Henry Lawson Poems

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;
...

Rolling out to fight for England, singing songs across the sea;
Rolling North to fight for England, and to fight for you and me.
Fighting hard for France and England, where the storms of
...

By hut, homestead and shearing shed,
By railroad, coach and track-
By lonely graves where rest the dead,
Up-Country and Out-Back:
...

Fire lighted; on the table a meal for sleepy men;

A lantern in the stable; a jingle now and then;
...

It is stuffy in the steerage where the second-classers sleep,
For there's near a hundred for'ard, and they're stowed away like sheep, --
They are trav'lers for the most part in a straight 'n' honest path;
But their linen's rather scanty, an' there isn't any bath --
...

The fields are fair in autumn yet, and the sun's still shining there,
But we bow our heads and we brood and fret, because of the masks we wear;
Or we nod and smile the social while, and we say we're doing well,
But we break our hearts, oh, we break our hearts! for the things we must not tell.
...

The Russian march is soft and slow,
Through dust and heat, or slush and snow,
When the Russian skies hang grey and low
To the frontiers far where the Russians go;
...

Over there, above the jetty, stands the mansion of the Vardens,
With a tennis ground and terrace, and a flagstaff in the gardens:
...

REGION of damper and junk and tea,
Region of pastures wide!
The fairest spots in the world to me
Are out on the Lachlan Side.
...

What have we all forgotten, at the break of the seventh year?
With a nation born to the ages and a Bad Time borne on its bier!
...