Work poems
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The Rhyme of the O'Sullivan
© Andrew Barton Paterson
"For many years I led
The people's onward march;
I was the 'Fountain Head',
The 'Democratic Arch'.
The Old Timer's Steeplechase
© Andrew Barton Paterson
There was never a fence the tracks to guard, --
Some straggling posts defined 'em:
And the day was hot, and the drinking hard,
Till none of the stewards could see a yard
Before nor yet behind 'em!
The Two Devines
© Andrew Barton Paterson
'Twas a wether flock that had come to hand,
Great struggling brutes, that shearers shirk,
For the fleece was filled with the grass and sand,
And seventy sheep was a big day's work.
"At a pound a hundred it's dashed hard lines
To shear such sheep," said the two Devines.
The Federal Bus Conductor and the Old Lady
© Andrew Barton Paterson
Now, don't go trudgin' on alone, but get aboard the trap;
That basket, labelled "Capital", you take it in your lap!
It's nearly time we made a start, so let's 'ave no more talk:
You 'urry up and get aboard, or else stop out and walk.
We've got a flag; we've got a band; out 'orses travels fast;
Ho! Right away, Bill! Let 'em go! The old 'un's come at last!
The Silent Shearer
© Andrew Barton Paterson
Weary and listless, sad and slow,
Without any conversation,
Was a man that worked on The Overflow,
The butt of the shed and the station.
The Hypnotist
© Andrew Barton Paterson
With dragging footsteps and downcast head
The hypnotiser went home to bed,
And since that very successful test
He has given the magic art a rest;
Had he tried the ladies, and worked it right,
What curious tales might have come to light!
Saltbush Bill on the Patriarchs
© Andrew Barton Paterson
Those Patriarchs of olden time, when all is said and done,
They lived the same as far-out men on many a Queensland run
A lot of roving, droving men who drifted to and fro,
The same we did out Queensland way a score of years ago.
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;
With the Cattle
© Andrew Barton Paterson
The drought is down on field and flock,
The river-bed is dry;
And we must shift the starving stock
Before the cattle die.
The Matrimonial Stakes
© Andrew Barton Paterson
When I won the Flappers' Flatrace it was "all Sir Garneo",
For she praised the way I made my final run.
And she thought the riding won it -- for how could the poor girl know
That a monkey could have ridden it and won!
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;
T.y.s.o.n.
© Andrew Barton Paterson
Across the Queensland border line
The mobs of cattle go;
They travel down in sun and shine
On dusty stage, and slow.
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 City of Dreadful Thirst
© Andrew Barton Paterson
The stranger came from Narromine and made his little joke--
"They say we folks in Narromine are narrow-minded folk.
But all the smartest men down here are puzzled to define
A kind of new phenomenon that came to Narromine.
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 Ballad of Cockatoo Dock
© Andrew Barton Paterson
Of all the docks upon the blue
There was no dockyard, old or new,
To touch the dock at Cockatoo.
Gone Down
© Andrew Barton Paterson
To the voters of Glen Innes 'twas O'Sullivan that went,
To secure the country vote for Mister Hay.
So he told 'em what he'd borrowed, and he told 'em what he'd spent,
Though extravagance had blown it all away.
Driver Smith
© Andrew Barton Paterson
"Wherever the rifle bullets flash and the Maxims raise a din,
It's here you'll find the Medical men a-raking the wounded in --
A-raking 'em in like human flies -- and a driver smart like me
Will find some scope for his extra skill in the ranks of the A.M.C."
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!
Song of the Wheat
© Andrew Barton Paterson
We have sung the song of the droving days,
Of the march of the travelling sheep;
By silent stages and lonely ways
Thin, white battalions creep.
