Poems begining by T
/ page 625 of 916 /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:
To Be Amused
© Henry Lawson
You ask me to be gay and glad
While lurid clouds of danger loom,
And vain and bad and gambling mad,
Australia races to her doom.
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'.
The Old Men
© Walter de la Mare
Old and alone, sit we,
Caged, riddle-rid men;
Lost to earth's 'Listen!' and 'See!'
Thought's 'Wherefore?' and 'When?'
The Fagot
© Jonathan Swift
Observe the dying father speak:
Try, lads, can you this bundle break?
Then bids the youngest of the six
Take up a well-bound heap of sticks.
The Drover's Sweetheart
© Henry Lawson
An hour before the sun goes down
Behind the ragged boughs,
I go across the little run
And bring the dusty cows;
The Loveable Characters
© Henry Lawson
I long for the streets but the Lord knoweth best,
For there I am never a saint;
There are lovable characters out in the West,
With humour heroic and quaint;
The clouds come and go
© Matsuo Basho
The clouds come and go,
providing a rest for all
the moon viewers
The Shame of Going Back
© Henry Lawson
The Shame of Going Back And the reason of your failure isn't anybody's fault --
When you haven't got a billet, and the times are very slack,
There is nothing that can spur you like the shame of going back;
Crawling home with empty pockets,
Going back hard-up;
Oh! it's then you learn the meaning of humiliation's cup.
To An Old Mate
© Henry Lawson
Old Mate! In the gusty old weather,
When our hopes and our troubles were new,
In the years spent in wearing out leather,
I found you unselfish and true --
I have gathered these verses together
For the sake of our friendship and you.
The Grave of the Hundred Heads
© Rudyard Kipling
There's a widow in sleepy Chester
Who weeps for her only son;
There's a grave on the Pabeng River,
A grave that the Burmans shun,
And there's Subadar Prag Tewarri
Who tells how the work was done.
The Cockney Soul
© Henry Lawson
From Woolwich and Brentford and Stamford Hill, from Richmond into the Strand,
Oh, the Cockney soul is a silent soul as it is in every land!
But out on the sand with a broken band it's sarcasm spurs them through;
And, with never a laugh, in a gale and a half, 'tis the Cockney cheers the crew.
The Precept of Silence
© Lionel Pigot Johnson
I know you: solitary griefs,
Desolate passions, aching hours!
I know you: tremulous beliefs,
Agonised hopes, and ashen flowers!
The Ghost
© Henry Lawson
Down the street as I was drifting with the city's human tide,
Came a ghost, and for a moment walked in silence by my side --
Now my heart was hard and bitter, and a bitter spirit he,
So I felt no great aversion to his ghostly company.
Said the Shade: `At finer feelings let your lip in scorn be curled,
`Self and Pelf', my friend, has ever been the motto for the world.'
The Old Jimmy Woodser
© Henry Lawson
The old Jimmy Woodser comes into the bar
Unwelcomed, unnoticed, unknown,
Too old and too odd to be drunk with, by far;
So he glides to the end where the lunch baskets are
And they say that he tipples alone.
Taking His Chance
© Henry Lawson
They stood by the door of the Inn on the Rise;
May Carney looked up in the bushranger's eyes:
`Oh! why did you come? -- it was mad of you, Jack;
You know that the troopers are out on your track.'
A laugh and a shake of his obstinate head --
`I wanted a dance, and I'll chance it,' he said.
The Ships that Won't Go Down
© Henry Lawson
We hear a great commotion
'Bout the ship that comes to grief,
That founders in mid-ocean,
Or is driven on a reef;
The Fight at Eureka Stockade
© Henry Lawson
"Was I at Eureka?" His figure was drawn to a youthful height,
And a flood of proud recollections made the fire in his grey eyes bright;
With pleasure they lighted and glisten'd, tho' the digger was grizzled and old,
And we gathered about him and listen'd while the tale of Eureka he told.