The Great Grey Plain

 Out West, where the stars are brightest,
  Where the scorching north wind blows,
 And the bones of the dead gleam whitest,
  And the sun on a desert glows —
 Yet within the selfish kingdom
  Where man starves man for gain,
 Where white men tramp for existence —
  Wide lies the Great Grey Plain.

 No break in its awful horizon,
  No blur in the dazzling haze,
 Save where by the bordering timber
  The fierce, white heat-waves blaze,
 And out where the tank-heap rises
  Or looms when the sunlights wane,
 Till it seems like a distant mountain
  Low down on the Great Grey Plain.

 No sign of a stream or fountain,
  No spring on its dry, hot breast,
 No shade from the blazing noontide
  Where a weary man might rest.
 Whole years go by when the glowing
  Sky never clouds for rain —
 Only the shrubs of the desert
  Grow on the Great Grey Plain.

 From the camp, while the rich man's dreaming,
  Come the 'traveller' and his mate,
 In the ghastly dawnlight seeming
  Like a swagman's ghost out late;
 And the horseman blurs in the distance,
  While still the stars remain,
 A low, faint dust-cloud haunting
  His track on the Great Grey Plain.

 And all day long from before them
  The mirage smokes away —
 That daylight ghost of an ocean
  Creeps close behind all day
 With an evil, snake-like motion,
  As the waves of a madman's brain:
 'Tis a phantom NOT like water
  Out there on the Great Grey Plain.

 There's a run on the Western limit
  Where a man lives like a beast,
 And a shanty in the mulga
  That stretches to the East;
 And the hopeless men who carry
  Their swags and tramp in pain —
 The footmen must not tarry
  Out there on the Great Grey Plain.

 Out West, where the stars are brightest,
  Where the scorching north wind blows,
 And the bones of the dead seem whitest,
  And the sun on a desert glows —
 Out back in the hungry distance
  That brave hearts dare in vain —
 Where beggars tramp for existence —
  There lies the Great Grey Plain.

 'Tis a desert not more barren
  Than the Great Grey Plain of years,
 Where a fierce fire burns the hearts of men —
  Dries up the fount of tears:
 Where the victims of a greed insane
  Are crushed in a hell-born strife —
 Where the souls of a race are murdered
  On the Great Grey Plain of Life!

The Song of Old Joe Swallow

 When I was up the country in the rough and early days,
 I used to work along ov Jimmy Nowlett's bullick-drays;
 Then the reelroad wasn't heered on, an' the bush was wild an' strange,
 An' we useter draw the timber from the saw-pits in the range —
 Load provisions for the stations, an' we'd travel far and slow
 Through the plains an' 'cross the ranges in the days of long ago.

     Then it's yoke up the bullicks and tramp beside 'em slow,
     An' saddle up yer horses an' a-ridin' we will go,
     To the bullick-drivin', cattle-drovin',
     Nigger, digger, roarin', rovin'
     Days o' long ago.

 Once me and Jimmy Nowlett loaded timber for the town,
 But we hadn't gone a dozen mile before the rain come down,
 An' me an' Jimmy Nowlett an' the bullicks an' the dray
 Was cut off on some risin' ground while floods around us lay;
 An' we soon run short of tucker an' terbacca, which was bad,
 An' pertaters dipped in honey was the only tuck we had.

 An' half our bullicks perished when the drought was on the land,
 An' the burnin' heat that dazzles as it dances on the sand;
 When the sun-baked clay an' gravel paves for miles the burnin' creeks,
 An' at ev'ry step yer travel there a rottin' carcase reeks —
 But we pulled ourselves together, for we never used ter know
 What a feather bed was good for in those days o' long ago.

 But in spite ov barren ridges an' in spite ov mud an' heat,
 An' dust that browned the bushes when it rose from bullicks' feet,
 An' in spite ov cold and chilblains when the bush was white with frost,
 An' in spite of muddy water where the burnin' plain was crossed,
 An' in spite of modern progress, and in spite of all their blow,
 'Twas a better land to live in, in the days o' long ago.

 When the frosty moon was shinin' o'er the ranges like a lamp,
 An' a lot of bullick-drivers was a-campin' on the camp,
 When the fire was blazin' cheery an' the pipes was drawin' well,
 Then our songs we useter chorus an' our yarns we useter tell;
 An' we'd talk ov lands we come from, and ov chaps we useter know,
 For there always was behind us OTHER days o' long ago.

 Ah, them early days was ended when the reelroad crossed the plain,
 But in dreams I often tramp beside the bullick-team again:
 Still we pauses at the shanty just to have a drop er cheer,
 Still I feels a kind ov pleasure when the campin'-ground is near;
 Still I smells the old tarpaulin me an' Jimmy useter throw
 O'er the timber-truck for shelter in the days ov long ago.

 I have been a-driftin' back'ards with the changes ov the land,
 An' if I spoke ter bullicks now they wouldn't understand,
 But when Mary wakes me sudden in the night I'll often say:
 'Come here, Spot, an' stan' up, Bally, blank an' blank an' come-eer-way.'
 An' she says that, when I'm sleepin', oft my elerquince 'ill flow
 In the bullick-drivin' language ov the days o' long ago.

 Well, the pub will soon be closin', so I'll give the thing a rest;
 But if you should drop on Nowlett in the far an' distant west —
 An' if Jimmy uses doubleyou instead of ar an' vee,
 An' if he drops his aitches, then you're sure to know it's he.
 An' yer won't forgit to arsk him if he still remembers Joe
 As knowed him up the country in the days o' long ago.

     Then it's yoke up the bullicks and tramp beside 'em slow,
     An' saddle up yer horses an' a-ridin' we will go,
     To the bullick-drivin', cattle-drovin',
     Nigger, digger, roarin', rovin'
     Days o' long ago.

Corny Bill

 His old clay pipe stuck in his mouth,
  His hat pushed from his brow,
 His dress best fitted for the South —
  I think I see him now;
 And when the city streets are still,
  And sleep upon me comes,
 I often dream that me an' Bill
  Are humpin' of our drums.

 I mind the time when first I came
  A stranger to the land;
 And I was stumped, an' sick, an' lame
  When Bill took me in hand.
 Old Bill was what a chap would call
  A friend in poverty,
 And he was very kind to all,
  And very good to me.

 We'd camp beneath the lonely trees
  And sit beside the blaze,
 A-nursin' of our wearied knees,
  A-smokin' of our clays.
 Or when we'd journeyed damp an' far,
  An' clouds were in the skies,
 We'd camp in some old shanty bar,
  And sit a-tellin' lies.

 Though time had writ upon his brow
  And rubbed away his curls,
 He always was — an' may be now —
  A favourite with the girls;
 I've heard bush-wimmin scream an' squall —
  I've see'd 'em laugh until
 They could not do their work at all,
  Because of Corny Bill.

 He was the jolliest old pup
  As ever you did see,
 And often at some bush kick-up
  They'd make old Bill M.C.
 He'd make them dance and sing all night,
  He'd make the music hum,
 But he'd be gone at mornin' light
  A-humpin' of his drum.

 Though joys of which the poet rhymes
  Was not for Bill an' me,
 I think we had some good old times
  Out on the wallaby.
 I took a wife and left off rum,
  An' camped beneath a roof;
 But Bill preferred to hump his drum
  A-paddin' of the hoof.

 The lazy, idle loafers what
  In toney houses camp
 Would call old Bill a drunken sot,
  A loafer, or a tramp;
 But if the dead should ever dance —
  As poets say they will —
 I think I'd rather take my chance
  Along of Corny Bill.

 His long life's-day is nearly o'er,
  Its shades begin to fall;
 He soon must mount his bluey for
  The last long tramp of all;
 I trust that when, in bush an' town,
  He's lived and learnt his fill,
 They'll let the golden slip-rails down
  For poor old Corny Bill.

Cherry-Tree Inn

 The rafters are open to sun, moon, and star,
 Thistles and nettles grow high in the bar —
 The chimneys are crumbling, the log fires are dead,
 And green mosses spring from the hearthstone instead.
 The voices are silent, the bustle and din,
 For the railroad hath ruined the Cherry-tree Inn.

 Save the glimmer of stars, or the moon's pallid streams,
 And the sounds of the 'possums that camp on the beams,
 The bar-room is dark and the stable is still,
 For the coach comes no more over Cherry-tree Hill.
 No riders push on through the darkness to win
 The rest and the comfort of Cherry-tree Inn.

 I drift from my theme, for my memory strays
 To the carrying, digging, and bushranging days —
 Far back to the seasons that I love the best,
 When a stream of wild diggers rushed into the west,
 But the 'rushes' grew feeble, and sluggish, and thin,
 Till scarcely a swagman passed Cherry-tree Inn.

 Do you think, my old mate (if it's thinking you be),
 Of the days when you tramped to the goldfields with me?
 Do you think of the day of our thirty-mile tramp,
 When never a fire could we light on the camp,
 And, weary and footsore and drenched to the skin,
 We tramped through the darkness to Cherry-tree Inn?

 Then I had a sweetheart and you had a wife,
 And Johnny was more to his mother than life;
 But we solemnly swore, ere that evening was done,
 That we'd never return till our fortunes were won.
 Next morning to harvests of folly and sin
 We tramped o'er the ranges from Cherry-tree Inn.

      .    .    .    .    .

 The years have gone over with many a change,
 And there comes an old swagman from over the range,
 And faint 'neath the weight of his rain-sodden load,
 He suddenly thinks of the inn by the road.
 He tramps through the darkness the shelter to win,
 And reaches the ruins of Cherry-tree Inn.

Up the Country

 I am back from up the country — very sorry that I went —
 Seeking for the Southern poets' land whereon to pitch my tent;
 I have lost a lot of idols, which were broken on the track,
 Burnt a lot of fancy verses, and I'm glad that I am back.
 Further out may be the pleasant scenes of which our poets boast,
 But I think the country's rather more inviting round the coast.
 Anyway, I'll stay at present at a boarding-house in town,
 Drinking beer and lemon-squashes, taking baths and cooling down.

 'Sunny plains'!  Great Scott! — those burning
   wastes of barren soil and sand
 With their everlasting fences stretching out across the land!
 Desolation where the crow is!  Desert where the eagle flies,
 Paddocks where the luny bullock starts and stares with reddened eyes;
 Where, in clouds of dust enveloped, roasted bullock-drivers creep
 Slowly past the sun-dried shepherd dragged behind his crawling sheep.
 Stunted peak of granite gleaming, glaring like a molten mass
 Turned from some infernal furnace on a plain devoid of grass.

 Miles and miles of thirsty gutters — strings of muddy water-holes
 In the place of 'shining rivers' — 'walled by cliffs and forest boles.'
 Barren ridges, gullies, ridges! where the ever-madd'ning flies —
 Fiercer than the plagues of Egypt — swarm about your blighted eyes!
 Bush! where there is no horizon! where the buried bushman sees
 Nothing — Nothing! but the sameness of the ragged, stunted trees!
 Lonely hut where drought's eternal, suffocating atmosphere
 Where the God-forgotten hatter dreams of city life and beer.

 Treacherous tracks that trap the stranger,
   endless roads that gleam and glare,
 Dark and evil-looking gullies, hiding secrets here and there!
 Dull dumb flats and stony rises, where the toiling bullocks bake,
 And the sinister 'gohanna', and the lizard, and the snake.
 Land of day and night — no morning freshness, and no afternoon,
 When the great white sun in rising bringeth summer heat in June.
 Dismal country for the exile, when the shades begin to fall
 From the sad heart-breaking sunset, to the new-chum worst of all.

 Dreary land in rainy weather, with the endless clouds that drift
 O'er the bushman like a blanket that the Lord will never lift —
 Dismal land when it is raining — growl of floods, and, oh! the woosh
 Of the rain and wind together on the dark bed of the bush —
 Ghastly fires in lonely humpies where the granite rocks are piled
 In the rain-swept wildernesses that are wildest of the wild.

 Land where gaunt and haggard women live alone and work like men,
 Till their husbands, gone a-droving, will return to them again:
 Homes of men! if home had ever such a God-forgotten place,
 Where the wild selector's children fly before a stranger's face.
 Home of tragedy applauded by the dingoes' dismal yell,
 Heaven of the shanty-keeper — fitting fiend for such a hell —
 And the wallaroos and wombats, and, of course, the curlew's call —
 And the lone sundowner tramping ever onward through it all!

 I am back from up the country, up the country where I went
 Seeking for the Southern poets' land whereon to pitch my tent;
 I have shattered many idols out along the dusty track,
 Burnt a lot of fancy verses — and I'm glad that I am back.
 I believe the Southern poets' dream will not be realised
 Till the plains are irrigated and the land is humanised.
 I intend to stay at present, as I said before, in town
 Drinking beer and lemon-squashes, taking baths and cooling down.

Knocked Up

 I'm lyin' on the barren ground that's baked and cracked with drought,
 And dunno if my legs or back or heart is most wore out;
 I've got no spirits left to rise and smooth me achin' brow —
 I'm too knocked up to light a fire and bile the billy now.

      Oh it's trampin', trampin', tra-a-mpin', in flies an' dust an' heat,
      Or it's trampin' trampin' tra-a-a-mpin'
        through mud and slush 'n sleet;
      It's tramp an' tramp for tucker — one everlastin' strife,
      An' wearin' out yer boots an' heart in the wastin' of yer life.

 They whine o' lost an' wasted lives in idleness and crime —
 I've wasted mine for twenty years, and grafted all the time
 And never drunk the stuff I earned, nor gambled when I shore —
 But somehow when yer on the track yer life seems wasted more.

 A long dry stretch of thirty miles I've tramped this broilin' day,
 All for the off-chance of a job a hundred miles away;
 There's twenty hungry beggars wild for any job this year,
 An' fifty might be at the shed while I am lyin' here.

 The sinews in my legs seem drawn, red-hot — 'n that's the truth;
 I seem to weigh a ton, and ache like one tremendous tooth;
 I'm stung between my shoulder-blades — my blessed back seems broke;
 I'm too knocked out to eat a bite — I'm too knocked up to smoke.

 The blessed rain is comin' too — there's oceans in the sky,
 An' I suppose I must get up and rig the blessed fly;
 The heat is bad, the water's bad, the flies a crimson curse,
 The grub is bad, mosquitoes damned — but rheumatism's worse.

 I wonder why poor blokes like me will stick so fast ter breath,
 Though Shakespeare says it is the fear of somethin' after death;
 But though Eternity be cursed with God's almighty curse —
 What ever that same somethin' is I swear it can't be worse.

      For it's trampin', trampin', tra-a-mpin' thro' hell across the plain,
      And it's trampin' trampin' tra-a-mpin' thro' slush 'n mud 'n rain —
      A livin' worse than any dog — without a home 'n wife,
      A-wearin' out yer heart 'n soul in the wastin' of yer life.

The Blue Mountains

 Above the ashes straight and tall,
  Through ferns with moisture dripping,
 I climb beneath the sandstone wall,
  My feet on mosses slipping.

 Like ramparts round the valley's edge
  The tinted cliffs are standing,
 With many a broken wall and ledge,
  And many a rocky landing.

 And round about their rugged feet
  Deep ferny dells are hidden
 In shadowed depths, whence dust and heat
  Are banished and forbidden.

 The stream that, crooning to itself,
  Comes down a tireless rover,
 Flows calmly to the rocky shelf,
  And there leaps bravely over.

 Now pouring down, now lost in spray
  When mountain breezes sally,
 The water strikes the rock midway,
  And leaps into the valley.

 Now in the west the colours change,
  The blue with crimson blending;
 Behind the far Dividing Range,
  The sun is fast descending.

 And mellowed day comes o'er the place,
  And softens ragged edges;
 The rising moon's great placid face
  Looks gravely o'er the ledges.

The City Bushman

 It was pleasant up the country, City Bushman, where you went,
 For you sought the greener patches and you travelled like a gent;
 And you curse the trams and buses and the turmoil and the push,
 Though you know the squalid city needn't keep you from the bush;
 But we lately heard you singing of the 'plains where shade is not',
 And you mentioned it was dusty — 'all was dry and all was hot'.

 True, the bush 'hath moods and changes' — and the bushman hath 'em, too,
 For he's not a poet's dummy — he's a man, the same as you;
 But his back is growing rounder — slaving for the absentee —
 And his toiling wife is thinner than a country wife should be.
 For we noticed that the faces of the folks we chanced to meet
 Should have made a greater contrast to the faces in the street;
 And, in short, we think the bushman's being driven to the wall,
 And it's doubtful if his spirit will be 'loyal thro' it all'.

 Though the bush has been romantic and it's nice to sing about,
 There's a lot of patriotism that the land could do without —
 Sort of BRITISH WORKMAN nonsense that shall perish in the scorn
 Of the drover who is driven and the shearer who is shorn,
 Of the struggling western farmers who have little time for rest,
 And are ruined on selections in the sheep-infested West;
 Droving songs are very pretty, but they merit little thanks
 From the people of a country in possession of the Banks.

 And the 'rise and fall of seasons' suits the rise and fall of rhyme,
 But we know that western seasons do not run on schedule time;
 For the drought will go on drying while there's anything to dry,
 Then it rains until you'd fancy it would bleach the sunny sky —
 Then it pelters out of reason, for the downpour day and night
 Nearly sweeps the population to the Great Australian Bight.
 It is up in Northern Queensland that the seasons do their best,
 But it's doubtful if you ever saw a season in the West;
 There are years without an autumn or a winter or a spring,
 There are broiling Junes, and summers when it rains like anything.

 In the bush my ears were opened to the singing of the bird,
 But the 'carol of the magpie' was a thing I never heard.
 Once the beggar roused my slumbers in a shanty, it is true,
 But I only heard him asking, 'Who the blanky blank are you?'
 And the bell-bird in the ranges — but his 'silver chime' is harsh
 When it's heard beside the solo of the curlew in the marsh.

 Yes, I heard the shearers singing 'William Riley', out of tune,
 Saw 'em fighting round a shanty on a Sunday afternoon,
 But the bushman isn't always 'trapping brumbies in the night',
 Nor is he for ever riding when 'the morn is fresh and bright',
 And he isn't always singing in the humpies on the run —
 And the camp-fire's 'cheery blazes' are a trifle overdone;
 We have grumbled with the bushmen round the fire on rainy days,
 When the smoke would blind a bullock and there wasn't any blaze,
 Save the blazes of our language, for we cursed the fire in turn
 Till the atmosphere was heated and the wood began to burn.
 Then we had to wring our blueys which were rotting in the swags,
 And we saw the sugar leaking through the bottoms of the bags,
 And we couldn't raise a chorus, for the toothache and the cramp,
 While we spent the hours of darkness draining puddles round the camp.

 Would you like to change with Clancy — go a-droving? tell us true,
 For we rather think that Clancy would be glad to change with you,
 And be something in the city; but 'twould give your muse a shock
 To be losing time and money through the foot-rot in the flock,
 And you wouldn't mind the beauties underneath the starry dome
 If you had a wife and children and a lot of bills at home.

 Did you ever guard the cattle when the night was inky-black,
 And it rained, and icy water trickled gently down your back
 Till your saddle-weary backbone fell a-aching to the roots
 And you almost felt the croaking of the bull-frog in your boots —
 Sit and shiver in the saddle, curse the restless stock and cough
 Till a squatter's irate dummy cantered up to warn you off?
 Did you fight the drought and pleuro when the 'seasons' were asleep,
 Felling sheoaks all the morning for a flock of starving sheep,
 Drinking mud instead of water — climbing trees and lopping boughs
 For the broken-hearted bullocks and the dry and dusty cows?

 Do you think the bush was better in the 'good old droving days',
 When the squatter ruled supremely as the king of western ways,
 When you got a slip of paper for the little you could earn,
 But were forced to take provisions from the station in return —
 When you couldn't keep a chicken at your humpy on the run,
 For the squatter wouldn't let you — and your work was never done;
 When you had to leave the missus in a lonely hut forlorn
 While you 'rose up Willy Riley' — in the days ere you were born?

 Ah! we read about the drovers and the shearers and the like
 Till we wonder why such happy and romantic fellows strike.
 Don't you fancy that the poets ought to give the bush a rest
 Ere they raise a just rebellion in the over-written West?
 Where the simple-minded bushman gets a meal and bed and rum
 Just by riding round reporting phantom flocks that never come;
 Where the scalper — never troubled by the 'war-whoop of the push' —
 Has a quiet little billet — breeding rabbits in the bush;
 Where the idle shanty-keeper never fails to make a draw,
 And the dummy gets his tucker through provisions in the law;
 Where the labour-agitator — when the shearers rise in might —
 Makes his money sacrificing all his substance for The Right;
 Where the squatter makes his fortune, and 'the seasons rise and fall',
 And the poor and honest bushman has to suffer for it all;
 Where the drovers and the shearers and the bushmen and the rest
 Never reach the Eldorado of the poets of the West.

 And you think the bush is purer and that life is better there,
 But it doesn't seem to pay you like the 'squalid street and square'.
 Pray inform us, City Bushman, where you read, in prose or verse,
 Of the awful 'city urchin who would greet you with a curse'.
 There are golden hearts in gutters, though their owners lack the fat,
 And we'll back a teamster's offspring to outswear a city brat.
 Do you think we're never jolly where the trams and buses rage?
 Did you hear the gods in chorus when 'Ri-tooral' held the stage?
 Did you catch a ring of sorrow in the city urchin's voice
 When he yelled for Billy Elton, when he thumped the floor for Royce?
 Do the bushmen, down on pleasure, miss the everlasting stars
 When they drink and flirt and so on in the glow of private bars?

 You've a down on 'trams and buses', or the 'roar' of 'em, you said,
 And the 'filthy, dirty attic', where you never toiled for bread.
 (And about that self-same attic — Lord! wherever have you been?
 For the struggling needlewoman mostly keeps her attic clean.)
 But you'll find it very jolly with the cuff-and-collar push,
 And the city seems to suit you, while you rave about the bush.

      .    .    .    .    .

 You'll admit that Up-the Country, more especially in drought,
 Isn't quite the Eldorado that the poets rave about,
 Yet at times we long to gallop where the reckless bushman rides
 In the wake of startled brumbies that are flying for their hides;
 Long to feel the saddle tremble once again between our knees
 And to hear the stockwhips rattle just like rifles in the trees!
 Long to feel the bridle-leather tugging strongly in the hand
 And to feel once more a little like a native of the land.
 And the ring of bitter feeling in the jingling of our rhymes
 Isn't suited to the country nor the spirit of the times.
 Let us go together droving, and returning, if we live,
 Try to understand each other while we reckon up the div.