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Queen Hilda of Virland
© Henry Lawson
PART I
Queen Hilda rode along the lines,
And she was young and fair;
And forward on her shoulders fell
The Professional Wanderer
© Henry Lawson
When youve knocked about the countrybeen 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.
Tom Moody
© William Henry Ogilvie
Death had beckoned with grisly hand
To the finest Whip in hunting-land.
Lemnos Visited
© Leon Gellert
Oh Peace! The Peace I knew. I thought thee dead!
And had not hoped again to see thy smile.
Borderland
© Henry Lawson
Dreary land in rainy weather, with the endless clouds that drift
O'er the bushman like a blanket that the Lord will never lift --
Dismal land when it is raining -- growl of floods and oh! the "woosh"
Of the rain and wind together on the dark bed of the bush --
Ghastly fires in lonely humpies where the granite rocks are pil'd
On the rain-swept wildernesses that are wildest of the wild.
The Vagabond
© Henry Lawson
And I had a love -- 'twas a love to prize --
But I never went back again . . .
I have seen the light of her kind brown eyes
In many a face since then.
Reedy River
© Henry Lawson
Ten miles down Reedy River
A pool of water lies,
And all the year it mirrors
The changes in the skies,
Since Then
© Henry Lawson
I met Jack Ellis in town to-day --
Jack Ellis -- my old mate, Jack --
Ten years ago, from the Castlereagh,
We carried our swags together away
To the Never-Again, Out Back.
Black Bonnet
© Henry Lawson
A day of seeming innocence,
A glorious sun and sky,
And, just above my picket fence,
Black Bonnet passing by.
The Sliprails And The Spur
© Henry Lawson
And he rides hard to dull the pain
Who rides from one that loves him best;
And he rides slowly back again,
Whose restless heart must rove for rest.
On the Wallaby
© Henry Lawson
Now the tent poles are rotting, the camp fires are dead,
And the possums may gambol in trees overhead;
I am humping my bluey far out on the land,
And the prints of my bluchers sink deep in the sand:
I am out on the wallaby humping my drum,
And I came by the tracks where the sundowners come.
Knocked Up
© Henry Lawson
I'm lyin' on the barren ground that's baked and cracked with drought,
And dunno if my legs or back or heart is most wore out;
I've got no spirits left to rise and smooth me achin' brow --
I'm too knocked up to light a fire and bile the billy now.
Address To A Child During A Boisterous Winter By My Sister
© William Wordsworth
WHAT way does the wind come? What way does he go?
He rides over the water, and over the snow,
The Never-Never Country
© Henry Lawson
By homestead, hut, and shearing-shed,
By railroad, coach, and track --
By lonely graves of our brave dead,
Up-Country and Out-Back:
The Wreath Of Forest Flowers
© Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
In a fair and sunny forest glade
Oerarched with chesnuts old,
The City Bushman
© Henry Lawson
It was pleasant up the country, City Bushman, where you went,
For you sought the greener patches and you travelled like a gent;
And you curse the trams and buses and the turmoil and the push,
Though you know the squalid city needn't keep you from the bush;
But we lately heard you singing of the `plains where shade is not',
And you mentioned it was dusty -- `all was dry and all was hot'.
In the Storm that is to come
© Henry Lawson
By our place in the midst of the furthest seas we were fated to stand alone -
When the nations fly at each other's throats let Australia look to her own;
Let her spend her gold on the barren west, let her keep her men at home;
For the South must look to the South for strength in the storm that is to come.
Australia's Peril
© Henry Lawson
We must suffer, husband and father, we must suffer, daughter and son,
For the wrong we have taken part in and the wrong that we have seen done.
Let the bride of frivolous fashion, and of ease, be ashamed and dumb,
For I tell you the nations shall rule us who have let their children come!
When the Children Come Home
© Henry Lawson
On a lonely selection far out in the West
An old woman works all the day without rest,
And she croons, as she toils 'neath the sky's glassy dome,
`Sure I'll keep the ould place till the childer come home.'
