There are scenes in the distance where beauty is not, On the desolate flats where gaunt appletrees rot. Where the brooding old ridge rises up to the breeze From his dark lonely gullies of stringy-bark trees, There are voice-haunted gaps, ever sullen and strange, But Eurunderee lies like a gem in the range. Still I […]

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 […]

Above the ashes straight and tall, Through ferns with moisture dripping, I climb beneath the sandstone wall, My feet on mosses slipping. Like ramparts round the valley’s edge The tinted cliffs are standing, With many a broken wall and ledge, And many a rocky landing. And round about their rugged feet Deep ferny dells are […]

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. Oh it’s trampin’, trampin’, […]

Only one old post is standing — Solid yet, but only one — Where the milking, and the branding, And the slaughtering were done. Later years have brought dejection, Care, and sorrow; but we knew Happy days on that selection Underneath old Bukaroo. Then the light of day commencing Found us at the gully’s head, […]

The diggings were just in their glory when Alister Cameron came, With recommendations, he told me, from friends and a parson ‘at hame’; He read me his recommendations — he called them a part of his plant — The first one was signed by an Elder, the other by Cameron’s aunt. The meenister called him […]

A cloud of dust on the long white road, And the teams go creeping on Inch by inch with the weary load; And by the power of the green-hide goad The distant goal is won. With eyes half-shut to the blinding dust, And necks to the yokes bent low, The beasts are pulling as bullocks […]

The squatter saw his pastures wide Decrease, as one by one The farmers moving to the west Selected on his run; Selectors took the water up And all the black soil round; The best grass-land the squatter had Was spoilt by Ross’s Ground. Now many schemes to shift old Ross Had racked the squatter’s brains, […]

When you’ve come to make a fortune and you haven’t made your salt, 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 […]

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. But times have altered since those old days, And the times have changed the men. Ah, well! there’s little to blame or […]

He had offices in Sydney, not so many years ago, And his shingle bore the legend ‘Peter Anderson and Co.’, But his real name was Careless, as the fellows understood — And his relatives decided that he wasn’t any good. ‘Twas their gentle tongues that blasted any ‘character’ he had — He was fond of […]

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.’ She mends all the fences, she grubs, and she ploughs, She drives the old horse […]

Tall, and stout, and solid-looking, Yet a wreck; None would think Death’s finger’s hooking Him from deck. Cause of half the fun that’s started — ‘Hard-case’ Dan — Isn’t like a broken-hearted, Ruined man. Walking-coat from tail to throat is Frayed and greened — Like a man whose other coat is Being cleaned; Gone for […]

If you fancy that your people came of better stock than mine, If you hint of higher breeding by a word or by a sign, If you’re proud because of fortune or the clever things you do — Then I’ll play no second fiddle: I’m a prouder man than you! If you think that your […]

The creek went down with a broken song, ‘Neath the sheoaks high; The waters carried the song along, And the oaks a sigh. The song and the sigh went winding by, Went winding down; Circling the foot of the mountain high, And the hillside brown. They were hushed in the swamp of the Dead Man’s […]

So you’re writing for a paper? Well, it’s nothing very new To be writing yards of drivel for a tidy little screw; You are young and educated, and a clever chap you are, But you’ll never run a paper like the CAMBAROORA STAR. Though in point of education I am nothing but a dunce, I […]

The brooding ghosts of Australian night have gone from the bush and town; My spirit revives in the morning breeze, though it died when the sun went down; The river is high and the stream is strong, and the grass is green and tall, And I fain would think that this world of ours is […]

You almost heard the surface bake, and saw the gum-leaves turn — You could have watched the grass scorch brown had there been grass to burn. In such a drought the strongest heart might well grow faint and weak — ‘Twould frighten Satan to his home — not far from Dingo Creek. The tanks went […]

The world has had enough of bards who wish that they were dead, ‘Tis time the people passed a law to knock ’em on the head, For ‘twould be lovely if their friends could grant the rest they crave — Those bards of ‘tears’ and ‘vanished hopes’, those poets of the grave. They say that […]

While you use your best endeavour to immortalise in verse The gambling and the drink which are your country’s greatest curse, While you glorify the bully and take the spieler’s part — You’re a clever southern writer, scarce inferior to Bret Harte. If you sing of waving grasses when the plains are dry as bricks, […]