Andrew Barton Paterson

As the nations sat together, grimly waiting,
The fierce and ancient nations battle-scarred,
Grown grey in their lusting and their hating,
Ever armed and ever ready keeping guard,
Through the tumult of their warlike preparation
And the half-stilled clamour of the drums
Came a voice crying, "Lo, a new-made Nation,
To her place in the sisterhood she comes!"

And she came. She was beautiful as morning,
With the bloom of the roses on her mouth,
Like a young queen lavishly adorning
Her claims with the splendours of the South.
And the fierce old nations, looking on her,
Said, "Nay, surely she were quickly overthrown;
Hath she strength for the burden laid upon her,
Hath she power to protect and guard her own?"

Then she spoke, and her voice was clear and rin...

'Tis strange that in a land so strong
So strong and bold in mighty youth,
We have no poet's voice of truth
To sing for us a wondrous song.

Our chiefest singer yet has sung
In wild, sweet notes a passing strain,
All carelessly and sadly flung
To that dull world he thought so vain.

"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!

And yet, not always sad and hard;
In cheerful mood and light of heart
He told the tale of Britomarte,
And wrote the Rhyme of Joyous Garde.

And some have said that Nature's face
To us is always sad; but these
Have never felt the smiling grace
Of waving grass and forest trees
On sunlit plains as wide as...

    [The subjoined is one of the “Songs of the Squatters,” written by the Hon. Robert Lowe (afterwards Viscount Sherbrooke), while resident in New South Wales.]

The Commissioner bet me a pony—I won;
So he cut off exactly two-thirds of my run;
For he said I was making a fortune too fast,
And profit gained slower the longer would last.

He remarked as devouring my mutton he sat,
That I suffered my sheep to grow sadly too fat;
That they wasted waste land, did prerogative brown,
And rebelliously nibbled the droits of the Crown;—

That the creek that divided my station in two
Showed that Nature designed that two fees should be due.
Mr. Riddle assured me ’twas paid but for show;
But he kept it and spent it; that’s all that I know.

The Commissioner fined me be...

We have sung the song of the droving days,
Of the march of the travelling sheep,
How by silent stages and lonely ways
Thin, white battalions creep.
But the man who now by the land would thrive
Must his spurs to a ploughshare beat;
And the bush bard, changing his tune, may strive
To sing the song if the Wheat!

It's west by south of the Great Divide
The grim grey plains run out,
Where the old flock-masters lived and died
In a ceaseless fight with drought.
Weary with waiting and hope deferred
They were ready to own defeat,
Till at last they heard the master-word,
And the master-word was Wheat.

Yarran and Myall and Box and Pine,
'Twas axe and fire for all;
They scarce could tarry to blaze the line
Or wait for the trees to fall
Ere t...

We often hear men boast about the land which gave them birth,
And each one thinks his native land the fairest spot on earth;
In beauty, riches, power, no land can his surpass;
To his, all other lands on earth cannot even hold a glass.
Now, if other people have their boasts, then, say, why should not we,
For we can drink our jovial toast and sing with three times three;
For there’s not a country in the world where all that’s fair prevails
As here it does in this our land, our sunny New South Wales.

                                    Chorus

    Then toast with me our happy land,
        Where all that’s fair prevails,
    Our colour’s blue and our hearts are true,
        In sunny New South Wales.

Now let us take a passing glance at all that we possess.

Grey dawn on the sand-hills, the night wind has drifted
All night from the rollers a scent of the sea;
With the dawn the grey fog his battalions has lifted,
At the call of the morning they scatter and flee.

Like mariners calling the roll of their number
The sea-fowl put out to the infinite deep.
And far overhead, sinking softly to slumber,
Worn out by their watching the stars fall asleep.

To eastward, where rests the broad dome of the skies on
The sea-line, stirs softly the curtain of night;
And far from behind the enshrouded horizon
Comes the voice of a God saying "Let there be light."

And lo, there is light! Evanescent and tender,
It glows ruby-red where 'twas now ashen-grey;
And purple and scarlet and gold in its splendour,
Behold, 'tis that ma...

Said the soldier to the Surgeon, "I've got noises in me head
And a kind o' filled up feeling after every time I'm fed;
I can sleep all night on picket, but I can't sleep in my bed".
And the Surgeon said,
"That's Lead!"

Said the soldier to the Surgeon, "Do you think they'll send me back?
For I really ain't adapted to be carrying a pack
Though I've humped a case of whisky half a mile upon my back".
And the Surgeon said,
"That's Lead!"

"And my legs have swelled up cruel, I can hardly walk at all,
Bur when the Taubes come over you should see me start to crawl;
When we're sprinting for the dugout, I can easy beat 'em all".
And the Surgeon said,
"That's Lead!"

So they sent him to the trenches where he landed safe and sound,
And he drew his ammuniti...

Of course they say if this Bobadil starts
He'll settle 'em all in a flash:
For the pace he can go will be breaking their hearts,
And he ends with the "Bobadil dash".
But there's one in the race is a fance of mine
Whenever the distance is far,
Crosslake! He's inbred to the Yattendon line,
And we know what the Yattendons are.

His feet are his trouble: they're tender as gum!
If only his feet are got straight,
If the field were all Bobadils,let 'em all come
So long as they carry the weight.
For a three-year-old colt with nine-three on his back,
Well, he needs to be rather a star!
And with seven stone ten we will trust the old black,
For we know what the Yattendons are.

He is sired by Lochiel, which ensures that his pace
Is enough, and a little to ...

Across the Queensland border line
The mobs of cattle go;
They travel down in sun and shine
On dusty stage, and slow.
The drovers, riding slowly on
To let the cattle spread,
Will say: "Here's one old landmark gone,
For old man Tyson's dead."

What tales there'll be in every camp
By men that Tyson knew!
The swagmen, meeting on the tramp,
Will yarn the long day through,
And tell of how he passed as "Brown",
And fooled the local men:
"But not for me, I struck the town,
And passed the message further down;
That's T.Y.S.O.N.!"

There stands a little country town
Beyond the border line,
Where dusty roads go up and down,
And banks with pubs combine.
A stranger came to cash a cheque,
Few were the words he said,
A handkerchie...

Oh! the circus swooped down
On the Narrabri town,
For the Narrabri populace moneyed are;
And the showman he smiled
At the folk he beguiled
To come all the distance from Gunnedah.

But a juvenile smart,
Who objected to "part",
Went in on the nod, and to do it he
Crawled in through a crack
In the tent at the back,
For the boy had no slight ingenuity.

And says he with a grin,
"That's the way to get in;
But I reckon I'd better be quiet or
They'll spiflicate me,"
And he chuckled, for he
Had the loan of the circus proprietor.

But the showman astute
On that wily galoot
Soon dropped, you'll be thinking he leathered him,
Not he; with a grim
Sort of humourous whim,
He took him and tarred him and feathered him.

A Tale of the Territory


The run of Billabong-go-dry
Is just beyond Lime Burner's Gap;
Its waterhole and tank supply
Is excellent, upon the map.
But lacking nature's liquid drench,
The station staff are wont to try
With "Bob-in Sweeps" their thirst to quench,
Or nearly quench, at Bong-go-dry.

The parson made five-yearly rounds
That soil of arid souls to delve,
He wrote, "I'll come for seven pounds,
Or I could stop away for twelve."
But lack of lucre brought about
The pusillanimous reply:
"Our luxuries are all cut out,
You'll have to go to Bong-go-dry."

Now rabbit skins were very high,
There'd been a kind of rabbit rush,
And what with traps and sticks they'd shy,
The station blacks were very flush,
And each was ta...

'Twas in the days of front attack;
This glorious truth we'd yet to learn it,
That every "front" has got a back.
And French was just the man to turn it.

A wounded soldier on the ground
Was lying hid behind a hummock;
He proved the good old proverb sound,
An army travels on its stomach.

He lay as flat as any fish;
His nose had worn a little furrow;
He only had one frantic wish,
That like an ant-bear he could burrow.

The bullets whistled into space,
The pom-pom gun kept up its braying,
The fout-point-seven supplied the bass,
You'd think the devil's band was playing.

A valiant comrade crawling near
Observed his most supine behaviour,
And crept towards him; "Hey! what cheer?
Buck up," said he, "I've come to save yer.

He came from "further out",
That land of fear and drought
And dust and gravel.
He got a touch of sun,
And rested at the run
Until his cure was done,
And he could travel.

When spring had decked the plain,
He flitted off again
As flit the swallows.
And from that western land,
When many months were spanned,
A letter came to hand,
Which read as follows:

"Dear Sir, I take my pen
In hopes that all their men
And you are hearty.
You think that I've forgot
Your kindness, Mr Scott;
Oh, no, dear sir, I'm not
That sort of party.

"You sometimes bet, I know.
Well, now you'll have a show
The 'books' to frighten.
Up here at Wingadee
Young Billy Fife and me
We're training Strife, and he
Is a all right un....

Him goin' to ride for us! Him, with the pants and the eyeglass and all.
Amateur! don't he just look it, it's twenty to one on a fall.
Boss must be gone off his head to be sending out steeplechase crack
Out over fences like these with an object like that on his back.

Ride! Don't tell me he can ride. With his pants just as loose as balloons,
How can he sit on a horse? and his spurs like a pair of harpoons;
Ought to be under the Dog Act, he ought, and be kept off the course.
Fall! why, he'd fall off a cart, let alone off a steeplechase horse.

*    *        *            *        *        *        

Yessir! the 'orse is all ready, I wish you'd have rode him before;
Nothing like knowing your 'orse, sir, and this chap's a terror to bore;
Battleaxe always could pull, and he r...

An angel stood beside the bed
Where lay the living and the dead.

He gave the mother, her who died,
A kiss that Christ the Crucified

Had sent to greet the weary soul
When, worn and faint, it reached its goal.

He gave the infant kisses twain,
One on the breast, one on the brain.

"Go forth into the world," he said,
"With blessings on your heart and head,

"For God, who ruleth righteously,
Hath ordered that to such as be

"From birth deprived of mother's love,
I bring His blessing from above;

"But if the mother's life he spare
Then she is made God's messenger

"To kiss and pray that heart and brain
May go through life without a stain."

The infant moved towards the light,
The angel spread his wings i...

The big white English swan, escaped from captivity, found himself swimming in an Australian waterhole fringed with giant gum trees. In one of the lower forks of a gum tree sat a placid ound-eyed elderly gentleman apparently thinking of nothing whatever, in other words, a native bear.

"Excuse me, sir," said the swan, "can you tell me where I am?"

"Why, you're here," said the bear.

"I know I'm here," said the swan, thinking his new acquaintance was dull-witted; "but where is 'here'? You see, I'm an English swan",

"Excuse me," said the bear, "swans are black, I've seen thousands of 'em".

"They're black in this country," said the swan, "just the same as the Aboriginals are black; but they are white in England, ust the same as the people there are white. I don't like mentioning it, but our...

Oh the airman's game is a showman's game, for we all of us watch him go
With his roaring soaring aeroplane and his bombs for the blokes below,
Over the railways and over the dumps, over the Hun and the Turk,
You'll hear him mutter, "What ho, she bumps," when the Archies get to work.
But not of him is the song I sing, though he follow the eagle's flight,
And with shrapnel holes in his splintered wing comes home to his roost at night.
He may silver his wings on the shining stars, he may look from the throne on high,
He may follow the flight of the wheeling kite in the blue Egyptian sky,
But he's only a hero built to plan, turned out by the Army schools,
And I sing of the rankless, thankless man who hustles the Army mules.

Now where he comes from and where he lives is a mystery dark and...

The sun peers o’er you wooded ridge and thro’ the forest dense,
Its golden edge o’er the mountain ledge looks down on the stockyard fence,
Looks down, looks down, looks down on the stockyard fence;
And dark creeks rush thro’ the tangled brush, when their shuddering shadows throng
Until they chime in the rude rough rhyme of the wild goburra’s song.

                                    Chorus

    Till they chime, ha! ha! till they chime, ha! ha! in the wild goburra’s song;
    Till they chime, ha! ha! till they chime, ha! ha! in the wild goburra’s song.

The night owl to her home hath fled, to shun the glorious pomp
Of golden day she speeds away to her nest in the tea-tree swamp;
Away, away to her nest in the tea-tree swamp.

The dingo looks with a timid stare as he...