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.

Middleton's Rouseabout

 Tall and freckled and sandy,
  Face of a country lout;
 This was the picture of Andy,
  Middleton's Rouseabout.

 Type of a coming nation,
  In the land of cattle and sheep,
 Worked on Middleton's station,
  'Pound a week and his keep.'

 On Middleton's wide dominions
  Plied the stockwhip and shears;
 Hadn't any opinions,
  Hadn't any 'idears'.

 Swiftly the years went over,
  Liquor and drought prevailed;
 Middleton went as a drover,
  After his station had failed.

 Type of a careless nation,
  Men who are soon played out,
 Middleton was: — and his station
  Was bought by the Rouseabout.

 Flourishing beard and sandy,
  Tall and robust and stout;
 This is the picture of Andy,
  Middleton's Rouseabout.

 Now on his own dominions
  Works with his overseers;
 Hasn't any opinions,
  Hasn't any 'idears'.

The Ballad of the Drover

 Across the stony ridges,
  Across the rolling plain,
 Young Harry Dale, the drover,
  Comes riding home again.
 And well his stock-horse bears him,
  And light of heart is he,
 And stoutly his old pack-horse
  Is trotting by his knee.

 Up Queensland way with cattle
  He travelled regions vast;
 And many months have vanished
  Since home-folk saw him last.
 He hums a song of someone
  He hopes to marry soon;
 And hobble-chains and camp-ware
  Keep jingling to the tune.

 Beyond the hazy dado
  Against the lower skies
 And yon blue line of ranges
  The homestead station lies.
 And thitherward the drover
  Jogs through the lazy noon,
 While hobble-chains and camp-ware
  Are jingling to a tune.

 An hour has filled the heavens
  With storm-clouds inky black;
 At times the lightning trickles
  Around the drover's track;
 But Harry pushes onward,
  His horses' strength he tries,
 In hope to reach the river
  Before the flood shall rise.

 The thunder from above him
  Goes rolling o'er the plain;
 And down on thirsty pastures
  In torrents falls the rain.
 And every creek and gully
  Sends forth its little flood,
 Till the river runs a banker,
  All stained with yellow mud.

 Now Harry speaks to Rover,
  The best dog on the plains,
 And to his hardy horses,
  And strokes their shaggy manes;
 'We've breasted bigger rivers
  When floods were at their height
 Nor shall this gutter stop us
  From getting home to-night!'

 The thunder growls a warning,
  The ghastly lightnings gleam,
 As the drover turns his horses
  To swim the fatal stream.
 But, oh! the flood runs stronger
  Than e'er it ran before;
 The saddle-horse is failing,
  And only half-way o'er!

 When flashes next the lightning,
  The flood's grey breast is blank,
 And a cattle dog and pack-horse
  Are struggling up the bank.
 But in the lonely homestead
  The girl will wait in vain —
 He'll never pass the stations
  In charge of stock again.

 The faithful dog a moment
  Sits panting on the bank,
 And then swims through the current
  To where his master sank.
 And round and round in circles
  He fights with failing strength,
 Till, borne down by the waters,
  The old dog sinks at length.

 Across the flooded lowlands
  And slopes of sodden loam
 The pack-horse struggles onward,
  To take dumb tidings home.
 And mud-stained, wet, and weary,
  Through ranges dark goes he;
 While hobble-chains and tinware
  Are sounding eerily.

      .    .    .    .    .

 The floods are in the ocean,
  The stream is clear again,
 And now a verdant carpet
  Is stretched across the plain.
 But someone's eyes are saddened,
  And someone's heart still bleeds
 In sorrow for the drover
  Who sleeps among the reeds.

Taking His Chance

 They stood by the door of the Inn on the Rise;
 May Carney looked up in the bushranger's eyes:
 'Oh! why did you come? — it was mad of you, Jack;
 You know that the troopers are out on your track.'
 A laugh and a shake of his obstinate head —
 'I wanted a dance, and I'll chance it,' he said.

 Some twenty-odd bushmen had come to the 'ball',
 But Jack from his youth had been known to them all,
 And bushmen are soft where a woman is fair,
 So the love of May Carney protected him there;
 And all the short evening — it seems like romance —
 She danced with a bushranger taking his chance.

 'Twas midnight — the dancers stood suddenly still,
 For hoofs had been heard on the side of the hill!
 Ben Duggan, the drover, along the hillside
 Came riding as only a bushman can ride.
 He sprang from his horse, to the shanty he sped —
 'The troopers are down in the gully!' he said.

 Quite close to the homestead the troopers were seen.
 'Clear out and ride hard for the ranges, Jack Dean!
 Be quick!' said May Carney — her hand on her heart —
 'We'll bluff them awhile, and 'twill give you a start.'
 He lingered a moment — to kiss her, of course —
 Then ran to the trees where he'd hobbled his horse.

 She ran to the gate, and the troopers were there —
 The jingle of hobbles came faint on the air —
 Then loudly she screamed:  it was only to drown
 The treacherous clatter of slip-rails let down.
 But troopers are sharp, and she saw at a glance
 That someone was taking a desperate chance.

 They chased, and they shouted, 'Surrender, Jack Dean!'
 They called him three times in the name of the Queen.
 Then came from the darkness the clicking of locks;
 The crack of the rifles was heard in the rocks!
 A shriek and a shout, and a rush of pale men —
 And there lay the bushranger, chancing it then.

 The sergeant dismounted and knelt on the sod —
 'Your bushranging's over — make peace, Jack, with God!'
 The bushranger laughed — not a word he replied,
 But turned to the girl who knelt down by his side.
 He gazed in her eyes as she lifted his head:
 'Just kiss me — my girl — and — I'll — chance it,' he said.

When the 'Army' Prays for Watty

 When the kindly hours of darkness, save for light of moon and star,
 Hide the picture on the signboard over Doughty's Horse Bazaar;
 When the last rose-tint is fading on the distant mulga scrub,
 Then the Army prays for Watty at the entrance of his pub.

 Now, I often sit at Watty's when the night is very near,
 With a head that's full of jingles and the fumes of bottled beer,
 For I always have a fancy that, if I am over there
 When the Army prays for Watty, I'm included in the prayer.

 Watty lounges in his arm-chair, in its old accustomed place,
 With a fatherly expression on his round and passive face;
 And his arms are clasped before him in a calm, contented way,
 And he nods his head and dozes when he hears the Army pray.

 And I wonder does he ponder on the distant years and dim,
 Or his chances over yonder, when the Army prays for him?
 Has he not a fear connected with the warm place down below,
 Where, according to good Christians, all the publicans should go?

 But his features give no token of a feeling in his breast,
 Save of peace that is unbroken and a conscience well at rest;
 And we guzzle as we guzzled long before the Army came,
 And the loafers wait for 'shouters' and — they get there just the same.

 It would take a lot of praying — lots of thumping on the drum —
 To prepare our sinful, straying, erring souls for Kingdom Come;
 But I love my fellow-sinners, and I hope, upon the whole,
 That the Army gets a hearing when it prays for Watty's soul.

The Wreck of the 'Derry Castle'

 Day of ending for beginnings!
 Ocean hath another innings,
     Ocean hath another score;
 And the surges sing his winnings,
 And the surges shout his winnings,
 And the surges shriek his winnings,
     All along the sullen shore.

 Sing another dirge in wailing,
 For another vessel sailing
     With the shadow-ships at sea;
 Shadow-ships for ever sinking —
 Shadow-ships whose pumps are clinking,
 And whose thirsty holds are drinking
     Pledges to Eternity.

 Pray for souls of ghastly, sodden
 Corpses, floating round untrodden
     Cliffs, where nought but sea-drift strays;
 Souls of dead men, in whose faces
 Of humanity no trace is —
 Not a mark to show their races —
     Floating round for days and days.

      .    .    .    .    .

 Ocean's salty tongues are licking
  Round the faces of the drowned,
 And a cruel blade seems sticking
  Through my heart and turning round.

 Heaven! shall HIS ghastly, sodden
  Corpse float round for days and days?
 Shall it dash 'neath cliffs untrodden,
  Rocks where nought but sea-drift strays?

 God in heaven! hide the floating,
  Falling, rising, face from me;
 God in heaven! stay the gloating,
  Mocking singing of the sea!

Ben Duggan

 Jack Denver died on Talbragar when Christmas Eve began,
 And there was sorrow round the place, for Denver was a man;
 Jack Denver's wife bowed down her head — her daughter's grief was wild,
 And big Ben Duggan by the bed stood sobbing like a child.
 But big Ben Duggan saddled up, and galloped fast and far,
 To raise the longest funeral ever seen on Talbragar.

     By station home
     And shearing shed
     Ben Duggan cried, 'Jack Denver's dead!
     Roll up at Talbragar!'

 He borrowed horses here and there, and rode all Christmas Eve,
 And scarcely paused a moment's time the mournful news to leave;
 He rode by lonely huts and farms, and when the day was done
 He turned his panting horse's head and rode to Ross's Run.
 No bushman in a single day had ridden half so far
 Since Johnson brought the doctor to his wife at Talbragar.

     By diggers' camps
     Ben Duggan sped —
     At each he cried, 'Jack Denver's dead!
     Roll up at Talbragar!'

 That night he passed the humpies of the splitters on the ridge,
 And roused the bullock-drivers camped at Belinfante's Bridge;
 And as he climbed the ridge again the moon shone on the rise;
 The soft white moonbeams glistened in the tears that filled his eyes;
 He dashed the rebel drops away — for blinding things they are —
 But 'twas his best and truest friend who died on Talbragar.

     At Blackman's Run
     Before the dawn,
     Ben Duggan cried, 'Poor Denver's gone!
     Roll up at Talbragar!'

 At all the shanties round the place they'd heard his horse's tramp,
 He took the track to Wilson's Luck, and told the diggers' camp;
 But in the gorge by Deadman's Gap the mountain shades were black,
 And there a newly-fallen tree was lying on the track —
 He saw too late, and then he heard the swift hoof's sudden jar,
 And big Ben Duggan ne'er again rode home to Talbragar.

     'The wretch is drunk,
     And Denver's dead —
     A burning shame!' the people said
     Next day at Talbragar.

 For thirty miles round Talbragar the boys rolled up in strength,
 And Denver had a funeral a good long mile in length;
 Round Denver's grave that Christmas day rough bushmen's eyes were dim —
 The western bushmen knew the way to bury dead like him;
 But some returning homeward found, by light of moon and star,
 Ben Duggan dying in the rocks, five miles from Talbragar.

     They knelt around,
     He raised his head
     And faintly gasped, 'Jack Denver's dead,
     Roll up at Talbragar!'

 But one short hour before he died he woke to understand,
 They told him, when he asked them, that the funeral was 'grand';
 And then there came into his eyes a strange victorious light,
 He smiled on them in triumph, and his great soul took its flight.
 And still the careless bushmen tell by tent and shanty bar
 How Duggan raised a funeral years back on Talbragar.

     And far and wide
     When Duggan died,
     The bushmen of the western side
     Rode in to Talbragar.

The Star of Australasia

 We boast no more of our bloodless flag, that rose from a nation's slime;
 Better a shred of a deep-dyed rag from the storms of the olden time.
 From grander clouds in our 'peaceful skies' than ever were there before
 I tell you the Star of the South shall rise — in the lurid clouds of war.
 It ever must be while blood is warm and the sons of men increase;
 For ever the nations rose in storm, to rot in a deadly peace.
 There comes a point that we will not yield, no matter if right or wrong,
 And man will fight on the battle-field
   while passion and pride are strong —
 So long as he will not kiss the rod, and his stubborn spirit sours,
 And the scorn of Nature and curse of God are heavy on peace like ours.

      .    .    .    .    .

 There are boys out there by the western creeks, who hurry away from school
 To climb the sides of the breezy peaks or dive in the shaded pool,
 Who'll stick to their guns when the mountains quake
   to the tread of a mighty war,
 And fight for Right or a Grand Mistake as men never fought before;
 When the peaks are scarred and the sea-walls crack
   till the furthest hills vibrate,
 And the world for a while goes rolling back in a storm of love and hate.

      .    .    .    .    .

 There are boys to-day in the city slum and the home of wealth and pride
 Who'll have one home when the storm is come, and fight for it side by side,
 Who'll hold the cliffs 'gainst the armoured hells
   that batter a coastal town,
 Or grimly die in a hail of shells when the walls come crashing down.
 And many a pink-white baby girl, the queen of her home to-day,
 Shall see the wings of the tempest whirl the mist of our dawn away —
 Shall live to shudder and stop her ears to the thud of the distant gun,
 And know the sorrow that has no tears when a battle is lost and won, —
 As a mother or wife in the years to come, will kneel, wild-eyed and white,
 And pray to God in her darkened home for the 'men in the fort to-night'.

      .    .    .    .    .

 But, oh! if the cavalry charge again as they did when the world was wide,
 'Twill be grand in the ranks of a thousand men
   in that glorious race to ride
 And strike for all that is true and strong,
   for all that is grand and brave,
 And all that ever shall be, so long as man has a soul to save.
 He must lift the saddle, and close his 'wings', and shut his angels out,
 And steel his heart for the end of things,
   who'd ride with a stockman scout,
 When the race they ride on the battle track, and the waning distance hums,
 And the shelled sky shrieks or the rifles crack
   like stockwhip amongst the gums —
 And the 'straight' is reached and the field is 'gapped'
   and the hoof-torn sward grows red
 With the blood of those who are handicapped with iron and steel and lead;
 And the gaps are filled, though unseen by eyes,
   with the spirit and with the shades
 Of the world-wide rebel dead who'll rise and rush with the Bush Brigades.

      .    .    .    .    .

 All creeds and trades will have soldiers there —
   give every class its due —
 And there'll be many a clerk to spare for the pride of the jackeroo.
 They'll fight for honour and fight for love, and a few will fight for gold,
 For the devil below and for God above, as our fathers fought of old;
 And some half-blind with exultant tears, and some stiff-lipped, stern-eyed,
 For the pride of a thousand after-years and the old eternal pride;
 The soul of the world they will feel and see
   in the chase and the grim retreat —
 They'll know the glory of victory — and the grandeur of defeat.

 The South will wake to a mighty change ere a hundred years are done
 With arsenals west of the mountain range and every spur its gun.
 And many a rickety son of a gun, on the tides of the future tossed,
 Will tell how battles were really won that History says were lost,
 Will trace the field with his pipe, and shirk
   the facts that are hard to explain,
 As grey old mates of the diggings work the old ground over again —
 How 'this was our centre, and this a redoubt,
   and that was a scrub in the rear,
 And this was the point where the guards held out,
   and the enemy's lines were here.'

      .    .    .    .    .

 They'll tell the tales of the nights before
   and the tales of the ship and fort
 Till the sons of Australia take to war as their fathers took to sport,
 Their breath come deep and their eyes grow bright
   at the tales of our chivalry,
 And every boy will want to fight, no matter what cause it be —
 When the children run to the doors and cry:
   'Oh, mother, the troops are come!'
 And every heart in the town leaps high at the first loud thud of the drum.
 They'll know, apart from its mystic charm, what music is at last,
 When, proud as a boy with a broken arm, the regiment marches past.
 And the veriest wreck in the drink-fiend's clutch,
   no matter how low or mean,
 Will feel, when he hears the march, a touch
   of the man that he might have been.
 And fools, when the fiends of war are out and the city skies aflame,
 Will have something better to talk about than an absent woman's shame,
 Will have something nobler to do by far than jest at a friend's expense,
 Or blacken a name in a public bar or over a backyard fence.
 And this you learn from the libelled past,
   though its methods were somewhat rude —
 A nation's born where the shells fall fast, or its lease of life renewed.
 We in part atone for the ghoulish strife,
   and the crimes of the peace we boast,
 And the better part of a people's life in the storm comes uppermost.

 The self-same spirit that drives the man to the depths of drink and crime
 Will do the deeds in the heroes' van that live till the end of time.
 The living death in the lonely bush, the greed of the selfish town,
 And even the creed of the outlawed push is chivalry — upside down.
 'Twill be while ever our blood is hot, while ever the world goes wrong,
 The nations rise in a war, to rot in a peace that lasts too long.
 And southern nation and southern state, aroused from their dream of ease,
 Must sign in the Book of Eternal Fate their stormy histories.