Verses popular and humorous

Name: Verses popular and humorous | Capturing the Outback Spirit: A Humorous Anthology of Australian Verses
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Capturing the Outback Spirit: A Humorous Anthology of Australian Verses

Henry Lawson(Autor*in)

Good Press

1. Auflage

Erschienen am 19. Mai 2021

92 Seiten

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Inhalt

Where's the steward?-Bar-room steward? Berth? Oh, any berth will do-
I have left a three-pound billet just to come along with you.
Brighter shines the Star of Rovers on a world that's growing wide,
But I think I'd give a kingdom for a glimpse of Sydney-Side.
Run of rocky shelves at sunrise, with their base on ocean's bed;
Homes of Coogee, homes of Bondi, and the lighthouse on South Head;
For in loneliness and hardship-and with just a touch of pride-
Has my heart been taught to whisper, 'You belong to Sydney-Side.'
Oh, there never dawned a morning, in the long and lonely days,
But I thought I saw the ferries streaming out across the bays-
And as fresh and fair in fancy did the picture rise again
As the sunrise flushed the city from Woollahra to Balmain.
And the sunny water frothing round the liners black and red,
And the coastal schooners working by the loom of Bradley's Head;
And the whistles and the sirens that re-echo far and wide-
All the life and light and beauty that belong to Sydney-Side.
And the dreary cloud-line never veiled the end of one day more,
But the city set in jewels rose before me from 'The Shore.'
Round the sea-world shine the beacons of a thousand ports o' call,
But the harbour-lights of Sydney are the grandest of them all!
Toiling out beyond Coolgardie-heart and back and spirit broke,
Where the Rover's Star gleams redly in the desert by the 'soak'-
But says one mate to the other, 'Brace your lip and do not fret,
We will laugh on trains and 'buses-Sydney's in the same place yet.'
Working in the South in winter, to the waist in dripping fern,
Where the local spirit hungers for each 'saxpence' that we earn-
We can stand it for a season, for our world is growing wide,
And they all are friends and strangers who belong to Sydney-Side.
'T'other-siders! T'other-siders!' Yet we wake the dusty dead;
It is we that send the backward province fifty years ahead;
We it is that 'trim' Australia-making narrow country wide-
Yet we're always T'other-siders till we sail for Sydney-side.

THE ROVERS

Table of Contents
Some born of homely parents
For ages settled down-
The steady generations
Of village, farm, and town:
And some of dusky fathers
Who wandered since the flood-
The fairest skin or darkest
Might hold the roving blood-
Some born of brutish peasants,
And some of dainty peers,
In poverty or plenty
They pass their early years;
But, born in pride of purple,
Or straw and squalid sin,
In all the far world corners
The wanderers are kin.
A rover or a rebel,
Conceived and born to roam,
As babies they will toddle
With faces turned from home;
They've fought beyond the vanguard
Wherever storm has raged,
And home is but a prison
They pace like lions caged.
They smile and are not happy;
They sing and are not gay;
They weary, yet they wander;
They love, and cannot stay;
They marry, and are single
Who watch the roving star,
For, by the family fireside,
Oh, lonely men they are!
They die of peace and quiet-
The deadly ease of life;
They die of home and comfort;
They live in storm and strife;
No poverty can tie them,
Nor wealth nor place restrain-
Girl, wife, or child might draw them,
But they'll be gone again!
Across the glowing desert;
Through naked trees and snow;
Across the rolling prairies
The skies have seen them go;
They fought to where the ocean
Receives the setting sun;-
But where shall fight the rovers
When all the lands are won?
They thirst on Greenland snowfields,
On Never-Never sands;
Where man is not to conquer
They conquer barren lands;
They feel that most are cowards,
That all depends on 'nerve,'
They lead who cannot follow,
They rule who cannot serve.
Across the plains and ranges,
Away across the seas,
On blue and green horizons
They camp by twos and threes;
They hold on stormy borders
Of states that trouble earth
The honour of the country
That only gave them birth.
Unlisted, uncommissioned,
Untaught of any school,
In far-away world corners
Unconquered tribes they rule;
The lone hand and revolver-
Sad eyes that never quail-
The lone hand and the rifle
That win where armies fail.
They slumber sound where murder
And treachery are bare-
The pluck of self-reliance,
The pluck of past despair;
Thin brown men in pyjamas-
The thin brown wiry men!-
The helmet and revolver
That lie beside the pen.
Through drought and desolation
They won the way Out Back;
The commonplace and selfish
Have followed on their track;
They conquer lands for others,
For others find the gold,-
But where shall go the rovers
When all the lands are old?
A rover and a rebel-
And so the worlds commence!
Their hearts shall beat as wildly
Ten generations hence;
And when the world is crowded-
'Tis signed and sealed by Fate-
The roving blood will rise to make
The countries desolate.

FOREIGN LANDS

Table of Contents
You may roam the wide seas over, follow, meet, and cross the sun,
Sail as far as ships can sail, and travel far as trains can run;
You may ride and tramp wherever range or plain or sea expands,
But the crowd has been before you, and you'll not find 'Foreign Lands;'
For the Early Days are over,
And no more the white-winged rover
Sinks the gale-worn coast of England bound for bays in Foreign Lands.
Foreign Lands are in the distance dim and dream-like, faint and far,
Long ago, and over yonder, where our boyhood fancies are,
For the land is by the railway cramped as though with iron bands,
And the steamship and the cable did away with Foreign Lands.
Ah! the days of blue and gold!
When the news was six months old-
But the news was worth the telling in the days of Foreign Lands.
Here we slave the dull years hopeless for the sake of Wool and Wheat-
Here the homes of ugly Commerce-niggard farm and haggard street;
Yet our mothers and our fathers won the life the heart demands-
Less than fifty years gone over, we were born in Foreign Lands.
When the gipsies stole the children still, in village tale and song,
And the world was wide to travel, and the roving spirit strong;
When they dreamed of South Sea Islands, summer seas and coral strands-
Then the bravest hearts of England sailed away to Foreign Lands,
'Fitting foreign'-flood and field-
Half the world and orders sealed-
And the first and best of Europe went to fight in Foreign Lands.
Canvas towers on the ocean-homeward bound and outward bound-
Glint of topsails over islands-splash of anchors in the sound;
Then they landed in the forests, took their strong lives in their hands,
And they fought and toiled and conquered-making homes in Foreign Lands,
Through the cold and through the drought-
...

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