Life poems
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The Winds Message
© Andrew Barton Paterson
There came a whisper down the Bland between the dawn and dark,
Above the tossing of the pines, above the river's flow;
It stirred the boughs of giant gums and stalwart iron-bark;
It drifted where the wild ducks played amid the swamps below;
The Passing of Gundagai
© Andrew Barton Paterson
Our flashest shearer then had gone
To train a racehorse for a race;
And, while his sporting fit was on
He couldn't be relied upon,
So Gundagai shore in his place.
Under the Shadow of Kiley's Hill
© Andrew Barton Paterson
This is the place where they all were bred;
Some of the rafters are standing still;
Now they are scattered and lost and dead,
Every one from the old nest fled,
Out of the shadow of Kiley's Hill.
On Kiley's Run
© Andrew Barton Paterson
The roving breezes come and go
On Kiley's Run,
The sleepy river murmurs low,
And far away one dimly sees
Saltbush Bill
© Andrew Barton Paterson
Now is the law of the Overland that all in the West obey --
A man must cover with travelling sheep a six-mile stage a day;
But this is the law which the drovers make, right easily understood,
They travel their stage where the grass is bad, but they camp where the grass is good;
The Swagman's Rest
© Andrew Barton Paterson
We buried old Bob where the bloodwoods wave
At the foot of the Eaglehawk;
We fashioned a cross on the old man's grave
For fear that his ghost might walk;
Gilhooley's Estate
© Andrew Barton Paterson
They made out a list of his property fine,
It totalled a thousand-and-eight;
But the debts were nine hundred and ninety-nine --
The debts of Gilhooley's Estate.
By the Grey Gulf-water
© Andrew Barton Paterson
Far to the Northward there lies a land,
A wonderful land that the winds blow over,
And none may fathom or understand
The charm it holds for the restless rover;
An answer to Various Bards
© Andrew Barton Paterson
Well, I've waited mighty patient while they all came rolling in,
Mister Lawson, Mister Dyson, and the others of their kin,
With their dreadful, dismal stories of the Overlander's camp,
How his fire is always smoky, and his boots are always damp;
Anthony Considine
© Andrew Barton Paterson
They fled together, as those must flee
Whom all men hold in blame;
Each to the other must all things be
Who cross the gulf of iniquity
And live in the land of shame.
Saltbush Bill's Second Flight
© Andrew Barton Paterson
'Twas Saltbush Bill, and his travelling sheep were wending their weary way
On the Main Stock Route, through the Hard Times Run, on their six-mile stage a day;
And he strayed a mile from the Main Stock Route, and started to feed along,
And when Stingy Smith came up Bill said that the Route was surveyed wrong;
And he tried to prove that the sheep had rushed and strayed from their camp at night,
But the fighting man he kicked Bill's dog, and of course that meant a fight.
The Old Tin Hat
© Andrew Barton Paterson
And a very great man is the man who holds an Army Corps command,
For he hurries his regiments here and there as the C. in C. has planned.
By day he travels about in state and stirreth them up to rights,
He toileth early and toileth late, and sitteth up half the nights;
But the evening comes when the candle throws twin shadows upon the mat,
And one of the shadows is like a wreath, and one like an Old Tin Hat.
Hay and Hell and Booligal
© Andrew Barton Paterson
"No doubt it suits 'em very well
To say its worse than Hay or Hell,
But don't you heed their talk at all;
Of course, there's heat -- no one denies --
And sand and dust and stacks of flies,
And rabbits, too, at Booligal.
In Defence of the Bush
© Andrew Barton Paterson
So you're back from up the country, Mister Lawson, where you went,
And you're cursing all the business in a bitter discontent;
Well, we grieve to disappoint you, and it makes us sad to hear
That it wasn't cool and shady -- and there wasn't whips of beer,
Cassidy's Epitaph
© Andrew Barton Paterson
Here lies a bloke who's just gone West,
A Number One Australian;
He took his gun and did his best
To mitigate the alien.
The Man Who Was Away
© Andrew Barton Paterson
The widow sought the lawyer's room with children three in tow,
She told the lawyer man her tale in tones of deepest woe.
She said, "My husband took to drink for pains in his inside,
And never drew a sober breath from then until he died.
Song of the Future
© Andrew Barton Paterson
"I care for nothing, good nor bad,
My hopes are gone, my pleasures fled,
I am but sifting sand," he said:
What wonder Gordon's songs were sad!
Come-by-Chance
© Andrew Barton Paterson
But my languid mood forsook me, when I found a name that took me;
Quite by chance I came across it -- "Come-by-Chance" was what I read;
No location was assigned it, not a thing to help one find it,
Just an N which stood for northward, and the rest was all unsaid.
The Lost Drink
© Andrew Barton Paterson
I had spent the night in the watch-house --
My head was the size of three --
So I went and asked the chemist
To fix up a drink for me;
The Ballad of the Calliope
© Andrew Barton Paterson
When the gentle off-shore breeze,
That had scarcely stirred the trees,
Dropped down to utter stillness, and the glass began to fall,
Away across the main
Lowered the coming hurricane,
And far away to seaward hung the cloud-wrack like a pall.
