All Poems
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An Echo
© Jonathan Swift
Never sleeping, still awake,
Pleasing most when most I speak;
The delight of old and young,
Though I speak without a tongue.
Ben Duggan
© Henry Lawson
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.
As far as your Rifles Cover
© Henry Lawson
Do you think, you slaves of a thousand years to poverty, wealth and pride,
You can crush the spirit that has been free in a land that's new and wide?
When you've scattered the last of the farmer bands, and the war for a while is over,
You will hold the land ay, you'll hold the land the land that your rifles cover.
A Song of the Republic
© Henry Lawson
Sons of the South, awake! arise!
Sons of the South, and do.
Banish from under your bonny skies
Those old-world errors and wrongs and lies.
Making a hell in a Paradise
That belongs to your sons and you.
A New Version Of Why The Robins Breast Is Red
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
Then, a child whose tongue and brow,
Robin's help had cooled but now,
Clutched the baby-fiend in ire,
And in gulfs of his own fire
Soused the vile misshapen elf.
The Shame of Going Back
© Henry Lawson
The Shame of Going Back 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;
Crawling home with empty pockets,
Going back hard-up;
Oh! it's then you learn the meaning of humiliation's cup.
A Vision Of Resurrection
© Robert Laurence Binyon
The Genius of an hour that fading day
Resigned to wide--haired Night's impending brow
Stole me apart, I knew not where nor how,
And from my sense ravished the world away.
Every Man Should have a Rifle
© Henry Lawson
So I sit and write and ponder, while the house is deaf and dumb,
Seeing visions "over yonder" of the war I know must come.
In the corner - not a vision - but a sign for coming days
Stand a box of ammunition and a rifle in green baize.
And in this, the living present, let the word go through the land,
Every tradesman, clerk and peasant should have these two things at hand.
January
© Edith Nesbit
WHILE yet the air is keen, and no bird sings,
Nor any vaguest thrills of heart declare
To An Old Mate
© Henry Lawson
Old Mate! In the gusty old weather,
When our hopes and our troubles were new,
In the years spent in wearing out leather,
I found you unselfish and true --
I have gathered these verses together
For the sake of our friendship and you.
The Grave of the Hundred Heads
© Rudyard Kipling
There's a widow in sleepy Chester
Who weeps for her only son;
There's a grave on the Pabeng River,
A grave that the Burmans shun,
And there's Subadar Prag Tewarri
Who tells how the work was done.
The Cockney Soul
© Henry Lawson
From Woolwich and Brentford and Stamford Hill, from Richmond into the Strand,
Oh, the Cockney soul is a silent soul as it is in every land!
But out on the sand with a broken band it's sarcasm spurs them through;
And, with never a laugh, in a gale and a half, 'tis the Cockney cheers the crew.
The Precept of Silence
© Lionel Pigot Johnson
I know you: solitary griefs,
Desolate passions, aching hours!
I know you: tremulous beliefs,
Agonised hopes, and ashen flowers!
My Land and I
© Henry Lawson
They have eaten their fill at your tables spread,
Like friends since the land was won;
And they rise with a cry of "Australia's dead!"
With the wheeze of "Australia's done!"
The Ghost
© Henry Lawson
Down the street as I was drifting with the city's human tide,
Came a ghost, and for a moment walked in silence by my side --
Now my heart was hard and bitter, and a bitter spirit he,
So I felt no great aversion to his ghostly company.
Said the Shade: `At finer feelings let your lip in scorn be curled,
`Self and Pelf', my friend, has ever been the motto for the world.'
Longing
© Alfred Austin
The hills slope down to the valley, the streams run down to the sea,
And my heart, my heart, O far one! sets and strains towards thee.
But only the feet of the mountain are felt by the rim of the plain,
And the source and soul of the hurrying stream reach not the calling main.
The Old Jimmy Woodser
© Henry Lawson
The old Jimmy Woodser comes into the bar
Unwelcomed, unnoticed, unknown,
Too old and too odd to be drunk with, by far;
So he glides to the end where the lunch baskets are
And they say that he tipples alone.
A Desire To Praise
© Thomas Parnell
How bright thy glorious honours rise,
And with new lustre grace the skies.
For thee, the sweet seraphick Choir
Raise the voice and tune the Lyre,
And praises with harmonious sounds
Through all the highest heav'n rebounds.
