oAUSTRALIA'S MASTER RHYMING POETS

CLICK ON PICTURE OF POET TO VIEW

Andrew Barton [Banjo] Paterson

When his uncle died at Illalong, near Yass, the family then moved there to run the farm. He lived at Illalong station until he was ten, when he went to Sydney to attend school. He trained as a solicitor (a type of lawyer) but also contributed some verse to the Sydney “Bulletin” under the pseudonym of “The Banjo”, taken from the name of a horse. 

His first book, “The Man from Snowy River”, was published in 1895, and has sold more copies than any other book of Australian poetry. He later gave up law to become a journalist, and went to South Africa to report on the Boer War. When World War I broke out he sought work as a war correspondent, but failed to get it. He then went to work driving an ambulance in France, and later became a Remount Officer with the Australian forces then in Egypt. After returning to Australia in 1919 he continued as a writer, and in 1934 he wrote some memoirs of his time in South Africa and France titled "Happy Dispatches". He died of a heart attack in Sydney on 5 February 1941.

For a more comprehensive selection of Paterson's poems go to 

http://www.uq.edu.au/~mlwham/banjo/alphabetical.html

Henry Lawson 

HENRY LAWSON was born in a tent near Grenfell, New South Wales, on 17 June 1867. His birth is officially registered as Henry Lawson, but his name has sometimes been given as Henry Herzberg Lawson, sometimes as Henry Archibald Lawson. In his books it appears simply as Henry, and his usual practice was to sign his name in that form. His father, Peter Hertzberg Larsen, was a Norwegian sailor, a well-informed and educated man, who had much appreciation of the poetry of the Old Testament, but had no faculty for writing. As it was known that Lawson's father's second name was Hertzberg it has been suggested that Archibald may have been a mistake for Hertzberg made at Henry's christening, but there appears to be no evidence that he was ever baptized. His father, having tried his fortunes on various goldfields, came to Pipeclay, now Eurunderee, New South Wales, and there met Louisa Albury (1848-1920), daughter of Henry Albury, a timber-getter. He married her on 7 July 1866, being then 32 years of age and his wife 18. She was to become a remarkable woman, who, after rearing a family, took a prominent part in the women's movements, and edited a women's paper called Dawn which lasted from May 1888 to July 1905. She published her son's first volume, and about the year 1904 brought out a volume of her own, Dert and Do, a simple story of about 18,000 words. In 1905 she collected and published her own verses, The Lonely Crossing and other Poems, the work in which is of more than average quality. She died on 12 August 1920, a woman of unusual character and ability, who probably exercised a strong influence on her son's literary work in its earliest days. Lawson believed that through his mother he inherited gypsy blood, but there is no evidence for this. 

Peter Larsen was working at the diggings near Grenfell when Henry their first child was born, and apparently the family took the name of Lawson when Henry's birth was registered. The family soon returned to Eurunderee where the father took up a selection. The land was poor and little could be done with it, and as Henry grew up, like so many other bush children, he helped in the work; but, as he said in his autobiography, he "had no heart in it; perhaps I realized by instinct that the case was hopeless". Probably the strain of the hard life was partly responsible for his parents' married life becoming unhappy, but in the interview with Mrs Lawson, recorded on the Red Page of the Bulletin on 24 October 1896, she showed herself as a masterful woman with a strong prejudice against men in general, and one feels when reading it that even as a young woman she would probably have been difficult to live with. This is confirmed by private information from a relative of Mrs Lawson still alive at the time of writing. But the unhappiness of the family life re-acted on the child, and in his autobiography at the Mitchell library, Lawson said his home life "was miserably unhappy", and though he goes on to say, "there was no one to blame". the sketch in Triangles of Life, "A Child in the Dark and a Foreign Father", was in all probability founded on his own experience. 

In 1876 a little school was opened at Eurunderee and on 2 October 1876 Lawson became a pupil. It was about this time that he began to be deaf, but his master John Tierney was kind and appears to have done his best for the shy sensitive boy. Later on he went to a Roman Catholic school at Mudgee about five miles away. Here again the master, a Mr Kevan, was good to Lawson and would sometimes talk to him about poetry. The boy was steadily reading Dickens and Marryat and such novels as Robbery under Arms and For the Term of his Natural Life, when they appeared as serials. An aunt gave him a volume of stories by Bret Harte which fascinated him and introduced him to a new world. These books no doubt helped to educate him for writing, for handicapped by his deafness he could learn little at school, he was no good at arithmetic, and never learned to spell. 

When Henry was about 14 he left school and began working with his father who had got the contract to build a school at Canadian Lead. His childhood was now at an end. He had lived in poor country, where the selectors slaved for a wretched living, and his experiences were to colour the whole of his subsequent literary work. Some time after this his parents agreed to separate, the exact time is uncertain, but in 1884 Mrs Lawson and her family were living in Sydney. The house, however, seems to have been taken in the father's name as he appears in the Sydney Directory for both 1885 and 1886 as Peter Lawson, builder, 138 Phillip Street. Henry worked as a painter and at 17 years of age was earning thirty shillings a week. Though his hours were long he also worked at a night school, and twice entered for public examinations at the university of Sydney without success. He paid for his night-schooling himself, and when about 20 years old went to Melbourne and attended the eye and ear hospital there. But nothing could be done for him and he returned to Sydney. There he worked as a painter at the low wages of the time, saw something of the slums and how the poor lived, and "wished that he could write". He was working as a coach-painter's improver at five shillings a day when in June 1887 the Bulletin printed four lines of a poem he had submitted and advised him to "try again". In October his "Song of the Republic" was published in the Bulletin, and in the Christmas number two poems "Golden Gully" and "The Wreck of the Derry Castle" appeared. Lawson has told us with what excitement he opened this Bulletin and found his poems. Prefixed to the second was an editorial note:--"In publishing the subjoined verses we take pleasure in stating that the writer is a boy of 17 years, a young Australian, who has as yet had an imperfect education and is earning his living under some difficulties as a housepainter, a youth whose poetic genius here speaks eloquently for itself." Lawson was then 20 years of age, not 17, but the editor showed remarkable prescience in recognizing the poet's ability so early. Lawson's first story, "His Father's Mate", was published in the Bulletin for 22 December 1888 greatly to the pride of his father, who, however, died a few days later aged 54. Lawson in his autobiography said of him: "I don't believe that a kinder man in trouble, or a gentler nurse in sickness ever breathed. I've known him to work hard all day and then sit up all night by a neighbour's sick child." Though Lawson may have inherited his capacity for writing from his mother, he probably owed the love of humanity that illumines all his work to his father. 

Lawson went to Albany, Western Australia, in 1889, but found conditions no better there, and was in Sydney again for most of 1890. He then obtained a position on the Brisbane Boomerang at £2 a week, but the paper stopped about six months later, and Lawson was back in Sydney again working at his trade for the usual low wages, writing a good deal for the socialistic press, as a rule without pay, and getting an occasional guinea from the Bulletin and smaller sums from Truth. In 1892 he did some writing for the Sydney Worker at twelve and sixpence a column, and about the end of that year went by train to western New South Wales and carried his swag for six months doing odd jobs. Much of his experience of this period was afterwards included in his writings. Towards the end of 1893 Lawson landed in Wellington, New Zealand, with one pound in his pocket, worked in a sawmill for a short period, and tried his hand at a variety of tasks. He then found his way to Sydney again hoping to get work on the Daily Worker, which, however, had stopped publication before he arrived. In 1894 his Short Stories in Prose and Verse was published by his mother, a poorly-printed little volume of 96 pages, which was favourably received but brought in little money. He had made a life-long friend in J. Le Gay Brereton (q.v.), who had been introduced to him by Mary Gilmore, and other friends of his early literary days were Victor Daley (q.v.), E. J. Brady, and F. J. Broomfield. In April 1896, while In the Days When the World was Wide was in the press, he married Bertha Marie Louise Bredt, and soon afterwards took her to Western Australia. In August While the Billy Boils, a collection of his short stories mostly from the Bulletin, was published, and when Lawson returned to Sydney from Western Australia shortly afterwards, he found that both of his books had been cordially received by the critics and were selling well. He next went to New Zealand, where he and his wife were for a time in charge of a Maori school. There he met Bland Holt (q.v.) the well-known actor, who suggested that he should write a play. The play was written though Lawson had no knowledge of the technique of play-writing. Holt gave him an advance against it, and took it away hoping he might knock it into shape, but nothing more was heard of it. In January 1899 an article by Lawson appeared in the Bulletin which stated that in 12 years he estimated that he had made a total of about £700 by his writings. This included the receipts from his first three books. He had returned to Sydney and made a new friend in the governor of New South Wales, Earl Beauchamp, who gave him the financial help that enabled him to go to England with his wife and two young children. They sailed from Sydney on 20 April 1900. In the same year his Verses Popular and Humorous, and a collection of prose stories On the Track and Over the Sliprails, were both published at Sydney. 

Though it was not easy for either Lawson or his wife to fit themselves into the conventional pattern of the England of 1900, for a time everything went well. Blackwood and Sons took two books of prose for publication, The Country I Came From and Joe Wilson and his Mates, both of which appeared in 1901. Methuen and Company also took a book made up of prose and verse, Children of the Bush, which was published in 1902. Lawson stuck closely to his work at first, but for some time drink had been a temptation to him, and he began to have trouble with it again. His wife had a serious illness, both found the long winter months very trying, and both pined for the sunshine of Australia. They were glad to return to a little cottage at Manly before the end of 1902. But difficulties arose between husband and wife and they agreed to part. An account of their association, written by Mrs Lawson without rancour and with understanding of Lawson's temperament, will be found in Henry Lawson by his Mates. 

At 35 years of age most of Lawson's best work was done. When I was King and other Verses was published in 1905, The Rising of the Court and other Sketches in Prose and Verse, and The Skyline Riders and other Verses in 1910, Triangles of Life and Other Stories, and For Australia and other Poems in 1913. My Army, 0, My Army! was published in 1915, and reissued in England under the title of Song of the Dardanelles and other Verses in 1916. Various minor works, reprints, selections, and collected editions will be found listed in Miller's Australian Literature and Serle's Bibliography of Australasian Poetry and Verse. Lawson lived mostly in Sydney, but had a happy holiday in 1910 with his friend, T. D. Mutch, at the home of another friend, E. J. Brady, at Mallacoota, Victoria, and in 1917 Bertram Stevens (q.v.) and other friends arranged a deputation to the premier, W. A. Holman (q.v.), which resulted in Lawson being given a position at Leeton on the Yanco irrigation settlement. Lawson described it as the driest place he had ever been to, but his health improved very much while he was there. On his return to Sydney he reverted to his old habits, and became a rather pathetic though lovable figure in the streets of Sydney. He was only a shadow of his former self when he died on 2 September 1922. He was survived by his wife, a son and a daughter. He had a small allowance from his publishers and a small literary pension. That he did not lack friends may be gathered from the volume Henry Lawson by his Mates published nine years after his death. He was given a state funeral. A portrait by Longstaff (q.v.) is at the national gallery, Sydney, and there is a monument by Lambert (q.v.) in Hyde Park, Sydney, erected by public subscription. 

Lawson was tall, spare, good looking in his youth, with remarkable eyes. He was shy, diffident and very sensitive, with great powers of attracting friends to him. A convinced socialist as a young man, he was always passionately concerned about the under dog. There has been much discussion about his place as a poet, and opinions have ranged between those of people who consider him to be no more than a mere verse-writer, and those who speak of him as "Australia's greatest poet". The truth lies between these extremes. No one can surely deny the title of poet to the author of "The Sliprails and the Spur", "Past Carin'", passages in "The Star of Australasia", "The Drover's Sweetheart" and that pathetic little poem of his later days "Scots of the Riverina". But a large proportion of his poetry is merely good popular verse. However, every writer is justified in being judged by his best work, and in virtue of his best work Lawson is a poet. There is no difficulty about his position as a prose-writer. His short stories are practically all based on his own experience, and that a proportion of them are gloomy should give no surprise to anyone familiar with the struggling lives of the men on the land in Lawson's youth. He had had little education, and no doubt his earliest efforts were sub-edited to some extent by Archibald and others. But fundamentally he was an artist, and his absolute sincerity and sympathy with his fellows counted for much. He had a quiet sense of humour, his pathos came straight from the heart, his gift of narration is unfailing. The combination of these qualities has given him the foremost place in Australian literature as a writer of short stories. 

A basic outline of his major works. 

Books of Short Stories:

While the Billy Boils (1896)
On the Track (1900)
Over the Sliprails (1900)
The Country I Come From (1901)
Joe Wilson and His Mates (1901)
Children of the Bush (1902)
Send Round the Hat (1907)
The Romance of the Swag (1907)
The Rising of the Court (1910)
Poetry: 

In the Days When the World Was Wide (1896)
Verses Popular and Humorous (1900)
When I Was King and Other Verses (1905)
The Skyline Riders (1910)
Selected Poems of Henry Lawson (1918) 

“On the Track” and “Over the Sliprails” were both published at Sydney in 1900, the prefaces being dated March and June respectively—and so, though printed separately, a combined edition was printed the same year (the two separate, complete works were simply put together in one binding); hence they are sometimes referred to as “On the Track and Over the Sliprails”. The opposite occurred with “Joe Wilson and His Mates”, which was later divided into “Joe Wilson” and “Joe Wilson’s Mates” (1901). 

For a more comprehensive list ofLawson's poems go to

 http://members.ozemail.com.au/~natinfo/lawson/index3.html#1885

THE FACES IN THE STREET

THEY lie, the men who tell us in a loud decisive tone
That want is here a stranger, and that misery’s unknown;
For where the nearest suburb and the city proper meet
My window-sill is level with the faces in the street —
Drifting past, drifting past,
To the beat of weary feet —
While I sorrow for the owners of those faces in the street. 

And cause I have to sorrow, in a land so young and fair,
To see upon those faces stamped the marks of Want and Care;
I look in vain for traces of the fresh and fair and sweet
In sallow, sunken faces that are drifting through the street —
Drifting on, drifting on,
To the scrape of restless feet;
I can sorrow for the owners of the faces in the street. 

In hours before the dawning dims the starlight in the sky
The wan and weary faces first begin to trickle by,
Increasing as the moments hurry on with morning feet,
Till like a pallid river flow the faces in the street —
Flowing in, flowing in,
To the beat of hurried feet —
Ah! I sorrow for the owners of those faces in the street. 

The human river dwindles when ’Tis past the hour of eight,
Its waves go flowing faster in the fear of being late;
But slowly drag the moments, whilst beneath the dust and heat
The city grinds the owners of the faces in the street —
Grinding body, grinding soul,
Yielding scarce enough to eat —
Oh! I sorrow for the owners of the faces in the street. 

And then the only faces till the sun is sinking down
Are those of outside toilers and the idlers of the town,
Save here and there a face that seems a stranger in the street,
Tells of the city’s unemployed upon his weary beat —
Drifting round, drifting round,
To the tread of listless feet —
Ah! My heart aches for the owner of that sad face in the street. 

And when the hours on lagging feet have slowly dragged away,
And sickly yellow gaslights rise to mock the going day,
Then flowing past my window like a tide in its retreat,
Again I see the pallid stream of faces in the street —
Ebbing out, ebbing out,
To the drag of tired feet,
While my heart is aching dumbly for the faces in the street. 

And now all blurred and smirched with vice the day’s sad pages end,
For while the short ‘large hours’ toward the longer ‘small hours’ trend,
With smiles that mock the wearer, and with words that half entreat,
Delilah pleads for custom at the corner of the street —
Sinking down, sinking down,
Battered wreck by tempests beat —
A dreadful, thankless trade is hers, that Woman of the Street. 

But, ah! to dreader things than these our fair young city comes,
For in its heart are growing thick the filthy dens and slums,
Where human forms shall rot away in sties for swine unmeet,
And ghostly faces shall be seen unfit for any street —
Rotting out, rotting out,
For the lack of air and meat —
In dens of vice and horror that are hidden from the street. 

I wonder would the apathy of wealthy men endure
Were all their windows level with the faces of the Poor?
Ah! Mammon’s slaves, your knees shall knock, your hearts in terror beat,
When God demands a reason for the sorrows of the street,
The wrong things and the bad things
And the sad things that we meet
In the filthy lane and alley, and the cruel, heartless street. 

I left the dreadful corner where the steps are never still,
And sought another window overlooking gorge and hill;
But when the night came dreary with the driving rain and sleet,
They haunted me — the shadows of those faces in the street,
Flitting by, flitting by,
Flitting by with noiseless feet,
And with cheeks but little paler than the real ones in the street. 

Once I cried: ‘Oh, God Almighty! if Thy might doth still endure,
Now show me in a vision for the wrongs of Earth a cure.’
And, lo! with shops all shuttered I beheld a city’s street,
And in the warning distance heard the tramp of many feet,
Coming near, coming near,
To a drum’s dull distant beat,
And soon I saw the army that was marching down the street. 

Then, like a swollen river that has broken bank and wall,
The human flood came pouring with the red flags over all,
And kindled eyes all blazing bright with revolution’s heat,
And flashing swords reflecting rigid faces in the street.
Pouring on, pouring on,
To a drum’s loud threatening beat,
And the war-hymns and the cheering of the people in the street. 

And so it must be while the world goes rolling round its course,
The warning pen shall write in vain, the warning voice grow hoarse,
But not until a city feels Red Revolution’s feet
Shall its sad people miss awhile the terrors of the street —
The dreadful everlasting strife
For scarcely clothes and meat
In that pent track of living death — the city’s cruel street. 

JULY 1888 Henry Laswon

In the Days When the World Was Wide

THE GLASS ON THE BAR

Three bushmen one morning rode up to an inn,
And one of them called for the drinks with a grin;
They'd only returned from a trip to the North,
And, eager to greet them, the landlord came forth.
He absently poured out a glass of Three Star,
And set down that drink with the rest on the bar.

"There, that is for Harry," he said, "and it's queer,
'Tis the very same glass that he drank from last year;
His name's on the glass, you can read it like print,
He scratched it himself with an old piece of flint;
I remember his drink - it was always Three Star" -
And the landlord looked out through the door of the bar.

He looked at the horses, and counted but three:
"You were always together - where's Harry?" cried he.
Oh, sadly they looked at the glass as they said,
"You may put it away, for our old mate is dead"
But one, gazing out o'er the ridges afar,
Said, "We owe him a shout - leave the glass on the bar.

They thought of the far away place on the plain
They thought of the comrade who came not again,
They lifted their glasses, and sadly they said:
"We drink to the name of our mate who is dead."
And the sunlight streamed in, and a light like a star
Seemed to glow in the depth of the glass on the bar.

And still in that shanty a tumbler is seen,
It stands by the clock, ever polished and clean;
And often the strangers will read as they pass
The name of the bushmen engraved on the glass;
And though on the shelf but a dozen there are,
That glass never stands with the rest on the bar.

APRIL 1890 Henry Laswon

In the Days When the World Was Wide

SWEENEY

IT WAS somewhere in September, and the sun was going down,
When I came, in search of ‘copy’, to a Darling-River town;
‘Come-and-have-a-drink’ we’ll call it—’Tis a fitting name, I think—
And ’twas raining, for a wonder, up at Come-and-have-a-drink. 

’Neath the public-house verandah I was resting on a bunk
When a stranger rose before me, and he said that he was drunk;
He apologised for speaking; there was no offence, he swore;
But he somehow seemed to fancy that he’d seen my face before. 

‘No erfence,’ he said. I told him that he needn’t mention it,
For I might have met him somewhere; I had travelled round a bit,
And I knew a lot of fellows in the bush and in the streets—
But a fellow can’t remember all the fellows that he meets. 

Very old and thin and dirty were the garments that he wore,
Just a shirt and pair of trousers, and a boot, and nothing more;
He was wringing-wet, and really in a sad and sinful plight,
And his hat was in his left hand, and a bottle in his right. 

His brow was broad and roomy, but its lines were somewhat harsh,
And a sensual mouth was hidden by a drooping, fair moustache;
(His hairy chest was open to what poets call the ‘wined’,
And I would have bet a thousand that his pants were gone behind). 

He agreed: ‘Yer can’t remember all the chaps yer chance to meet,’
And he said his name was Sweeney—people lived in Sussex-street.
He was campin’ in a stable, but he swore that he was right,
‘Only for the blanky horses walkin’ over him all night.’ 

He’d apparently been fighting, for his face was black-and-blue,
And he looked as though the horses had been treading on him, too;
But an honest, genial twinkle in the eye that wasn’t hurt
Seemed to hint of something better, spite of drink and rags and dirt. 

It appeared that he mistook me for a long-lost mate of his—
One of whom I was the image, both in figure and in phiz—
(He’d have had a letter from him if the chap were living still,
For they’d carried swags together from the Gulf to Broken Hill.) 

Sweeney yarned awhile and hinted that his folks were doing well,
And he told me that his father kept the Southern Cross Hotel;
And I wondered if his absence was regarded as a loss
When he left the elder Sweeney—landlord of the Southern Cross. 

He was born in Parramatta, and he said, with humour grim,
That he’d like to see the city ere the liquor finished him,
But he couldn’t raise the money. He was damned if he could think
What the Government was doing. Here he offered me a drink. 

I declined—’twas self-denial—and I lectured him on booze,
Using all the hackneyed arguments that preachers mostly use;
Things I’d heard in temperance lectures (I was young and rather green),
And I ended by referring to the man he might have been. 

Then a wise expression struggled with the bruises on his face,
Though his argument had scarcely any bearing on the case:
‘What’s the good o’ keepin’ sober? Fellers rise and fellers fall;
What I might have been and wasn’t doesn’t trouble me at all.’ 

But he couldn’t stay to argue, for his beer was nearly gone.
He was glad, he said, to meet me, and he’d see me later on;
He guessed he’d have to go and get his bottle filled again,
And he gave a lurch and vanished in the darkness and the rain. 


. . . . .
And of afternoons in cities, when the rain is on the land,
Visions come to me of Sweeney with his bottle in his hand,
With the stormy night behind him, and the pub verandah-post—
And I wonder why he haunts me more than any other ghost. 

Still I see the shearers drinking at the township in the scrub,
And the army praying nightly at the door of every pub,
And the girls who flirt and giggle with the bushmen from the west—
But the memory of Sweeney overshadows all the rest. 

Well, perhaps, it isn’t funny; there were links between us two—
He had memories of cities, he had been a jackeroo;
And, perhaps, his face forewarned me of a face that I might see
From a bitter cup reflected in the wretched days to be. 


. . . . .
I suppose he’s tramping somewhere where the bushmen carry swags,
Cadging round the wretched stations with his empty tucker-bags;
And I fancy that of evenings, when the track is growing dim,
What he ‘might have been and wasn’t’ comes along and troubles him.

DEC 1893  Henry Laswon

In the Days When the World Was Wide

THE SECRET WHISKY CURE

’TIS no tale of heroism, ’tis no tale of storm and strife,
But of ordinary boozing, and of dull domestic life—
Of the everlasting friction that most husbands must endure—
Tale of nagging and of drinking—and a secret whisky cure. 

Name of Jones—perhaps you know him—small house-agent here in town—
(Friend of Smith, you know him also—likewise Robinson and Brown),
Just a hopeless little husband, whose deep sorrows were obscure,
And a bitter nagging Missis—and death seemed the only cure. 

’Twas a common sordid marriage, and there’s little new to tell—
Save the pub to him was Heaven and his own home was a hell:
With the office in between them—purgatory to be sure—
And, as far as Jones could make out—well, there wasn’t any cure. 

’Twas drink and nag—or nag and drink—whichever you prefer—
Till at last she couldn’t stand him any more than he could her.
Friends and relatives assisted, telling her (with motives pure)
That a legal separation was the only earthly cure. 

So she went and saw a lawyer, who, in accents soft and low,
Asked her firstly if her husband had a bank account or no;
But he hadn’t and she hadn’t, they in fact were very poor,
So he bowed her out suggesting she should try some liquor cure. 

She saw a drink cure advertised in the Sydney Bulletin—
Cure for brandy, cure for whisky, cure for rum and beer and gin,
And it could be given secret, it was tasteless, swift and sure—
So she purchased half a gallon of that Secret Whisky Cure. 

And she put some in his coffee, smiling sweetly all the while,
And he started for the office rather puzzled by the smile—
Smile or frown he’d have a whisky, and you’ll say he was a boor—
But perhaps his wife had given him an overdose of Cure. 

And he met a friend he hadn’t seen for seven years or more—
It was just upon the threshold of a private bar-room door—
And they coalised and entered straight away, you may be sure—
But of course they hadn’t reckoned with a Secret Whisky Cure. 

Jones, he drank, turned pale, and, gasping, hurried out the back way quick,
Where, to his old chum’s amazement, he was violently sick;
Then they interviewed the landlord, but he swore the drink was pure—
It was only the beginning of the Secret Whisky Cure. 

For Jones couldn’t stand the smell of even special whisky blends,
And shunned bar-rooms to the sorrow of his trusty drinking friends:
And they wondered, too, what evil genius had chanced to lure
Him from paths of booze and friendship—never dreaming of a Cure.


He had noticed, too, with terror that a something turned his feet,
When a pub was near, and swung him to the other side the street,
Till he thought the devils had him, and his person they’d immure
In a lunatic asylum where there wasn’t any Cure. 

He consulted several doctors who were puzzled by the case—
As they mostly are, but never tell the patient to his face—
Some advised him ‘Try the Mountains for this malady obscure:’
But there wasn’t one could diagnose a Secret Whisky Cure. 

And his wife, when he was sober?—Well, she nagged him all the more!
And he couldn’t drown his sorrow in the pewter as of yore:
So he shot himself at Manly and was sat upon by Woore,
And found rest amongst the spirits from the Secret Whisky Cure. 

. . . . .
And the moral?—well, ’tis funny—or ’tis woman’s way with men—
She’s remarried to a publican who whacks her now and then,
And they get on fairly happy, he’s a brute and he’s a boor,
But she’s never tried her second with a Secret Whisky Cure. 

1905 Henry Laswon

When I was King and Other Verses

Will H. Ogilive

William Henry Ogilvie was born in 1869, at Holefield, near Kelso in Scotland.  He came to Australia from Scotland at the end of 1889 and remained in this country during the golden years of Australian literature, the 1890's.  When he returned to his homeland after an absence of eleven years he was farewelled as one of our leading bush balladists.    Will died in Scotland at the age of ninety-three on the 30th January, 1962.

Dorothy Mackellar

Dorothy Mackellar was born in Sydney, NSW into a prosperous and notable family. She received a private education before attending Sydney university. After her studies Mackellar travelled widely in Australia and abroad. 'My Country', which she wrote at the age of nineteen, was published in 1908, It appeared in the London Spectator entitled 'Core of My Heart'. The poem was revised for her first book of poetry The Closed Door (1911). Although she has written three other works of poetry and three novels, The Little Blue Devil (1914) and Two's Company (1914) in collaboration with Ruth Bedford and Outlaw's Luck (1913) as sole author, it is 'My Country' that springs to the mind of most Australians when Dorothea Mackellar's name is mentioned. She ceased to write in the 1920's due to constant ill-health but was patron, and involved the organisation, of the English Association for several years. Mackellar passed away in 1968 and was the recipient of an OBE in 1968 for her service to the Commonwealth. 

C. J. Dennis

Clarence (Clarrie or Den) Michael James Stanislaus Dennis was born in Auburn, South Australia on September 7, 1876, to James Dennis and his second wife Catherine (Kate) Tobin. For reasons that are unclear, though which are probably due to the boy's and the mother's ill-health and frailty, Dennis was looked after in his early years by his mother's aunts who lived nearby. In 1883, James Dennis took up the lease on a hotel in Gladstone in South Australia's mid-North and, a couple of years later, moved again, this time seven miles further north to the township of Laura, and the Beetaloo Hotel.

Dennis's mother died in 1890 leaving his father with 3 sons and a hotel to look after. This was never going to work successfully so two of Kate's unmarried sisters left their home in Mintaro (in the Clare Valley) and moved to Laura to help with the children's upbringing. For some time in his teens Dennis attended the Christian Brothers' College in Adelaide but had returned to Laura by the age of 17. At that time he took a job as a clerk to a local solicitor, and it was during this period that he published his first poem, when 19, titled "The Singular Experiences of Six Sturdy Sportsmen" - which concerned the exploits of Dennis and a group of his mates when lost in the Beetaloo Hills just outside Laura. The verse was published in the local Laura newspaper The Laura Standard. Some time later he worked on the staff of the Critic, an Adelaide weekly newspaper. By the age of 21 he was back in Laura working as a barman in his father's hotel, and a year or so later left Laura for Broken Hill in New South Wales.

In the early 1900s he was back in Adelaide and back on the staff of the Critic, finally ending up as the journal's editor. In 1905 he started a threepenny weekly newspaper with A.E. Martin called the Gadfly, which was to have a life-span of about three years. About 18 months into that time, however, Dennis left the paper and Adelaide and headed to Melbourne. He kept himself employed (though not very well) as a freelance journalist in Melbourne, until he came under the influence of the artist Hal Waugh who took him off to a camp he had established in the Dandenong Ranges about 40 miles east of Melbourne at a place called Toolangi. Dennis was to remain here or in this vicinity for the bulk of the rest of his life. 
Over the next five years Dennis published a series of poems in various publications (such as The Bulletin) which would later be collected in his first book, Backblock Ballads and Other Verses, published in 1913. Although the book received favourable reviews, it did not sell very well and Dennis decided to try his luck in Sydney where he joined the staff of the union journal, The Call: The Ha'penny Daily. Again this sojourn did not last very long and he returned to Melbourne where he took up employment in the Public Service. 

It was shortly after he left Sydney that he wrote to Angus and Robertson, the Sydney-based publisher, with his ideas for a book entitled The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke, based on several of the pieces in his first book. After a series of misunderstandings between Dennis and George Robertson of the publishers, the book was published in mid-October 1915. By 5 November 1915 the first edition of 2,480 copies (of which 2,166 were for sale) was sold out. A second edition of 5,000 copies in November also rapidly sold out, as did a third published on 3 December 1915. After nine months the book had sold approximately 51,000 copies. Later this grew to 66,148 copies of the book sold in Australia and New Zealand alone and did not include the totals for any copies of the editions published in Britain, Canada or the USA. The Bloke struck a nerve with Australian audiences and by September 1916 they had been dramatised for the stage, were performed in Sydney and Melbourne and were probably as popular as it was possible to be at that time. 

On 9th October 1916 Dennis published The Moods of Ginger Mick based on a character from The Sentimental Bloke which was to sell 42,349 copies within six months. Dennis had become, by sales and by general sentiment, the Laureate of the Larrikin, and the best-known poet in Australia. 

Dennis's next book, The Glugs of Gosh, broke with the tradition of The Bloke and presented a mixture of satire and fantasy masquerading as a book for children. It originally started life as a present for the son of a close friend who was recovering from a shooting accident. The book was a major departure in style for Dennis and aptly showed the breadth of his talent. 
By 1917 Dennis was the most prosperous poet in Australian history and decided to marry Olive (Biddy) Herron of Melbourne. He and his wife applied for the lease of the property on which he had been living in Toolangi, and a short time later was able to gain definitive ownership of the land. Dennis had originally wanted to name the place "Seaview", which, given the distance from the sea seems something of a joke, but finally decided on the name "Arden". As Dennis wrote later: "There's the lit'ry association, there's the forest, there's my pen-name in the second syllable, and there's a character called Dennis in As You Like It. So 'Arden" it had to be." 

Dennis's attachment to The Bloke continued with the publication of Doreen and Digger Smith, over the next few years, to be followed later by Rose of Spadgers in 1924. In the interim he wrote a book concerned with the men and the area of the Dandenong Ranges in Jim of the Hills. Dennis became attached to the staff of the Melbourne Herald in 1922 and the bulk of his work from that time on was devoted to pieces for the newspaper. Over the next sixteen years Dennis was to produce some 3,000-odd pieces of poems and prose pieces, the vast majority of which were never collected in his lifetime. The exception was the publication of his last book The Singing Garden. Dennis's wife, Margaret Herron, compiled a collection entitled Random Verses in 1952, and the Melbourne journalist, Garrie Hutchinson produced another collection from this period (with an effort being made to not duplicate Herron's work) titled The C.J. Dennis Collection in 1987. 

CJ Dennis died on 22 June, 1938 at the age of 61. He was buried in Box Hill cemetary the next day. The inscription on his tombstone reads: 

Now is the healing, quiet hour that fills
This gay green world with peace and grateful rest.

After his death, J.A. Lyons, Prime Minister of Australia at the time, said: "I am sure that I speak for all Australians in expressing deep regret at the death of CJ Dennis. He was the Robert Burns of Australia. He created characters which have become immortal and he captured the true Australian spirit. Already his work is world-famous, and future generations will treasure it." 

For a more comprehensive list of Denni's poetry go to:

http://www.middlemiss.org/lit/authors/denniscj/denniscj.html

"GOT-A-FAG"

He was tall and tough and stringy, with the shoulders of an axe-man,
Broad and loose, with greenhide muscles; and a hand shaped to the reins;
He was slow of speech and prudent, something of a Nature student,
With the eye of one who gazes long across the saltbush plains.

Smith by name, but long forgotten was his legal patronymic
In a land where every bushman wears some unbaptismal tag;
And, through frequent repetition of a well-worn requisition,
"Smith" had long retired in favor of the title, "Got-a-Fag." 

Not until the war was waging for a month, or may be longer,
Did the tidings reach the station, blest with quite unfrequent mails;
And, though still a steady grafter, he grew restless ever after,
And he pondered long of evenings, seated on the stockyard rails.

Primed with sudden resolution, he arose one summer morning,
Casually mentioned fighting as he deftly rolled his swag;
Then, in accents almost hearty, bade his mate, "So long, old Party!
Goin' to do some Square-head huntin'. See you later. Got a fag?"

Ten long, sunburned days in saddle, down through spinifex and saltbush,
Then a two-days' railroad journey landed him at last in town,
Charged with an aggressive feeling, heightened by his forthright dealing
With a shrewd but chastened spieler who had sought to take him down.

"Smart and stern" describes the war-lord who presided at recruiting.
To him slouched an apparition, drawling, "Boss, I've got a nag --
Risin' four -- good prad he's counted. Better shove me in the mounted.
Done a little bit o' shootin' -- gun an' rifle. Got a fag?"

Two months later, drilled and kneaded to a shape approaching martial,
Yet with hints of that lithe looseness discipline can never kill,
With that keen eye grown yet shrewder, and example to the cruder,
Private Smith (and, later, Sergeant) stinted speech and studied drill.

"Smith," indeed, but briefly served him; for his former appellation
In its aptness seized the fancy of the regimental wag,
When an apoplectic colonel gasped, "Of all the dashed infernal"....
As this Private Smith saluted, with "Ribuck, boss! Got a fag?"

What he thought, or how he marvelled at the familiar customs
Of those ancient and historic lands that later met his eyes,
He was never heard to mention; though he voiced one bold contention,
That the absence of wire fences marked a lack of enterprise.

Soon his shrewd resourse, his deftness, won him fame in many places;
Things he did with wire and whipcord moved his company to brag.
And when aught concerning horses called for knowledge in the forces
Came a hurred, anxious message: "Hang the Vet! Send Got-a-Fag!"

Then, one morning, he was missing, and a soldier who had seen him
Riding for the foe's entrenchments bade his mates abandon hope.
Calm he seemed, but strangely daring: some weird weapons he was bearing
Built of twisted wire and iron, and a dozen yards of rope.

At the dawn a startled sentry, through the early morn-mists peering,
Saw a dozen shackled foemen down the sand dunes slowly drag.
Sore they seemed, and quite dejected, while behind them, cool, collected,
Swearing at a busy sheep-dog, rode their drover, Got-a-Fag.

To the Colonel's tent he drove them, bransishing a stockwhip featly,
Bristly calling, "Heel 'em, Laddie!" While the warrior of rank
Sniffed, and then exclaimed with loathing: "What's this smell of clothing burning?"
Said the drover: "Got 'em branded: 'A -- Broad Arrow,' off-side flank."

"A," he drawled, stan's for Australia, an' the Gov'ment brand's in order.
'Crown - G.R.' upon the shoulder marks 'em for the King an' flag.
Roped the blighters same as how we fix the calves on Kinchacowie.
But it's dead slow sorter must'rin'," he concluded. "Got a fag?"

When the weary war is over, back to his old cattle station,
If luck holds, he'll one day journey, casually drop his swag,
Drawling, "Been up yonder - fightin'....Not much doin' mostly skitin'....
Gimme drovin' for excitement...Rain seems wantin'....Got a fag?"

Backblock Ballads and Later Verses
C.J. Dennis
1918

John O'Brien

John O'Brien was the pen name used by Patrick Joseph Hartigan who was born on the 13th October 1878 in O'Connel Town, Yass in N.S.W.  Hartigan took on the vocation of the priesthood and served 23 years of his life with his parish at St Mel's Church, Narrandera.  His poetry became popular with the people and his book Around the Boree Log contains many favourite verses.  Hartigan passed away in 1952.

For a more comprehensive list of O'Brien's poem go to

http://www.middlemiss.org/lit/authors/obrienj/boreelog.html

JOHN O'BRIEN FESTIVAL