a mourner at the burial of the day. - - Mac. had noticed that the lodger did a mighty lot of smoking, - And could ‘stow away a long ’un,’ never winking, so he could; - And M‘Carty once, at midnight, came upon the lodger poking - Round about suspicious alleys where the common houses stood. - Yet the constable had seen him in a class above suspicion-- - Seen him welcomed with effusion by a dozen ‘toney gents’-- - Seen him driving in the buggy of a rising politician - Thro’ the gateway of the member’s toney private residence. - - And the constable, off duty, had observed the lodger slipping - Down a lane to where the river opened on the ocean wide, - Where he’d stand for hours gazing at the distant anchor’d shipping, - But he never took his coat off, so it wasn’t suicide. - For the constable had noticed that a man who’s filled with loathing - For his selfish fellow-creatures and the evil things that be, - Will, for some mysterious reason, shed a portion of his clothing, - Ere he takes his first and final plunge into eternity. - - And M‘Carty, once at midnight--be it said to his abasement-- - Left his beat and climbed a railing of considerable height, - Just to watch the lodger’s shadow on the curtain of his casement - While the little room was lighted in the listening hours of night. - Now, at first the shadow hinted that the substance sat inditing; - Now it indicated toothache, or the headache; and again, - ’Twould exaggerate the gestures of a dipsomaniac fighting - Those original conceptions of a whisky-sodden brain. - - Then the constable, retreating, scratched his head and muttered ‘Sorra - Wan of me can undershtand it. But Oi’ll keep me Oi on him, - Divil take him and his tantrums; he’s a lunatic, begorra! - Or, if he was up to mischief, he’d be sure to douse the glim.’ - But M‘Carty wasn’t easy, for he had a vague suspicion - That a ‘skame’ was being plotted; and he thought the matter down - Till his mind was pretty certain that the business was sedition, - And the man, in league with others, sought to overthrow the Crown. - - But, in spite of observation, Mac. received no information - And was forced to stay inactive, being puzzled for a charge. - That the lodger was a madman seemed the only explanation, - Tho’ the house would scarcely harbour such a lunatic at large. - His appearance failed to warrant apprehension as a vagrant, - Tho’ ’twas getting very shabby, as the constable could see; - But M‘Carty in the meantime hoped to catch him in a flagrant - Breach of peace, or the intention to commit a felony. - - (For digression there is leisure, and it is the writer’s pleasure - Just to pause a while and ponder on a painful legal fact, - Being forced to say in sorrow, and a line of doubtful measure, - That there’s nothing so elastic as the cruel Vagrant Act) - Now, M‘Carty knew his duty, and was brave as any lion, - But he dreaded being ‘landed’ in an influential bog-- - As the chances were he would be if the man he had his eye on - Was a person of importance who was travelling _incog._ - - Want of sleep and over-worry seemed to tell upon M‘Carty: - He was thirsty more than ever, but his appetite resigned; - He was previously reckoned as a jolly chap and hearty, - But the mystery was lying like a mountain on his mind. - Tho’ he tried his best, he couldn’t get a hold upon the lodger, - For the latter’s antecedents weren’t known to the police-- - They considered that the ‘devil’ was a dark and artful dodger - Who was scheming under cover for the downfall of the peace. - - ’Twas a simple explanation, though M‘Carty didn’t know it, - Which with half his penetration he might easily have seen, - _For the object of his dangerous suspicions was a poet,_ - _Who was not so widely famous as he thought he should have been._ - And the constable grew thinner, till one morning, ‘little dhramin’ - Av the sword of revelation that was leapin’ from its sheath,’ - He alighted on some verses in the columns of the FRAYMAN, - ‘_Wid the christian name an’ surname av the lodger onderneath!_’ - - Now, M‘Carty and the poet are as brother is to brother, - Or, at least, as brothers should be; and they very often meet - On the lonely block at midnight, and they wink at one another-- - Disappearing down the by-way of a shanty in the street. - And the poet’s name you’re asking?--well, the ground is very tender, - You must wait until the public put the gilt upon the name, - Till a glorious, sorrow-drowning, and, perhaps, a final ‘bender,’ - Heralds his triumphant entrance to the thunder-halls of Fame. - - - - - AT THE TUG-OF-WAR - - - ’Twas in a tug-of-war where I--the guvnor’s hope and pride-- - Stepped proudly on the platform as the ringer on my side; - Old dad was in his glory there--it gave the old man joy - To fight a passage through the crowd and barrack for his boy. - - A friend came up and said to me, ‘Put out your muscles, John, - And pull them to eternity--your guvnor’s looking on.’ - I paused before I grasped the rope, and glanced around the place, - And, foremost in the waiting crowd, I saw the old man’s face. - - My mates were strong and plucky chaps, but very soon I knew - That our opponents had the weight and strength to pull them through; - The boys were losing surely and defeat was very near, - When, high above the mighty roar, I heard the old man cheer! - - I felt my muscles swelling when the old man cheer’d for me, - I felt as though I’d burst my heart, or gain the victory! - I shouted, ‘Now! Together!’ and a steady strain replied, - And, with a mighty heave, I helped to beat the other side! - - Oh! how the old man shouted in his wild, excited joy! - I thought he’d burst his boiler then, a-cheering for his boy; - The chaps, oh! how they cheered me, while the girls all smiled so kind, - They praised me, little dreaming, how the old man pulled behind. - - * * * * * - - He barracks for his boy no more--his grave is old and green, - And sons have grown up round me since he vanished from the scene; - But, when the cause is worthy where I fight for victory, - In fancy still I often hear the old man cheer for me. - - - - - HERE’S LUCK! - - - Old Time is tramping close to-day--you hear his bluchers fall, - A mighty change is on the way, an’ God protect us all; - Some dust’ll fly from beery coats--at least it’s been declared. - I’m glad that wimin has the votes--but just a trifle scared. - - I’m just a trifle scared--For why? The wimin mean to rule; - It makes me feel like days gone by when I was caned at school. - The days of men is nearly dead--of double moons and stars-- - They’ll soon put out our pipes, ’tis said, an’ close the public bars. - - No more we’ll take a glass of ale when pushed with care an’ strife, - An’ chuckle home with that old tale we used to tell the wife. - We’ll laugh an’ joke an’ sing no more with jolly beery chums, - An’ shout ‘Here’s luck!’ while waitin’ for the luck that never comes. - - Did we prohibit swillin’ tea clean out of common-sense - Or legislate on gossipin’ across a backyard fence? - Did we prohibit bustles--or the hoops when they was here? - The wimin never think of this--they want to stop our beer. - - The track o’ life is dry enough, an’ crossed with many a rut, - But, oh! we’ll find it long an’ rough when all the pubs is shut; - When all the pubs is shut, an’ gone the doors we used to seek, - An’ we go toilin’, thirstin’ on through Sundays all the week. - - For since the days when pubs was ‘inns’--in years gone past ’n’ far-- - Poor sinful souls have drowned their sins an’ sorrers at the bar; - An’ though at times it led to crimes, an’ debt, and such complaints-- - I scarce dare think about the time when all mankind is saints. - - ’Twould make the bones of Bacchus leap an’ break his coffin lid; - And Burns’s ghost would wail an’ weep as Bobby never did. - But let the preachers preach in style, an’ rave and rant--’n’ buck, - I rather guess they’ll hear awhile the old war-cry: ‘Here’s Luck!’ - - The world might wobble round the sun, an’ all the banks go bung, - But pipes’ll smoke an’ liquor run while Auld Lang Syne is sung. - While men are driven through the mill, an’ flinty times is struck, - They’ll find a private entrance still! - Here’s Luck, old man--Here’s Luck! - - - - - THE MEN WHO COME BEHIND - - - 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-- - Cautiously they feel their way behind a bolder spirit’s back. - - If you save a bit of money, and you start a little store-- - Say, an oyster-shop, for instance, where there wasn’t one before-- - When the shop begins to pay you, and the rent is off your mind, - You will see another started by a chap that comes behind. - - So it is, and so it might have been, my friend, with me and you-- - When a friend of both and neither interferes between the two; - They will fight like fiends, forgetting in their passion mad and blind, - That the row is mostly started by the folk who come behind. - - They will stick to you like sin will, while your money comes and goes, - But they’ll leave you when you haven’t got a shilling in your clothes. - You may get some help above you, but you’ll nearly always find - That you cannot get assistance from the men who come behind. - - There are many, far too many, in the world of prose and rhyme, - Always looking for another’s ‘footsteps on the sands of time.’ - Journalistic imitators are the meanest of mankind; - And the grandest themes are hackneyed by the pens that come behind. - - If you strike a novel subject, write it up, and do not fail, - They will rhyme and prose about it till your very own is stale, - As they raved about the region that the wattle-boughs perfume - Till the reader cursed the bushman and the stink of wattle-bloom. - - They will follow in your footsteps while you’re groping for the light; - But they’ll run to get before you when they see you’re going right; - And they’ll trip you up and baulk you in their blind and greedy heat, - Like a stupid pup that hasn’t learned to trail behind your feet. - - Take your loads of sin and sorrow on more energetic backs! - Go and strike across the country where there are not any tracks! - And--we fancy that the subject could be further treated here, - But we’ll leave it to be hackneyed by the fellows in the rear. - - - - - THE DAYS WHEN WE WENT SWIMMING - - - The breezes waved the silver grass, - Waist-high along the siding, - And to the creek we ne’er could pass - Three boys on bare-back riding; - Beneath the sheoaks in the bend - The waterhole was brimming-- - Do you remember yet, old friend, - The times we ‘went in swimming?’ - - The days we ‘played the wag’ from school-- - Joys shared--and paid for singly-- - The air was hot, the water cool-- - And naked boys are kingly! - With mud for soap the sun to dry-- - A well planned lie to stay us, - And dust well rubbed on neck and face - Lest cleanliness betray us. - - And you’ll remember farmer Kutz-- - Though scarcely for his bounty-- - He leased a forty-acre block, - And thought he owned the county; - A farmer of the old world school, - That men grew hard and grim in, - He drew his water from the pool - That we preferred to swim in. - - And do you mind when down the creek - His angry way he wended, - A green-hide cartwhip in his hand - For our young backs intended? - Three naked boys upon the sand-- - Half buried and half sunning-- - Three startled boys without their clothes - Across the paddocks running. - - We’ve had some scares, but we looked blank - When, resting there and chumming, - One glanced by chance along the bank - And saw the farmer coming! - And home impressions linger yet - Of cups of sorrow brimming; - I hardly think that we’ll forget - The last day we went swimming. - - - - - THE OLD BARK SCHOOL - - - 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-- - There was little need for windows in the school. - - Then we rode to school and back by the rugged gully track, - On the old grey horse that carried three or four; - And he looked so very wise that he lit the master’s eyes - Every time he put his head in at the door. - - He had run with Cobb and Co.--‘that grey leader, let him go!’ - There were men ’as knowed the brand upon his hide,’ - And ’as knowed it on the course’. Funeral service: ‘Good old horse!’ - When we burnt him in the gully where he died. - - And the master thought the same. ’Twas from Ireland that he came, - Where the tanks are full all summer, and the feed is simply grand; - And the joker then in vogue said his lessons wid a brogue-- - ’Twas unconscious imitation, let the reader understand. - - And we learnt the world in scraps from some ancient dingy maps - Long discarded by the public-schools in town; - And as nearly every book dated back to Captain Cook - Our geography was somewhat upside-down. - - It was ‘in the book’ and so--well, at that we’d let it go, - For we never would believe that print could lie; - And we all learnt pretty soon that when we came out at noon - ‘The sun is in the south part of the sky.’ - - And Ireland! _that_ was known from the coast line to Athlone: - We got little information _re_ the land that gave us birth; - Save that Captain Cook was killed (and was very likely grilled) - And ‘the natives of New Holland are the lowest race on earth.’ - - And a woodcut, in its place, of the same degraded race - Seemed a lot more like a camel than the black-fellows we knew; - Jimmy Bullock, with the rest, scratched his head and gave it best; - But his faith was sadly shaken by a bobtailed kangaroo. - - But the old bark-school is gone, and the spot it stood upon - Is a cattle-camp in winter where the curlew’s cry is heard; - There’s a brick-school on the flat, but a schoolmate teaches that, - For, about the time they built it, our old master was ‘transferred.’ - - But the bark-school comes again with exchanges ’cross the plain-- - With the OUT-BACK ADVERTISER; and my fancy roams at large - When I read of passing stock, of a western mob or flock, - With ‘James Bullock,’ ‘Grey,’ or ‘Henry Dale’ in charge. - - And I think how Jimmy went from the old bark school content, - With his ’eddication’ finished, with his pack-horse after him; - And perhaps if I were back I would take the self-same track, - For I wish my learning ended when the Master ‘finished’ Jim. - - - - - TROUBLE ON THE SELECTION - - - You lazy boy, you’re here at last, - You must be wooden-legged - Now, are you sure the gate is fast - And all the sliprails pegged - And all the milkers at the yard, - The calves all in the pen? - We don’t want Poley’s calf to suck - His mother dry again. - - And did you mend the broken rail - And make it firm and neat? - I s’pose you want that brindle steer - All night among the wheat. - And if he finds the lucerne patch, - He’ll stuff his belly full; - He’ll eat till he gets ‘blown’ on that - And busts like Ryan’s bull. - - Old Spot is lost? You’ll drive me mad, - You will, upon my soul! - She might be in the boggy swamps - Or down a digger’s hole. - You needn’t talk, you never looked - You’d find her if you’d choose, - Instead of poking ’possum logs - And hunting kangaroos. - - How came your boots as wet as muck? - You tried to drown the ants! - Why don’t you take your bluchers off, - Good Lord, he’s tore his pants! - Your father’s coming home to-night; - You’ll catch it hot, you’ll see. - Now go and wash your filthy face - And come and get your tea. - - - - - THE PROFESSIONAL WANDERER - - - When you’ve knocked about the country--been away from home for years; - When the past, by distance softened, nearly fills your eyes with tears-- - You are haunted oft, wherever or however you may roam, - By a fancy that you ought to go and see the folks at home. - You forget the family quarrels--little things that used to jar-- - And you think of how they’ll worry--how they wonder where you are; - You will think you served them badly, and your own part you’ll condemn, - And it strikes you that you’ll surely be a novelty to them, - For your voice has somewhat altered, and your face has somewhat changed-- - And your views of men and matters over wider fields have ranged. - Then it’s time to save your money, or to watch it (how it goes!); - Then it’s time to get a ‘Gladstone’ and a decent suit of clothes; - Then it’s time to practise daily with a hair-brush and a comb, - Till you drop in unexpected on the folks and friends at home. - - When you’ve been at home for some time, and the novelty’s worn off, - And old chums no longer court you, and your friends begin to scoff; - When ‘the girls’ no longer kiss you, crying ‘Jack! how you have changed!’ - When you’re stale to your relations, and their manner seems estranged; - When the old domestic quarrels, round the table thrice a day, - Make it too much like the old times--make you wish you’d stayed away, - When, in short, you’ve spent your money in the fulness of your heart, - And your clothes are getting shabby.... Then it’s high time to depart. - - - - - A LITTLE MISTAKE - - - ’Tis a yarn I heard of a new-chum ‘trap’ - On the edge of the Never-Never, - Where the dead men lie and the black men lie, - And the bushman lies for ever. - - ’Twas the custom still with the local blacks - To cadge in the ‘altogether’-- - They had less respect for our feelings then, - And more respect for the weather. - - The trooper said to the sergeant’s wife: - ‘Sure, I wouldn’t seem unpleasant; - But there’s women and childer about the place, - And--barrin’ a lady’s present-- - - ‘There’s ould King Billy wid niver a stitch - For a month--may the drought cremate him!-- - Bar the wan we put in his dhirty head, - Where his old Queen Mary bate him. - - ‘God give her strength!--and a peaceful reign-- - Though she flies in a bit av a passion - If ony wan hints that her shtoyle an’ luks - Are a trifle behind the fashion. - - ‘There’s two of the boys by the stable now-- - Be the powers! I’ll teach the varmints - To come wid nought but a shirt apiece, - And wid dirt for their nayther garmints. - - ‘Howld on, ye blaggards! How dare ye dare - To come widin sight av the houses?-- - I’ll give ye a warnin’ all for wance - An’ a couple of ould pair of trousers.’ - - They took the pants as a child a toy, - The constable’s words beguiling - A smile of something beside their joy; - And they took their departure smiling. - - And that very day, when the sun was low, - Two blackfellows came to the station; - They were filled with the courage of Queensland rum - And bursting with indignation. - - The constable noticed, with growing ire, - They’d apparently dressed in a hurry; - And their language that day, I am sorry to say, - Mostly consisted of ‘plurry.’ - - The constable heard, and he wished himself back - In the land of the bogs and the ditches-- - ‘You plurry big tight-britches p’liceman, what for - You gibbit our missuses britches?’ - - And this was a case, I am bound to confess, - Where civilisation went under; - Had one of the gins been _less_ modest in dress - He’d never have made such a blunder. - - And here let the moral be duly made known, - And hereafter signed and attested: - We should place more reliance on that which is shown - And less upon what is suggested. - - - - - A STUDY IN THE “NOOD” - - ‘A sailor named Grice was seen by the guard of a goods train lying - close to the railway-line near Warner Town (S.A.) in a nude - condition. He was unconscious, and had lain there three days, - during one of which the glass registed 110 in the shade. _Grice - expressed surprise that the train did not pick him up._’--Daily - paper. In consequence, the muse:-- - - - He was bare--we don’t want to be rude-- - (His condition was owing to drink) - They say his condition was nood, - Which amounts to the same thing, we think - (We mean his _condition_, we think, - ’Twas a naked condition, or _nood_, - Which amounts to the same thing, we think) - - Uncovered he lay on the grass - That shrivelled and shrunk; and he stayed - Three hot summer days, while the glass - Was one hundred and ten in the shade. - (We nearly remarked that he _laid_, - But that was bad grammar we thought-- - It _does_ sound bucolic, we think - It smacks of the barnyard-- - Of farming--of _pullets_ in short.) - - Unheeded he lay on the dirt; - Beside him a part of his dress, - A tattered and threadbare old shirt - Was raised as a flag of distress. - (On a stick, like a flag of distress-- - Reversed--we mean that the tail-end was up - _Half-mast_--on a stick--an evident flag of distress.) - - Perhaps in his dreams he persood - Bright visions of heav’nly bliss; - And artists who study the nood - Never saw such a study as this. - The ‘luggage’ went by and the guard - Looked out and his eyes fell on Grice-- - We fancy he looked at him hard, - We think that he looked at him twice. - - They say (if the telegram’s true) - When he woke up he wondered (good Lord!) - ‘Why the engine-man didn’t heave to-- - Why the train didn’t take him aboard.’ - And now, by the case of poor Grice, - We think that a daily express - Should travel with sunshades and ice, - And a lookout for flags of distress. - - - - - A WORD TO TEXAS JACK - - - Texas Jack, you are amusin’. By Lord Harry, how I laughed - When I seen yer rig and saddle with its bulwarks fore-and-aft; - Holy smoke! In such a saddle how the dickens can yer fall? - Why, I seen a gal ride bareback with no bridle on at all! - Gosh! so-help-me! strike-me-balmy! if a bit o’ scenery - Like ter you in all yer rig-out on the earth I ever see! - How I’d like ter see a bushman use yer fixins, Texas Jack; - On the remnant of a saddle he can ride to hell and back. - Why, I heerd a mother screamin’ when her kid went tossin’ by - Ridin’ bareback on a bucker that had murder in his eye. - - What? yer come to learn the natives how to squat on horse’s back! - Learn the cornstalk ridin’! Blazes!--w’at yer giv’n’ us, Texas Jack? - Learn the cornstalk--what the flamin’, jumptup! where’s my country gone? - Why, the cornstalk’s mother often rides the day afore he’s born! - - You may talk about your ridin’ in the city, bold an’ free, - Talk o’ ridin’ in the city, Texas Jack, but where’d yer be - When the stock horse snorts an’ bunches all ’is quarters in a hump, - And the saddle climbs a sapling, an’ the horse-shoes split a stump? - - No, before yer teach the native you must ride without a fall - Up a gum or down a gully nigh as steep as any wall-- - You must swim the roarin’ Darlin’ when the flood is at its height - Bearin’ down the stock an’ stations to the great Australian Bight. - - You can’t count the bulls an’ bisons that yer copped with your lassoo-- - But a stout old myall bullock p’raps ’ud learn yer somethin’ new; - Yer’d better make yer will an’ leave yer papers neat an’ trim - Before yer make arrangements for the lassooin’ of _him_; - Ere you’n’ yer horse is catsmeat, fittin’ fate for sich galoots, - And yer saddle’s turned to laces like we put in blucher boots. - - And yer say yer death on Injins! We’ve got somethin’ in yer line-- - If yer think your fitin’s ekal to the likes of Tommy Ryan. - Take yer karkass up to Queensland where the allygators chew - And the carpet-snake is handy with his tail for a lassoo; - Ride across the hazy regins where the lonely emus wail - An’ ye’ll find the black’ll track yer while yer lookin’ for his trail; - He can track yer without stoppin’ for a thousand miles or more-- - Come again, and he will show yer where yer spit the year before. - But yer’d best be mighty careful, you’ll be sorry you kem here - When yer skewered to the fakements of yer saddle with a spear-- - When the boomerang is sailin’ in the air, may heaven help yer! - It will cut yer head off goin’, an’ come back again and skelp yer. - - P.S.--As poet and as Yankee I will greet you, Texas Jack, - For it isn’t no ill-feelin’ that is gettin’ up my back, - But I won’t see this land crowded by each Yank and British cuss - Who takes it in his head to come a-civilisin’ us. - - So if you feel like shootin’ now, don’t let yer pistol cough-- - (Our Government is very free at chokin’ fellers off); - And though on your great continent there’s misery in the towns - An’ not a few untitled lords and kings without their crowns, - I will admit your countrymen is busted big, an’ free, - An’ great on ekal rites of men and great on liberty; - I will admit yer fathers punched the gory tyrant’s head, - But then we’ve got our heroes, too, the diggers that is dead-- - The plucky men of Ballarat who toed the scratch right well - And broke the nose of Tyranny and made his peepers swell - For yankin’ Lib.’s gold tresses in the roarin’ days gone by, - An’ doublin’ up his dirty fist to black her bonny eye; - So when it comes to ridin’ mokes, or hoistin’ out the Chow, - Or stickin’ up for labour’s rights, we don’t want showin’ how. - - They come to learn us cricket in the days of long ago, - An’ Hanlan come from Canada to learn us how to row, - An’ ‘doctors’ come from ’Frisco just to learn us how to skite, - An’ ‘pugs’ from all the lands on earth to learn us how to fight; - An’ when they go, as like or not, we find we’re taken in, - They’ve left behind no larnin’--but they’ve carried off our tin. - - - - - THE GROG-AN’-GRUMBLE STEEPLECHASE - - - ’Twixt the coastline and the border lay the town of Grog-an’-Grumble - In the days before the bushman was a dull ’n’ heartless drudge, - An’ they say the local meeting was a drunken rough-and-tumble, - Which was ended pretty often by an inquest on the judge. - An’ ’tis said the city talent very often caught a tartar - In the Grog-an’-Grumble sportsman, ’n’ retired with broken heads, - For the fortune, life, and safety of the Grog-an’-Grumble starter - Mostly hung upon the finish of the local thoroughbreds. - - Pat M‘Durmer was the owner of a horse they called the Screamer, - Which he called the ‘quickest shtepper ’twixt the Darling and the sea;’ - And I think it’s very doubtful if the stomach-troubled dreamer - Ever saw a more outrageous piece of equine scenery; - For his points were most decided, from his end to his beginning, - He had eyes of different colour, and his legs they wasn’t mates. - Pat M‘Durmer said he always came ‘widin a flip av winnin’,’ - An’ his sire had come from England, ’n’ his dam was from the States. - - Friends would argue with M‘Durmer, and they said he was in error - To put up his horse the Screamer, for he’d lose in any case, - And they said a city racer by the name of Holy Terror - Was regarded as the winner of the coming steeplechase; - But he said he had the knowledge to come in when it was raining, - And irrelevantly mentioned that he knew the time of day, - So he rose in their opinion. It was noticed that the training - Of the Screamer was conducted in a dark, mysterious way. - - Well, the day arrived in glory; ’twas a day of jubilation - With careless-hearted bushmen for a hundred miles around, - An’ the rum ’n’ beer ’n’ whisky came in waggons from the station, - An’ the Holy Terror talent were the first upon the ground. - Judge M‘Ard--with whose opinion it was scarcely safe to wrestle-- - Took his dangerous position on the bark-and-sapling stand: - He was what the local Stiggins used to speak of as a ‘wessel - ‘Of wrath,’ and he’d a bludgeon that he carried in his hand. - - ‘Off ye go!’ the starter shouted, as down fell a stupid jockey-- - Off they started in disorder--left the jockey where he lay-- - And they fell and rolled and galloped down the crooked course and rocky, - Till the pumping of the Screamer could be heard a mile away. - But he kept his legs and galloped; he was used to rugged courses, - And he lumbered down the gully till the ridge began to quake: - And he ploughed along the siding, raising earth till other horses - An’ their riders, too, were blinded by the dust-cloud in his wake. - - From the ruck he’d struggled slowly--they were much surprised to find him - Close abeam of Holy Terror as along the flat they tore-- - Even higher still and denser rose the cloud of dust behind him, - While in more divided splinters flew the shattered rails before. - ‘Terror!’ ‘Dead heat!’ they were shouting--‘Terror!’ but the Screamer hung - out - Nose to nose with Holy Terror as across the creek they swung, - An’ M‘Durmer shouted loudly, ‘Put yer tongue out! put yer tongue out!’ - An’ the Screamer put his tongue out, and he won by half-a-tongue. - - - - - BUT WHAT’S THE USE - - - 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, - Out where the sun is hottest and - The stars are most and brightest. - - The crows at sunrise flopping round - Where some poor life has run down; - The pair of emus trotting from - The lonely tank at sundown, - Their snaky heads well up, and eyes - Well out for man’s manœuvres, - And feathers bobbing round behind - Like fringes round improvers. - - The swagman tramping ’cross the plain; - Good Lord, there’s nothing sadder, - Except the dog that slopes behind - His master like a shadder; - The turkey-tail to scare the flies, - The water-bag and billy; - The nose-bag getting cruel light, - The traveller getting silly. - - The plain that seems to Jackaroos - Like gently sloping rises, - The shrubs and tufts that’s miles away - But magnified in sizes; - The track that seems arisen up - Or else seems gently slopin’, - And just a hint of kangaroos - Way out across the open. - - The joy and hope the swagman feels - Returning, after shearing, - Or after six months’ tramp Out Back, - He strikes the final clearing. - His weary spirit breathes again, - His aching legs seem limber - When to the East across the plain - He spots the Darling Timber! - - But what’s the use of writing ‘bush’-- - Though editors demand it-- - For city folk and cockatoos, - They do not understand it. - They’re blind to what the whaler sees - The best with eyes shut tightest, - Out where Australia’s widest, and - The stars are most and brightest. - - * * * * * - -MAY, 1902. - - -LIST OF BOOKS - -PUBLISHED BY - -ANGUS & ROBERTSON - -89 CASTLEREAGH STREET, SYDNEY -205 SWANSTON STREET, MELBOURNE - -SOLD IN ENGLAND BY - -THE AUSTRALIAN BOOK COMPANY - -38 WEST SMITHFIELD, LONDON, E.C. - - * * * * * - -THE COMMONWEALTH SERIES - -Crown 8vo., 1s. each (_post free 1s. 3d. each_). - -=ON THE TRACK: New Stories.= _By HENRY LAWSON_ - -=OVER THE SLIPRAILS: New Stories.= _By H. LAWSON_ - -=POPULAR VERSES.= _By HENRY LAWSON_ - -_Now first published in book form._ - -=HUMOROUS VERSES.= _By HENRY LAWSON_ - -_Now first published in book form._ - -=WHILE THE BILLY BOILS: Australian Stories.= - -=First Series.= _By HENRY LAWSON_ - -=WHILE THE BILLY BOILS: Australian Stories.= - -=Second Series.= _By HENRY LAWSON_ - -=HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA: From the Earliest Times to -the Inauguration of the Commonwealth.= - -_By A. W. JOSE_ - -=HISTORY OF AUSTRALIAN BUSHRANGING.= - -_By CHARLES WHITE_ - -PART I.--THE EARLY DAYS. [_Now ready_ -PART II.--1850 TO 1862. [_Now ready_ -PART III.--1863 TO 1869. [_Now ready_ -PART IV.--1869 TO 1878. [_In preparation_ - - -*** For press notices of these books see the cloth-bound editions on -pages 4, 5, 6, 13 and 15 of this catalogue. - - * * * * * - -JOE WILSON AND HIS MATES. - - BY HENRY LAWSON, Author of “While the Billy Boils;” “When the World - was Wide and Other Verses;” “Verses, Popular and Humorous;” “On the - Track and Over the Sliprails.” - - Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. (_post free 4s._), in paper covers, - 2s. 6d. (_post free 3s._). - -=The Athenæum= (London): “This is a long way the best work Mr. Lawson -has yet given us. These stories are so good that (from the literary -point of view, of course) one hopes they are not autobiographical. As -autobiography they would be good; as pure fiction they are more of an -attainment.” - -=Pall Mall Gazette:= “We can see in these rough diamonds the men who -have of late so distinguished themselves at Eland’s River and -elsewhere.” - -=The Argus:= “More tales of the Joe Wilson series are promised, and this -will be gratifying to Mr. Lawson’s admirers, for on the whole the -sketches are the best work the writer has so far accomplished.” - -=The Academy:=--“I have never read anything in modern English literature -that is so absolutely democratic in tone, so much the real thing, as -_Joe Wilson’s Courtship_. And so with all Lawson’s tales and sketches. -Tolstoy and Howells, and Whitman and Kipling, and Zola and Hauptmann and -Gorky have all written descriptions of ‘democratic’ life; but none of -these celebrated authors, not even Maupassant himself, has so absolutely -taken us inside the life as do the tales _Joe Wilson’s Courtship_ and _A -Double Buggy at Lahey’s Creek_, and it is this rare convincing tone of -this Australian writer that gives him a great value. The most casual -‘newspapery’ and apparently artless art of this Australian writer -carries with it a truer, finer, more delicate commentary on life than -all the idealistic works of any of our genteel school of writers.” - - * * * * * - -VERSES: POPULAR AND HUMOROUS. - - By HENRY LAWSON, Author of “When the World was Wide, and Other - Verses,” “Joe Wilson and His Mates,” “On the Track and Over the - Sliprails,” and “While the Billy Boils.” - -Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. (_post free 4s._). - - _For Cheaper Edition see Commonwealth Series, page 2._ - -FRANCIS THOMPSON, in =The Daily Chronicle=: “He is a writer of strong -and ringing ballad verse, who gets his blows straight in, and at his -best makes them all tell. He can vignette the life he knows in a few -touches, and in this book shows an increased power of selection.” - -=Academy=: “Mr. Lawson’s work should be well known to our readers; for -we have urged them often enough to make acquaintance with it. He has the -gift of movement, and he rarely offers a loose rhyme. Technically, short -of anxious lapidary work, these verses are excellent. He varies -sentiment and humour very agreeably.” - -=New York Evening Journal=: “Such pride as a man feels when he has true -greatness as his guest, this newspaper feels in introducing to a million -readers a man of ability hitherto unknown to them. Henry Lawson is his -name.” - -=The Book Lover=: “Any book of Lawson’s should be bought and treasured -by all who care for the real beginnings of Australian literature. As a -matter of fact, he is the one Australian literary product, in any -distinctive sense.” - - * * * * * - -ON THE TRACK AND OVER THE SLIPRAILS. - - STORIES BY HENRY LAWSON, Author of “While the Billy Boils,” “Joe - Wilson and his Mates,” “When the World Was Wide and Other Verses,” - and “Verses, Popular and Humorous.” - -Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. (_post free 4s._). - - _For Cheaper Edition see Commonwealth Series, page 2._ - -=Daily Chronicle=: “Will well sustain the reputation its author has -already won as the best writer of Australian short stories and sketches -the literary world knows. Henry Lawson has the art, possessed in such -eminent degree by Mr. J. M. Barrie, of sketching in a character and -suggesting a whole life-story in a single sentence.” - -=Pall Mall Gazette=: “The volume now received will do much to enhance -the author’s reputation. There is all the quiet irresistible humour of -Dickens in the description of ‘The Darling River,’ and the creator of -‘Truthful James’ never did anything better in the way of character -sketches than Steelman and Mitchell. Mr. Lawson has a master’s sense of -what is dramatic, and he can bring out strong effects in a few touches. -Humour and pathos, comedy and tragedy, are equally at his command.” - -=Glasgow Herald=: “Mr. Lawson must now be regarded as _facile princeps_ -in the production of the short tale. Some of these brief and even slight -sketches are veritable gems that would be spoiled by an added word, and -without a word that can be looked upon as superfluous.” - -=Melbourne Punch=: “Often the little stories are wedges cut clean out of -life, and presented with artistic truth and vivid colour.” - - * * * * * - -WHILE THE BILLY BOILS. - - STORIES BY HENRY LAWSON, Author of “When the World Was Wide and - Other Verses,” “Joe Wilson and his Mates,” “On the Track and Over - the Sliprails,” and “Verses, Popular and Humorous.” - - Twenty-third Thousand. With eight plates and vignette title by F. - P. Mahony. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. (_post free 4s._). - - _For Cheaper Edition see Commonwealth Series, page 2._ - -=The Academy=: “A book of honest, direct, sympathetic, humorous writing -about Australia from within is worth a library of travellers’ tales.... -The result is a real book--a book in a hundred. His language is terse, -supple, and richly idiomatic. He can tell a yarn with the best.” - -=Literature=: “A book which Mrs. Campbell Praed assured me made her feel -that all she had written of bush life was pale and ineffective.” - -=The Spectator=: “It is strange that one we would venture to call the -greatest Australian writer should be practically unknown in England. Mr. -Lawson is a less experienced writer than Mr. Kipling, and more unequal, -but there are two or three sketches in this volume which for vigour and -truth can hold their own with even so great a rival.” - -=The Times=: “A collection of short and vigorous studies and stories of -Australian life and character. A little in Bret Harte’s manner, crossed, -perhaps, with that of Guy de Maupassant.” - -=The Scotsman=: “There is no lack of dramatic imagination in the -construction of the tales; and the best of them contrive to construct a -strong sensational situation in a couple of pages.” - - * * * * * - -WHEN THE WORLD WAS WIDE AND OTHER VERSES. - - BY HENRY LAWSON, Author of “While the Billy Boils,” “Joe Wilson and - his Mates,” “On the Track and Over the Sliprails,” and “Verses, - Popular and Humorous.” - - Tenth Thousand. With photogravure portrait and vignette title. - Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt top, 5s. (_post free 5s. 5d._). - - _Presentation edition, French Morocco, gilt edges, 9s._ - -=The Academy=: “These ballads (for such they mostly are) abound in -spirit and manhood, in the colour and smell of Australian soil. They -deserve the popularity which they have won in Australia, and which, we -trust, this edition will now give them in England.” - -=MR. R. LE GALLIENNE, in The Idler=: “A striking volume of ballad -poetry. A volume to console one for the tantalising postponement of Mr. -Kipling’s promised volume of sea ballads.” - -=Newcastle Weekly Chronicle=: “Swinging, rhythmic verse.” - -=Sydney Morning Herald=: “The verses have natural vigour, the writer has -a rough, true faculty of characterisation, and the book is racy of the -soil from cover to cover.” - -=Bulletin=: “How graphic he is, how natural, how true, how strong.” - -=Otago Witness=: “It were well to have such books upon our shelves.... -They are true history.” - - * * * * * - -THE MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER AND OTHER VERSES. - - BY A. B. PATERSON. - - Twenty-Fourth Thousand. With photogravure portrait and vignette - title. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt top, 5s. (_post free 5s. 5d._). - - _Presentation edition, French Morocco, gilt edges, 9s._ - -=The Literary Year Book=: “The immediate success of this book of bush -ballads is without parallel in Colonial literary annals, nor can any -living English or American poet boast so wide a public, always excepting -Mr. Rudyard Kipling.” - -=The Times=: “At his best he compares not unfavourably with the author -of ‘Barrack Room Ballads.’” - -=Spectator=: “These lines have the true lyrical cry in them. Eloquent -and ardent verses.” - -=Athenæum=: “Swinging, rattling ballads of ready humour, ready pathos, -and crowding adventure.... Stirring and entertaining ballads about great -rides, in which the lines gallop like the very hoofs of the horses.” - -Mr. A. PATCHETT MARTIN, in =Literature= (London): “In my opinion it is -the absolutely un-English, thoroughly Australian style and character of -these new bush bards which has given them such immediate popularity, -such wide vogue, among all classes of the rising native generation.” - -_London: Macmillan & Co., Limited._ - - * * * * * - -THE POETICAL WORKS OF BRUNTON STEPHENS. - - New edition, with photogravure portrait. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, - gilt top, 5s. - -=Sydney Morning Herald (N.S.W.)=: “‘The Poetical Works of Brunton -Stephens,’ as now published by Messrs. Angus and Robertson, is a book -which every Australian should have on his bookshelves, whether these -bookshelves cover walls or are merely the small collection which the man -of taste, however shrunken his purse, is bound to make. Brunton Stephens -deserves his place in even the smallest of collections. The chief of -Australian poets he has contributed to English literature work of -distinguished merit. He is many-sided, embracing all sorts and -conditions of men and things.” - -=The Melbourne Argus=: “Mr. Brunton Stephens has for some years enjoyed -an established reputation as one of the best among the small and select -cluster of Australian poets.... Mr. Stephens is specially favoured, in -that he not only has at command a vein of true pathos, but he has -moments of real humour. In more than one poem, too, he has made good his -right to be regarded as the poet of brotherhood and the prophet of -federation.” - -=The Melbourne Age=: “It is certainly one of the happiest of his -efforts, and exhibits alike his copious vocabulary and his mastery of a -most attractive form of metre.... A poet both in thought and feeling.” - -=Newcastle (N.S.W.) Morning Herald=: “Of the rapidly lengthening roll of -Australian writers, none deserves a higher place than Brunton Stephens. -For more than a generation he has charmed his countrymen with his -exquisite verse.” - - * * * * * - -RHYMES FROM THE MINES AND OTHER LINES. - - BY EDWARD DYSON, Author of “A Golden Shanty.” - - Second Thousand. With photogravure portrait and vignette title. - Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt top, 5s. (_post free, 5s. 5d._). - - _Presentation edition, French Morocco, gilt edges, 9s._ - -=The Academy=: “Here from within we have the Australian miner complete: -the young miner, the old miner, the miner in luck, and the miner out of -it, the miner in love, and the miner in peril. Mr. Dyson knows it all.” - - * * * * * - -THE MUTINEER. A Romance of Pitcairn Island. By LOUIS BECKE AND WALTER -JEFFERY. - - Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. (_post free 4s._). - - * * * * * - -FOR THE TERM OF HIS NATURAL LIFE. - - By MARCUS CLARKE. - - With a Memoir of the Author, by A. B. PATERSON, Portrait of the - Author, Map of Eagle Hawk Neck and the vicinity, and 14 full-page - views of places mentioned in the book. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt - top, 3s. 6d. (_post free 4s._). - - * * * * * - -LOVE AND LONGITUDE. - - A Story of the Pacific in the Year 1900. - - BY R. SCOT SKIRVING. - - With 8 plates, crown 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt top, 5s. (_post free 5s. - 6d._). - -=Daily Telegraph=: “A capital story of love and adventure in the -Pacific.... Seafaring folk will find much to interest them particularly -in ‘Love and Longitude,’ and general readers will admire it for its -bright narrative.” - - * * * * * - -OUR ARMY IN SOUTH AFRICA. - - By R. SCOT SKIRVING, late Consulting Surgeon to the Australian - Contingents. - - Crown 8vo, boards, 2s. (_post free 2s. 2d._). - - * * * * * - -THE SPIRIT OF THE BUSH FIRE AND OTHER AUSTRALIAN FAIRY TALES. BY J. M. -WHITFELD. - - Second Thousand. With 32 illustrations by G. W. Lambert. Crown 8vo, - cloth gilt, 2s. 6d. (_post free 3s._). - -=Sydney Morning Herald=: “It is frankly written for the young folks. The -youngster will find a delight in Miss Whitfeld’s marvellous company.” - - * * * * * - -TEENS. A Story of Australian Schoolgirls. - - BY LOUISE MACK. - - Fourth Thousand. With 14 full-page illustrations by F. P. Mahony. - Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 2s. 6d. - -=Sydney Morning Herald=: “Ought to be welcome to all who feel the -responsibility of choosing the reading books of the young ... its -gaiety, impulsiveness, and youthfulness will charm them.” - -=Sydney Daily Telegraph=: “Nothing could be more natural, more -sympathetic.” - -=The Australasian=: “‘Teens’ is a pleasantly-written story, very -suitable for a present or a school prize.” - -=Bulletin=: “It is written so well that it could not be written better.” - - * * * * * - -GIRLS TOGETHER. - -A Sequel to “Teens.” BY LOUISE MACK. - - Third Thousand. Illustrated by G. W. Lambert. Crown 8vo, cloth - gilt, 2s. 6d. - -=Sydney Morning Herald=: “‘Girls Together’ should be in the library of -every girl who likes a pleasant story of real life.... Older people will -read it for its bright touches of human nature.” - -=Queenslander=: “A story told in a dainty style that makes it attractive -to all. It is fresh, bright, and cheery, and well worth a place on any -Australian bookshelf.” - - * * * * * - -THE ANNOTATED CONSTITUTION OF THE AUSTRALIAN COMMONWEALTH. - - By Sir JOHN QUICK AND R. R. GARRAN, C.M.G. - - Royal 8vo, cloth gilt, 21s. - -=The Times=: “The Annotated Constitution of the Australian Commonwealth -is a monument of industry.... Dr. Quick and Mr. Garran have collected, -with patience and enthusiasm, every sort of information, legal and -historical, which can throw light on the new measure. The book has -evidently been a labour of love.” - - * * * * * - -HISTORY OF AUSTRALIAN BUSHRANGING. BY CHARLES WHITE. - - To be completed in two vols. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. each. - [_Vol. I. now ready._ - - _For Cheaper Edition see Commonwealth Series, page 2._ - -Press Notices of Volume I. - -=Year Book of Australia=: “There is ‘romance’ enough about it to make it -of permanent interest as a peculiar and most remarkable stage in our -social history.” - -=Queenslander=: “Mr. White has supplied material enough for twenty such -novels as ‘Robbery Under Arms.’” - - * * * * * - -THE GROWTH OF THE EMPIRE. - -A Handbook to the History of Greater Britain. - - BY ARTHUR W. JOSE, Author of “A Short History of Australasia.” - - Second Edition. With 14 Maps. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 5s. (_post - free 5s. 6d._) - -=Morning Post=: “This book is published in Sydney, but it deserves to be -circulated throughout the United Kingdom. The picture of the fashion in -which British enterprise made its way from settlement to settlement has -never been drawn more vividly than in these pages. Mr. Jose’s style is -crisp and pleasant, now and then even rising to eloquence on his grand -theme. His book deserves wide popularity, and it has the rare merit of -being so written as to be attractive alike to the young student and to -the mature man of letters.” - -=Literature=: “He has studied thoroughly, and writes vigorously.... -Admirably done.... We commend it to Britons the world over.” - -=Saturday Review=: “He writes Imperially; he also often writes -sympathetically.... We cannot close Mr. Jose’s creditable account of our -misdoings without a glow of national pride.” - -=Yorkshire Post=: “A brighter short history we do not know, and this -book deserves for the matter and the manner of it to be as well known as -Mr. McCarthy’s ‘History of Our Own Times.’” - -=The Scotsman=: “This admirable work is a solid octavo of more than 400 -pages. It is a thoughtful, well-written, and well-arranged history. -There are fourteen excellent maps to illustrate the text.” - - * * * * * - -HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. - -From the Earliest Times to the Inauguration of the Commonwealth. - - BY ARTHUR W. JOSE, Author of “The Growth of the Empire.” The - chapter on Federation revised by R. R. Garran, C.M.G. - - With 6 maps and 64 portraits and illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth, - 1s. 6d. (_post free 1s. 10d._). _For Cheaper Edition see - Commonwealth Series, page 2._ - -=The Book Lover=: “The ignorance of the average Australian youth about -the brief history of his native land is often deplorable.... ‘A Short -History of Australasia,’ by Arthur W. Jose, just provides the thing -wanted. Mr. Jose’s previous historical work was most favourably received -in England, and this story of our land is capitally done. It is not too -long, and it is brightly written. Its value is considerably enhanced by -the useful maps and interesting illustrations. A very good book to give -to a boy.” - -=Victorian Education Gazette=: “The language is graphic and simple, and -there is much evidence of careful work and acquaintance with original -documents, which give the reader confidence in the accuracy of the -details. The low price of the book leaves young Australians no excuse -for remaining in ignorance of the history of their native land.” - -=Town and Country Journal=: “His language is graphic and simple, and he -has maintained the unity and continuity of the story of events despite -the necessity of following the subject along the seven branches -corresponding with the seven separate colonies.” - - * * * * * - -THE GEOLOGY OF SYDNEY AND THE BLUE MOUNTAINS. - -A Popular Introduction to the Study of Australian Geology. - - BY REV. J. MILNE CURRAN, Lecturer in Chemistry and Geology, - Technical College, Sydney. - - Second Edition. With a Glossary of Scientific terms, a Reference - List of commonly-occurring Fossils, 2 coloured maps, and 83 - illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 6s. (_post free 6s. 6d._). - -=Nature=: “This is, strictly speaking, an elementary manual of geology. -The general plan of the work is good; the book is well printed and -illustrated with maps, photographic pictures of rock structure and -scenery, and figures of fossils and rock sections.” - -=Saturday Review=: “His style is animated and inspiring, or clear and -precise, as occasion demands. The people of Sydney are to be -congratulated on the existence of such a guide to their beautiful -country.” - -=Literary World=: “We can heartily recommend the book as a very -interesting one, written in a much more readable style than is usual in -works of this kind.” - -=South Australian Register=: “Mr. Curran has extracted a charming -narrative of the earth’s history out of the prosaic stone. Though he has -selected Sydney rocks for his text, his discourse is interestingly -Australian.” - - * * * * * - -AUSTRALIAN CAVALRY. - - The N.S.W. Lancer Regiment and the First Australian Horse. - - BY FRANK WILKINSON, War Correspondent, Sydney _Daily Telegraph_. - With one coloured and eight other full-page plates. - - Crown 4to, boards, 2s. (_post free 2s. 4d._) - - * * * * * - -SIMPLE TESTS FOR MINERALS; - -Or, Every Man his Own Analyst. - - BY JOSEPH CAMPBELL, M.A., F.G.S., M.I.M.E. - - Fourth Edition, revised and enlarged (completing the ninth - thousand). With illustrations. Cloth, round corners, 3s. 6d. (_post - free 38. 9d._). - - * * * * * - -THE KINGSWOOD COOKERY BOOK. - - BY MRS. WICKEN, M.C.A., Late Teacher of Cookery, Technical College, - Sydney. - - Fifth edition, revised, completing the Nineteenth Thousand. 382 - pages, crown 8vo, paper cover, 1s; cloth, 1s. 6d. (_postage 4d._). - - * * * * * - -PRESBYTERIAN WOMEN’S MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION COOKERY BOOK. - - Seventh Edition, enlarged, completing the 45th Thousand. Crown - 8vo., cloth, 1s. (_post free 1s. 2d._). - - * * * * * - -THE METRIC SYSTEM OF WEIGHTS AND MEASURES, AND DECIMAL COINAGE. - - BY J. M. TAYLOR, M.A., LL.B. - - With Introductory Notes on the nature of Decimals, and contracted - methods for the Multiplication and Division of Decimals. Crown 8vo, - 6d. (_post free 7d._). - -=N.S.W. Educational Gazette=: “A masterly and elaborate treatise for the -use of schools on a subject of world-wide interest and importance.... In -commercial life a knowledge of the metric system has been for some years -essential, and it is, therefore, fitting that its underlying principles -should be taught in our schools concurrently with reduction, and -practised systematically in the more advanced grades. For this purpose -the book is unquestionably the best we have seen.” - - * * * * * - -ANSWERS TO TAYLOR’S METRIC SYSTEM. 6d. (_post free 7d._). - - * * * * * - -THE ELEMENTS OF EUCLID. - -With Historical Introduction, Notes, Appendices and Miscellaneous -Examples. - - BY J. D. ST. CLAIR MACLARDY, M.A., Lecturer at the Training - Colleges and Examiner for the New South Wales Department of Public - Instruction. - - Books I.-IV. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. (_post free 3s. 10d._). Book - I., separately, cloth, 1s. 6d. (_post free 1s. 9d._). - -=N.S.W. Educational Gazette=: “The most complete and logical discussion -of this part of the works of the great geometer that we have seen. An -unusual amount of care has been bestowed on the initiatory stages, the -definitions, axioms, and postulates being treated with commendable -fulness.... The brevity, simplicity, and perspicuity of his methods will -appeal forcibly to students.... Mr. Maclardy adheres to the plan of -simplifying the proofs and reducing the verbiage to a minimum, and has -added a contribution to mathematical literature which we regard as -indispensable.” - -=Victorian Educational Gazette=: “Among the legion of editions of -Euclid, Mr. Maclardy’s takes an honourable place. There are many -features that are the result of the author’s long experience as a -lecturer and examiner in mathematics. He has evidently taken a pride in -making his work as perfect as possible.” - - * * * * * - -ENGLISH GRAMMAR, COMPOSITION, AND PRÉCIS WRITING. - -For Use by Candidates for University and Public Service Exams - - BY JAMES CONWAY, Headmaster at Cleveland-street Superior Public - School, Sydney. - - Prescribed by the Department of Public Instruction, N.S.W., for - First and Second Class Teachers’ Certificate Examinations. New - edition, revised and enlarged. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. - (_post free 3s. 10d._). - -=Sydney Morning Herald=: “To its concise and admirable arrangement of -rules and definitions, which holds good wherever the English language is -spoken or written, is added special treatment of special difficulties. -Mr. Conway adopts the excellent plan of taking certain papers, and of -answering the questions in detail.... Should be in the hands of every -teacher.” - -=Victorian Educational News=: “A book which we can heartily recommend as -the most suitable we have yet met with to place in the hands of students -for our intermediate examinations, and also for matriculation, pupil -teachers’ and certificate of competency examinations. We should be glad -to see the work set down in the syllabus of the Department so that it -would reach the hands of all the students and teachers engaged in -studying the subject in our State schools.” - - * * * * * - -A SMALLER ENGLISH GRAMMAR, COMPOSITION, AND PRÉCIS WRITING. - - BY JAMES CONWAY. - - Prescribed by the Department of Public Instruction, N.S.W., for - Third Class and Pupil Teachers’ Examinations. New edition, revised - and enlarged. Crown 8vo, cloth, 1s. 6d. (_post free 1s. 9d._). - -=N.S.W. Educational Gazette=: “The abridgment is very well done. One -recognises the hand of a man who has had long experience of the -difficulties of this subject.” - - * * * * * - -GEOGRAPHY OF NEW SOUTH WALES. BY J. M. TAYLOR, M.A., LL.B. - - New Edition, revised. With 37 illustrations and 6 folding maps. - Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. (_post free 3s. 10d._). - -=Sydney Morning Herald=: “Something more than a school book; it is an -approach to an ideal geography.” - -=Review of Reviews=: “It makes a very attractive handbook. Its geography -is up to date; it is not overburdened with details, and it is richly -illustrated with geological diagrams and photographs of scenery -reproduced with happy skill.” - - * * * * * - -CAUSERIES FAMILIÈRES; OR, FRIENDLY CHATS. A Simple and Deductive French -Course. BY MRS. S. C. BOYD. - - Prescribed for use in schools by the Department of Public - Instruction, New South Wales. Pupils’ Edition, containing all that - need be in the hands of the learner. Crown 8vo, cloth, limp, 1s. - 6d. (_post free 1s. 8d._). Teachers’ Edition, containing - grammatical summaries, exercises, a full treatise on pronunciation, - French-English and English-French Vocabulary, and other matter for - the use of the teacher or of a student without a master. Crown 8vo, - cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. (_post free, 3s. 10d._). - -=The London Spectator=: “A most excellent and practical little volume, -evidently the work of a trained teacher. It combines admirably and in an -entertaining form the advantages of the conversational with those of the -grammatical method of learning a language.” - - * * * * * - -AUSTRALIAN SONGS FOR AUSTRALIAN CHILDREN. - - BY MRS. MAYBANKE ANDERSON. - - All the songs are set to music, while to some of them appropriate - calisthenic exercises are given. Demy 4to, picture cover, 1s. - - * * * * * - -THE AUSTRALIAN OBJECT LESSON BOOK. - - Part I.--For Infant and Junior Classes. With 43 illustrations. - Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d.; paper cover, 2s. 6d. (_postage, - 4d._). - -=N.S.W. Educational Gazette=: “Mr. Wiley has wisely adopted the plan of -utilising the services of specialists. The series is remarkably -complete, and includes almost everything with which the little learners -ought to be made familiar. Throughout the whole series the lessons have -been selected with judgment and with a due appreciation of the capacity -of the pupils for whose use they are intended.” - - * * * * * - -THE AUSTRALIAN OBJECT LESSON BOOK. - - Part II.--For advanced classes. With 113 illustrations. Crown 8vo, - cloth gilt, 3s. 6d.; paper cover, 2s. 6d. (_postage 4d._). - -=Victorian Education Gazette=: “Mr. Wiley and his colleagues have -provided a storehouse of useful information on a great number of topics -that can be taken up in any Australian school.” - -=N.S.W. Educational Gazette=: “The Australian Object Lesson Book is -evidently the result of infinite patience and deep research on the part -of its compiler, who is also to be commended for the admirable -arrangement of his matter.” - - * * * * * - -A NEW BOOK OF SONGS FOR SCHOOLS AND SINGING CLASSES. - - BY HUGO ALPEN, Superintendent of Music, Department of Public - Instruction, New South Wales. - - 8vo, paper cover. 1s. (_post free 1s. 2d._). - - * * * * * - -THE AUSTRALIAN PROGRESSIVE SONGSTER. - - BY S. MCBURNEY, Mus. Doc., Fellow T.S.F. College. - - Containing graded Songs, Rounds and Exercises in Staff Notation, - Tonic Sol-fa and Numerals, with Musical Theory. Price, 6d. each - part; combined, 1s. (_postage 1d. each part_). - -No. 1.--For Junior Classes. No. 2.--For Senior Classes. - - * * * * * - -THE AUSTRALIAN LETTERING BOOK. - - Containing the Alphabets most useful in Mapping, Exercise Headings, - &c. with practical applications, Easy Scrolls, Flourishes, Borders, - Corners, Rulings, &c. Second Edition. New Edition, revised and - enlarged, cloth limp, 6d. (_post free 7d._). - - * * * * * - -GEOGRAPHY OF AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND. - -With Definitions of Geographical Terms. - - Second Edition, with 8 maps and 19 illustrations. 64 pages. 6d. - (_post free 7d._). - - * * * * * - -GEOGRAPHY OF EUROPE, ASIA AND AMERICA. - - Second Edition, with 14 relief and other maps, and 18 illustrations - of transcontinental views, distribution of animals, &c. 84 pages. - 6d. (_post free 7d._). - - * * * * * - -GEOGRAPHY OF NEW SOUTH WALES. - - With five folding maps. 48 pages. 6d. (_post free 7d._). - - * * * * * - -GEOGRAPHY OF AFRICA. - - With five maps in relief, &c. 64 pages. 6d. (_post free 7d._). - - * * * * * - -AUSTRALIAN SCHOOL SERIES. - -=Grammar and Derivation Book.= 64 pages. 2d. - -=Test Exercises in Grammar for 3rd Class, 1st Year.= - 64 pages. 2d. - -=Test Exercises in Grammar for 3rd Class, 2nd Year.= - 64 pages. 2d. - -=Table Book and Mental Arithmetic.= 38 pages. 1d. - -_Chief Events and Dates in English History._ Part -I. From 55 B.C. to 1485 A.D. 50 pages. 2d. - -=Chief Events and Dates in English History.= Part -II. From Henry VII. (1485) to Victoria (1900). 64 pages. 2d. - -=History of Australia.= 53 pages. 2d. - -=Geography.= Part I. Australasia and Polynesia. 64 pages. 2d. - -=Geography.= Part II. Europe, Asia, America, and -Africa. 66 pages. 2d. - -=Euclid.= Book I. With Definitions, Postulates, Axioms, -&c. 64 pages. 2d. - -=Euclid.= Book II. With Definitions and Exercises on -Books I. and II. 32 pages. 2d. - -=Euclid.= Book III. With University “Junior” Papers -1891-1897. 60 pages. 2d. - -=Arithmetic--Exercises for Class II.= 49 pages. 2d. -Answers, 2d. - -=Arithmetic--Exercises for Class III.= 66 pages. 2d. -Answers, 2d. - -=Arithmetic--Exercises for Class IV.= 65 pages. 2d. -Answers, 2d. - -=Arithmetic and Mensuration--Exercises for Class -V.= With the Arithmetic Papers set at the Sydney -University Junior, the Public Service, the Sydney -Chamber of Commerce, and the Bankers’ Institute -Examinations to 1900, &c. 112 pages. 4d. -Answers, 4d. - -=Algebra.= Part I. 49 pages. 2d. -Answers, 2d. - -=Algebra.= Part II. To Quadratic Equations. Contains -over twelve hundred Exercises, including the University -Junior, the Public Service, the Sydney Chamber -of Commerce, and the Bankers’ Institute Examination -Papers to 1900, &c. 112 pages. 4d. -Answers, 4d. - - * * * * * - -THE AUSTRALASIAN CATHOLIC SCHOOL SERIES. - -=History of Australia and New Zealand for Catholic -Schools=, 117 pages. 4d. - -=Pupil’s Companion to the Australian Catholic -First Reader=, 32 pages. 1d. - -=Pupil’s Companion to the Australian Catholic -Second Reader=, 64 pages. 2d. - -=Pupil’s Companion to the Australian Catholic -Third Reader=, 112 pages. 3d. - -=Pupil’s Companion to the Australian Catholic -Fourth Reader=, 160 pages. 4d. - - * * * * * - -THE AUSTRALIAN DRAWING BOOK. - - By F. W. WOODHOUSE, Superintendent of Drawing, Department of Public - Instruction, New South Wales. - - Approved by the Department of Public Instruction for use in the - Public Schools of New South Wales. Price, 3d. each. - -No. 1A--Elementary, Straight Lines, Curves and Simple Figures. - -Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4--Graduated Elementary Freehand, Regular Forms, Simple -Designs, &c. - -Nos. 5 and 6--Foliage, Flowers, Ornaments, Vase Forms, &c. - -No. 7--Book of Blank Pages. - -=N.S.W. Educational Gazette=: “This series of drawing books has been -arranged by the Superintendent of Drawing for the purpose of enabling -teachers and pupils to meet fully the requirements of the Public School -Syllabus of 1899. It consists of seven numbers, designed for the third, -fourth and fifth classes respectively, and there is also a book of blank -pages (No. 7). Nos. 1 to 4 treat of elementary freehand, simple designs, -pattern drawing, &c.; Nos. 5 and 6 of foliage, flowers and ornaments. -The copies are excellently designed and executed, and carefully -graduated, and the books are printed on superior drawing paper. ‘The -Australian Drawing Books’ should be used in every public school in the -colony, first on account of their intrinsic merit, and secondly because -they are the only books that accurately fit our standard.” - - * * * * * - -THE AUSTRALIAN COPY BOOK. - - Approved by the Departments of Public Instruction in New South - Wales, Queensland and Tasmania, by the Public Service Board of New - South Wales, and by the Chief Inspector of Catholic Schools. Price, - 2d. each. - - No. 1, Initiatory, Short Letters, Short Words; 2, Initiatory, Long - Letters, Words; 3, Text, Capitals, Longer Words; 4, Half-Text, - Short Sentences; 5, Intermediate, Australian and Geographical - Sentences; 6, Small Hand, Double Ruling, Australian and - Geographical Sentences, Prefixes and Examples; 6A, Text, Half-Text, - Intermediate, Small Hand; 7, Small Hand, Single Ruling, Maxims, - Quotations, Proverbs; 8, Advanced Small Hand, Abbreviations and - Contractions commonly met with; 9, Commercial Terms and Forms, - Addresses; 10, Commercial Forms, Correspondence, Addresses; 11, - Plain and Ornamental Lettering, Mapping, Flourishes, &c. - - _Numerals are given in each number._ - - * * * * * - -THE AUSTRALIAN PUPIL TEACHERS’ COPY BOOK. - - A selection of pages from the Australian Copy Book, arranged for - use of Pupil Teachers. 48 pages. Price, 6d. - - * * * * * - -ANGUS AND ROBERTSON’S PENCIL COPY BOOK. - - Approved by the N.S.W. Department of Public Instruction. In nine - numbers. 1d. each. - - No. 1, Initiatory lines, curves, letters, figures; 2 and 3, Short - letters, easy combinations, figures; 4, Long letters, short words, - figures; 5, Long letters, words, figures; 6, 7, and 8, Capitals, - words, figures; 9, Short sentences, figures. - - * * * * * - - COTTERILL’S GUIDES TO THE MUSICAL EXAMINATIONS Held by the N.S.W. - Department of Public Instruction for Teachers and Pupil Teachers in - all grades. - - Part 1. The papers set in 1898, 1899, and 1900, and Answers - thereto. Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. (_post free 2s. 2d_) Part 2. The - Papers set in 1901, and Answers thereto. Crown 8vo, sewn, 1s. - (_post free 1s. 1d._). - -=N.S.W. Educational Gazette=: “We would earnestly urge upon teachers and -pupil teachers intending to sit for examination the wisdom of mastering -the principles so clearly enunciated in these valuable textbooks. The -work has been excellently done by Mr. G. T. Cotterill, of the Paddington -Superior Public School; every question has been fully and clearly -answered, difficulties have been explained with the skill of an -experienced teacher, and the questions on harmony in the first and -second class papers have been discussed with a fulness and lucidity that -we look for in vain in the ordinary manuals.” - - * * * * * - -GUIDES TO THE NEW SOUTH WALES PUBLIC SERVICE EXAMINATIONS. - - No. I.--Containing the Papers set in March, 1899 and Keys thereto, - together with the Regulations and Hints on suitable Text-books. - Cheaper edition. 8vo., paper cover, 1s. (_post free 1s. 1d._). - - No. II.--Containing the Papers set in August, 1900 and Keys - thereto, together with the revised Regulations and Hints on - suitable Text-books, and the Papers set at the examination held in - December, 1899. Cheaper edition. 8vo, paper cover, 1s. (_post free - 1s. 1d._). - - * * * * * - -CALENDAR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY. - - 8vo, linen, 2s. 6d.; paper cover, 1s. (_postage 8d._). - - * * * * * - -MANUAL OF PUBLIC EXAMINATIONS HELD BY THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY. - - 8vo., paper cover, 1s. (_post free 1s. 3d._). - - * * * * * - -HANDBOOK FOR TEACHERS OF INFANT SCHOOLS AND JUNIOR CLASSES. - - With colour chart nine colours and upwards of 100 illus. Cr. 8vo, - cloth, 1s. 6d. (_post free 1s. 8d._) - - * * * * * - -QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS; - -Notes and Tables for the Use of Students. - - BY REV. J. MILNE CURRAN, Lecturer in Chemistry and Geology, - Technical College, Sydney, Author of “The Geology of Sydney and the - Blue Mountains.” - - With illustrations. Demy 8vo, cloth gilt, 4s. 6d. (_post free - 5s._). - - * * * * * - -ANNOUNCEMENTS - - * * * * * - -HISTORY OF AUSTRALIAN BUSHRANGING. - - By CHARLES WHITE. Vol. II--1863 to 1878, illustrated, crown 8vo, - cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. - -[_Shortly._] - - * * * * * - -EUCLID, BOOKS V., VI. AND XI. - - By J. D. ST. CLAIR MACLARDY, M.A., Lecturer at the Training - Colleges, and Examiner to the New South Wales Department of Public - Instruction. Crown 8vo, cloth. - -[_Shortly._] - - * * * * * - -THE POSSIBILITY OF A SCIENCE OF CASUISTRY. - - By ERNEST NORTHCROFT MERRINGTON, B.A. Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d. - [_May 9._] - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Verses popular and humorous, by Henry Lawson - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VERSES POPULAR AND HUMOROUS *** - -***** This file should be named 52066-0.txt or 52066-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/2/0/6/52066/ - -Produced by MWS, Bryan Ness, Chuck Greif and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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