All Poems

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The Road to Old Man's Town

© Andrew Barton Paterson

And marching with us on the track
Full many friends we find:
We see them looking sadly back
For those who've dropped behind

A Song of the Pen

© Andrew Barton Paterson

Not unto us is given choice of the tasks we try,
Gathering grain or chaff;
One of her favoured servants toils at an epic high,
One, that a child may laugh.

Old Schooldays

© Andrew Barton Paterson

The journey down to town -- 'twere long to tell
The storm and riot of the rabble rout;
The wild Walpurgis revel in and out
That made the ferry boat a floating hell.

Now the new chum loaded his three-nought-three,
It's a small-bore gun, but his hopes were big.
"I am fed to the teeth with old ewe," said he,
"And I might be able to shoot a pig."
And he trusted more to his nose than ear
To give him warning when pigs were near.

An Emu Hunt

© Andrew Barton Paterson

And the horses shudder and snort and shift
As the bounding mass of weeds goes past,
But the emus never their heads uplift
As they look for roots in the sandy drift,
For the emus know it from first to last.

Santa Claus

© Andrew Barton Paterson

No sign nor countersign have I,
Through many lands I roam
The whole world over far and wide,
To exiles all at Christmastide,
From those who love them tenderly
I bring a thought of home.

A Dog's Mistake

© Andrew Barton Paterson

Now the butcher, noble fellow, was a sport beyond belief,
And instead of bringing actions he brought half a shin of beef,
Which he handed on to Fido, who received it as a right
And removed it to the garden, where he buried it at night.

Waltzing Matilda

© Andrew Barton Paterson

Oh! there once was a swagman camped in the Billabong,
Under the shade of a Coolabah tree;
And he sang as he looked at his old billy boiling,
"Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me."

Camouflage

© Andrew Barton Paterson

Then all the birds for miles around came in to lend a hand;
They perched upon a broken limb as thick as they could stand,
And just as old man eaglehawk prepared to have his say
A portion of the broken limb got up and flew away.

A Ballad of Ducks

The railway rattled and roared and swung
With jolting and bumping trucks.
The sun, like a billiard red ball, hung
In the Western sky: and the tireless tongue

A Triolet

Of all the sickly forms of verse,
Commend me to the triolet.
It makes bad writers somewhat worse:
Of all the sickly forms of verse,

The Wreck of the Golfer

"Oh, Father, why did you hit the fence
Just there where the brambles twine?"
And the father he answered never a word,
But he got on the green in nine.

Mulga Bill's Bicycle

'Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that sought his own abode,
That perched above the Dead Man's Creek, beside the mountain road.
He turned the cycle down the hill and mounted for the fray,
But ere he'd gone a dozen yards it bolted clean away.
It left the track, and through the trees, just like a silver streak,
It whistled down the awful slope towards the Dead Man's Creek.