The fields of youth are filled with flowers,The wine of youth is strong:What need have we to count the hours?The summer days are long. But soon we find to our dismayThat we are drifting downThe barren slopes that fall awayTowards the foothills grim and greyThat lead to Old Man’s Town. And marching with us on […]

They held a polo meeting at a little country town,And all the local sportsmen came to win themselves renown.There came two strangers with a horse, and I am much afraidThey both belonged to what is called ‘the take-you-down brigade’. They said their horse could jump like fun, and asked an amateurTo ride him in the […]

‘Twas in the days of front attack,This glorious truth we’d yet to learn it —That every ‘front’ had got a back,And French was just the man to turn it. A wounded soldier on the groundWas lying hid behind a hummock;He proved the good old proverb sound —An army travels on its stomach. He lay as […]

‘Where ‘ave you been this week or more,‘Aven’t seen you about the war?Thought perhaps you was at the rearGuarding the waggons.’ ‘What, us? No fear!Where have we been? Why, bless my heart,Where have we been since the bloomin’ start?Right in the front of the army,Battling day and night!Right in the front of the army,Teaching ’em […]

What have the cavalry done?Cantered and trotted about,Routin’ the enemy out,Causin’ the beggars to run!And we tramped along in the blazin’ heat,Over the veldt on our weary feet.Tramp, tramp, trampUnder the blazin’ sun,With never the sight of a bloomin’ Boer,‘Cause they’d hunted ’em long before —That’s what the cavalry done! What have the gunners doneBattlin’ […]

Men fight all shapes and sizes as the racing horses run,And no man knows his courage till he stands before a gun.At mixed-up fighting, hand to hand, and clawing men aboutThey reckon Fuzzy-wuzzy is the hottest fighter out.But Fuzzy gives himself away — his style is out of date,He charges like a driven grouse that […]

The Boers were down on Kimberley with siege and Maxim gun;The Boers were down on Kimberley, their numbers ten to one!Faint were the hopes the British had to make the struggle good,Defenceless in an open plain the Diamond City stood.They built them forts from bags of sand, they fought from roof and wall,They flashed a […]

With never a sound of trumpet,With never a flag displayed,The last of the old campaignersLined up for the last parade. Weary they were and battered,Shoeless, and knocked about;From under their ragged forelocksTheir hungry eyes looked out. And they watched as the old commanderRead out, to the cheering men,The Nation’s thanks and the ordersTo carry them […]

Oh, the weary, weary journey on the trek, day after day,With sun above and silent veldt below;And our hearts keep turning homeward to the youngsters far away,And the homestead where the climbing roses grow.Shall we see the flats grow golden with the ripening of the grain?Shall we hear the parrots calling on the bough?Ah! the […]

Halt! Who goes there? The sentry’s callRose on the midnight airAbove the noises of the camp,The roll of wheels, the horses’ tramp.The challenge echoed over all —Halt! Who goes there? A quaint old figure clothed in white,He bore a staff of pine,An ivy-wreath was on his head.‘Advance, oh friend,’ the sentry said,Advance, for this is […]

There’s a soldier that’s been doing of his shareIn the fighting up and down and round about.He’s continually marching here and thereAnd he’s fighting, morning in and morning out. The Boer, you see, he generally runs;But sometimes when he hides behind a rock,And we can’t make no impression with the guns,Oh, then you’ll hear the […]

I ain’t a timid man at all, I’m just as brave as most,I’ll take my chance in open fight and die beside my post;But riding round the ‘ole day long as target for a Krupp,A-drawing fire from Koppies — well, I’m fair fed up. It’s wonderful how few get hit, it’s luck that pulls us […]

I had written him a letter which I had, for want of betterKnowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan, years ago,He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him,Just ‘on spec’, addressed as follows, ‘Clancy, of The Overflow’. And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected,(And […]

You never heard tell of the story?Well, now, I can hardly believe!Never heard of the honour and gloryOf Pardon, the son of Reprieve?But maybe you’re only a JohnnieAnd don’t know a horse from a hoe?Well, well, don’t get angry, my sonny,But, really, a young un should know. They bred him out back on the ‘Never’,His […]

There was movement at the station, for the word had passed aroundThat the colt from old Regret had got away,And had joined the wild bush horses — he was worth a thousand pound,So all the cracks had gathered to the fray.All the tried and noted riders from the stations near and farHad mustered at the […]

I bought a run a while ago,On country rough and ridgy,Where wallaroos and wombats grow —The Upper Murrumbidgee.The grass is rather scant, it’s true,But this a fair exchange is,The sheep can see a lovely viewBy climbing up the ranges. And She-oak Flat’s the station’s name,I’m not surprised at that, sirs:The oaks were there before I […]

Now this 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;They camp, and they ravage […]

The roving breezes come and go, the reed beds sweep and sway,The sleepy river murmurs low, and loiters on its way,It is the land of lots o’ time along the Castlereagh. . . . . . The old man’s son had left the farm, he found it dull and slow,He drifted to the great North-west […]

It was somewhere up the country, in a land of rock and scrub,That they formed an institution called the Geebung Polo Club.They were long and wiry natives from the rugged mountain side,And the horse was never saddled that the Geebungs couldn’t ride;But their style of playing polo was irregular and rash —They had mighty little […]

On Western plains, where shade is not,‘Neath summer skies of cloudless blue,Where all is dry and all is hot,There stands the town of Dandaloo —A township where life’s total sumIs sleep, diversified with rum. It’s grass-grown streets with dust are deep,‘Twere vain endeavour to expressThe dreamless silence of its sleep,Its wide, expansive drunkenness.The yearly races […]