Great poems
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The Incantation
© Andrew Barton Paterson
Scene: Federal Political Arena
A darkened cave. In the middle, a cauldron, boiling.
Enter the three witches.
1ST WITCH: Thrice hath the Federal Jackass brayed.
"Ave Ceasar"
© Andrew Barton Paterson
Long ago the Gladiators,
When the call to combat came,
Marching past the massed spectators,
Hailed the Emp'ror with acclaim!
Tommy Corrigan
© Andrew Barton Paterson
He gave the shirkers extra heart, he steadied down the rash,
He rode great clumsy boring brutes, and chanced a fatal smash;
He got the rushing Wymlet home that never jumped at all --
But clambered over every fence and clouted every wall.
You should have heard the cheers, my boys, that shook the members' stand
Whenever Tommy Corrigan weighed out to ride Lone Hand.
The First Surveyor
© Andrew Barton Paterson
"'Twas then, with horses starved and weak and scarcely fit to crawl,
My husband went to find a way across the rocky wall.
He vanished in the wilderness -- God knows where he was gone --
He hunted till his food gave out, but still he battled on.
His horses strayed ('twas well they did), they made towards the grass,
And down behind that big red hill they found an easy pass.
Lost
© Andrew Barton Paterson
The old man walked to the sliprail, and peered up the dark'ning track,
And looked and longed for the rider that would never more come back;
And the mother came and clutched him, with sudden, spasmodic fright:
"What has become of my Willie? Why isn't he home tonight?"
Boots
© Andrew Barton Paterson
We've travelled per Joe Gardiner, a humping of our swag
In the country of the Gidgee and Belar.
We've swum the Di'mantina with our raiment in a bag,
And we've travelled per superior motor car,
The Bushfire - an Allegory
© Andrew Barton Paterson
And the out-paddocks -- holy frost!
There wouldn't be no sense
For me to try and tell you half --
They really are immense;
A man might ride for days and weeks
And never strike a fence.
Australian Scenery
© Andrew Barton Paterson
A land where silence lies so deep that sound itself is dead
And a gaunt grey bird, like a homeless soul, drifts, noiseless, overhead
And the world's great story is left untold, and the message is left unsaid.
The Lung Fish
© Andrew Barton Paterson
"These barramundi are the blokes
To give you all the sport you need:
For when the big lagoons and soaks
Are dried right down to mud and weed
They don't sit there and raise a roar,
They pack their traps and come ashore.
Ambition and Art
© Andrew Barton Paterson
Ambition
I am the maid of the lustrous eyes
Of great fruition,
Whom the sons of men that are over-wise
Have called Ambition.
An Emu Hunt
© Andrew Barton Paterson
And the horses shudder and snort and shift
As the bounding mass of weeds goes past,
But the emus never their heads uplift
As they look for roots in the sandy drift,
For the emus know it from first to last.
A Ballad of Ducks
© Andrew Barton Paterson
The railway rattled and roared and swung
With jolting and bumping trucks.
The sun, like a billiard red ball, hung
In the Western sky: and the tireless tongue
Old Pardon, the Son of Reprieve
© Andrew Barton Paterson
You never heard tell of the story?
Well, now, I can hardly believe!
Never heard of the honour and glory
Of Pardon, the son of Reprieve?
8 Fragments For Kurt Cobain
© Jim Carroll
1/
Genius is not a generous thing
In return it charges more interest than any amount of royalties can cover
And it resents fame
With bitter vengeance
A poem, on the rising glory of America
© Hugh Henry Brackenridge
LEANDER.
Or Roanoke's and James's limpid waves
The sound of musick murmurs in the gale;
Another Denham celebrates their flow,
In gliding numbers and harmonious lays.
A poem on divine revelation
© Hugh Henry Brackenridge
This is a day of happiness, sweet peace,
And heavenly sunshine; upon which conven'd
In full assembly fair, once more we view,
And hail with voice expressive of the heart,
The Great Western Plains
© Hart Crane
The little voices of the prairie dogs
Are tireless . . .
They will give three hurrahs
Alike to stage, equestrian, and pullman,
And all unstingingly as to the moon.
Voyages II
© Hart Crane
--And yet this great wink of eternity,
Of rimless floods, unfettered leewardings,
Samite sheeted and processioned where
Her undinal vast belly moonward bends,
Laughing the wrapt inflections of our love;
Walking The Marshland
© Stephen Dunn
It was no place for the faithless,
so I felt a little odd
walking the marshland with my daughters,
