 The Ports of the Open Sea by Henry Lawson read for libraryvox.org by Matt Squire down here where the ships loom large in the gloom when the sea storms veer down here on the southwest margin of the western hemisphere where the might of a worldwide ocean round the youngest land rolls free storm bound from the world's commotion lie the ports of the open sea by the bluff where the gray sand reaches to the curb of the spray swept street by the sweep of the black sand beaches from the main road travelers feet by the heights like a work Titanic begun air the God's work ceased by a bluff lined coast volcanic lie the ports of the wild southeast by the steeps of the snow capped ranges by the scarped and terrorist hills far away from the swift life changes from the where of the strife that kills where the land in the spring seems younger than a land of the earth might be oh the hearts of the rovers hunger for the ports of the open sea but the captains watch and harken for a sign of the south sea rap let the face of the southeast darken and they turn to the ocean path a the sea boats dare not linger whatever the cargo be when the southeast lifts a finger by the ports of the open sea south by the bleak bluff faring north where the three kings wait southeast the tempest daring flight through the storm tossed straight yonder a white-winged romer struck where the rollers roar where the great green froth flaked Comer breaks down on a black ribbed shore for the southeast lands are dread lands to the sailor in the shrouds where the low clouds loom like headlands and the black bluffs blur like clouds when the breakers rage to windward and the lights are amassed Ali and the sunken rocks run inward to a port of the open sea but oh for the southeast weather the sweep of the three days gale when far through the flax and heather the spin drift drives like hail glory to man's creations that drive where the gale grows gruff when the homes of the sea coast stations flash white from the darkening bluff when the swell of the southeast rouses the wrath of the Maori sprite and the brown folk flee their houses and crouch in the flax by night and wait as they long have waited in fear as the brown folk be the wave of destruction faded for the ports of the open sea gray clouds to the mountain bases wild boughs that rush and sweep on the rounded hills the tussocks like flocks of flying sheep a lonely storm bird soaring or tussock, fern and tree and the boulder beaches roaring the hymn of the open sea end of poem this recording is in the public domain The Three Kings by Henry Lawson read for Librafolks.org by Elaine Conway three sea-girt pinnacles of North Cape New Zealand the east is dead and the west is done and again our course lies thus southeast by fate and the rising sun where the three kings wait for us when our hearts are young and the world is wide and the heights seem grand to climb we are off and away to the Sydney side but the three kings bide their time I've been to the west, the digger said he was bearded, bronzed and old ah, the smothering curse of the east is wool and the cursed of the west is gold I went to the west in the golden boom with hope and a lifelong mate they sleep in the sand by the boulder soak and long may the three kings wait I've had my fling on the Sydney side said a black sheep to the sea let the young fool learn when he can't be taught I've learnt what's good for me and he gazed ahead on the sea-lined dim grown dim in his softened eyes with a pain in his heart that was good for him as he saw the three kings rise a pale girl sits on the focal head she is back three kings so soon it seems to her like a lifetime dad since she fled with him saloon there is refuge still in the old folk's arms for the child that loved too well they will hide her shame on the southern farm and the three kings will not tell it was a restless heart on the tide of life and a full star in the skies that led me on to the deadly strife where the southern London lies but I dream in peace of a home for me by a glorious southern sound as the sunset fades from a moonlit sea and the three kings show us round our hearts are young and the old hearts old and life on the farms is slow and away in the world there is fame and gold and the three kings watch us go our heads seem wise and the world seems wide and its heights are as to climb so it's off and away in our youthful pride but the three kings bide our time end of poem this recording is in the public domain the outside track by Henry Lawson read for libraryvox.org by Matt Squire there were ten of us there on the moonlit quay and one on the forehead hatch no straighter mate to his mates than he had ever said lends a match till be long old man ere our glasses clink till be long ere we grip your hand and we dragged him ashore for a final drink till the whole wide world seemed grand for they marry and go as the world rolls back they marry and vanish and die but their spirit shall live on the outside track as long as the years go by the port lights glowed in the morning mist that rolled from the waters green and over the railing we grasped his fist as the dark tide came between we cheered the captain and cheered the crew and our mate times out of mind we cheered the land he was going to and the land he had left behind we roared Lang sign as a last farewell but my heart seemed out of joint I will remember the hush that fell when the streamer had passed the point we drifted home through the public bars we were ten times less by one who sailed out under the morning stars and under the rising sun and one by one and two by two they have sailed from the wharf since then I have said goodbye to the last I knew the last of the careless men and I can't but think that the times we had were the best times after all as I turn aside with a lonely glass and drink to the bar room wall but I'll try my luck for a check out back then a last goodbye to the bush for my heart's away on the outside track on the track of the steerage push end of poem this recording is in the public domain sydney side by henry lawson read philippa fox dot org by elaine conway england by the steward bar room steward birth or any birth will do I have left a three pound billet just to come along with you brighter shines the star of rovers on a world that's growing wide but I think I'd give a kingdom for a glimpse of sydney side run of rocky shells at sunrise with their base on oceans bed homes of kooky homes of bondy and the lighthouse on south head for in loneliness and hardship and with just a touch of pride has my heart been taught to whisper you belong to sydney side oh they're never dawned a morning in the long and lonely days but I thought I saw the ferries streaming out across the bays and as fresh and fair and fancy did the picture rise again as the sunrise flushed the city from wallahara to balmain and the sunny water frothing round the liners black and red and the coastal schooners working by the loom of bradley's head and the whistles and the sirens that re-echo far and wide all the life and light and beauty that belonged to sydney side and the dreary cloud line never veiled the end of one day more but the city set in duals rows before me from the shore round the sea well-shine the beacons of a thousand ports at all but the harbour lights of sydney are the grandest of them all turning out beyond called guardie heart and back and spirit broke where the rovers star gleam as redly in the desert by the soak might says one mate to the other place your lips and do not fret we will laugh on trains and buses sydney's in the same place yet working in the south in winter to the waist in dripping fern where the local spirit hungers for each saxpence that we earn we can stand it for a season for our world is growing wide and they all are friends and strangers who belong to sydney side to other sliders to other sliders we wake the dusty dead it is we that send the backward province fifty years ahead we it is that trim australia making narrow country wide yet we're always to other sliders till we sail for sydney side end of poem this recording is in the public domain The Rovers by Henry Lawson read for libraryvox.org by matt squire some born of homely parents for ages settled down the steady generations of village farm and town and some of dusky fathers who wandered since the flood the fairest skin or darkest might hold the roving blood some born of brutish peasants and some of dainty peers in poverty or plenty they passed their early years but born in pride of purple or straw and squalid sin in all the far world corners the wanderers are kin a rover or a rebel conceived and born to roam as babies they will toddle with faces turned from home they fought beyond the vanguard wherever storm has raged and home is but a prison they pace like lions caged they smile and are not happy they sing and are not gay they wary yet they wander they love and cannot stay they marry and are single who watch the roving star for by the family fireside oh lonely men they are they die of peace and quiet the deadly ease of life they die of home and comfort they live in storm and strife no poverty can tie them nor wealth nor place restrain girl, wife or child might draw them but they'll be gone again across the glowing desert through naked trees and snow across the rolling prairies the skies have seen them go they fought to where the ocean receives the setting sun but where shall fight the rovers when all the lands are won they thirst on greenland snowfields on never never sands where man is not to conquer they conquer barren lands they feel that most are cowards that all depend on nerve they lead who cannot follow they rule who cannot serve across the plains and ranges away across the seas on blue and green horizons they camp by twos and threes they hold on stormy borders of states that trouble earth the honor of the country that only gave them birth unlisted, uncommissioned untaught of any school in far away world corners unconquered tribes they rule the lone hand and revolver sad eyes that never quail the lone hand and the rifle that win where armies fail they slumber sound where murder and treachery are bare the pluck of self-reliance the pluck of past despair thin brown men in pajamas the thin brown wiry men the helmet and revolver that lie beside the pen through drought and desolation they won the way out back the commonplace and selfish have followed on their track they conquer lands for others for others find the gold but where shall go the rovers when all the lands are old a rover and a rebel and so the words commence their heart shall beat as wildly ten generations hence and when the world is crowded tis signed and sealed by fate the roving blood will rise to make the countries desolate end of poem this recording is in the public domain foreign lands by Henry Lawson read PhilippeVox.org by Elaine Conway England you may roam the wide seas over fellow, meet and cross the sun sailors for ships can sail and travel far as trains can run you may ride under trump wherever range or plane or sea expands but the crowd has been before you and you'll not find foreign lands for the early days are over and no more the white-winged rover sings the gale-worn coast of England band for bays in foreign lands foreign lands are in the distance dim and dreamlike faint and far long ago and over yonder where our boyhood fancies are for the land is by the railway cramped as though with iron bands and the steamship and the cable did away with foreign lands ah the days of blue and gold when the news was six months old but the news was worth the tallying in the days of foreign lands here we slave the delias hopeless for the sake of wool and wheat here the homes of ugly commerce big-yard farm and haggard street yet our mothers and our fathers won the life the heart demands less than fifty years gone over we were born in foreign lands when the gypsies stole the children still in village tell and song and the world was wide to travel and the roving spirits strung when they dreamed of south sea islands summer seas and coal strands then the bravest hearts of England sailed away to foreign lands fitting foreign flood and field half the world and orders sealed and the first and best of Europe went to fight in foreign lands canvas towers on the ocean homeward bound and outward bound glint of top sails over islands splash of anchors in the sand then they landed in the forests took their strong lives in their hands and they fought and told and conquered making homes in foreign lands through the cold and through the drought further on and further out winning half the world for England in the worlds of foreign lands love and pride of life inspired then when the simple village hearts followed master Will and Harry gone abroad to foreign parts by our tarnships and our cities and across the desert sands are the graves of those who fought and died for us in foreign lands gave their young lives for our sake was it all a grand mistake sons of master Will and Harry born abroad in foreign lands oh my girl our lives are narrow and in sordid days like these I can hate the things that banished foreign lands across the seas but with all the world before us God above us hearts and hands I can sail the seas in fancy far away to foreign lands end of poem this recording is in the public domain Mary LeMaine by Henry Lawson wrote for librafox.org by Elaine Conway, England Jim Duff was a native as wild as could be a stealer and duffer of cattle was he but back in his youth he had stolen a pearl or diamond rather the heart of a girl she served for the squatter who lived on the plain and the name of the girl it was Mary LeMaine it was a dreary rainy day and the twilight was done when four mounted troopers rode up to the run they spoke to the squatter he asked them all in the homestead was small and the walls they were thin and in the next room with a cold in her head our Mary was sewing on buttons in bed she heard a few words but those words were enough the troopers were all on the track of Jim Duff the super his rival was planning a trap to capture the scamp in McGinnis's gap I've warned him before and I'll do it again I'll save him tonight whispered Mary LeMaine no petticoat job there was no time to waste the suit she was mending she slipped on in haste and five minutes later they gathered in force but Mary was off on the squatter's best horse with your hand on your heart just to dead in the pain right hard to the rangers brave Mary LeMaine she rode by the ridges all sullen and strange and far up long gullies that ran through the range till the rain cleared away and the tears in her eyes caught the beams of the moon from McGinnis's rise a fire in the depths of the gumn she aspired who's there? shouted Jim it is Mary she cried next morning the sun rose in splendor again and two loving sinners rode out on the plane and baffled and angry and hungry and damp the four mounted troopers rode back to the camp but they hushed up the business the reason is plain they all had been soft on fair Mary LeMaine the squatter got back or he lost from his mob and old sergeant Kennedy winked at the job Jim Duff keeps a shanty far out in the west and the sundowners call it the bush rangers rest but the bush ranger lives a respectable life and the law never troubles Jim Duff or his wife and a poem this recording is in the public domain The Shakedown on the Floor by Henry Lawson redfuleberfox.org by Elaine Conway England set me back for twenty summers for I'm tired of cities now set my feet in red soil furrows and my hands upon the plow with the two black brothers trudging on the home stretch through the loam whirl along the grassy siding come the cattle grazing home and I finish plowing early and I hurry home to tea there's my black suit on the stretcher and a clean white shirt for me there's a dance at rocky rises and when all the fun is oh for a certain favorite party there's a shakedown on the floor you remember Mary Kerry Bushman's favorite at the rise with a sweet small freckled features red gold hair and kind gray eyes sister daughter to her mother brother sister to the rest and of all my friends and kindred Mary Kerry loved me best far too shy because she loved me to be dancing off with me what cared I because she loved me if the world were there to see but we lingered by the slip rails while the rest were riding home in the air before the dawning dimmed the great star clustered dome small brown hands that spread the mattress while the old folk winked to see how she'd find an extra pillow and an extra sheet for me for a moment shirley smiling she would grant me one kiss more slip away and to leave me happy by the shakedown on the floor rock me hard in steerage cabins rock me soft in wide saloons lay me on the sand hill lonely and a waning western moons but wherever night may find me till I rest forever more I would dream the time happy on the shakedown on the floor ah she often watched at sunset for a people told me so where I left her at the slip rails more than 15 years ago and she faded like a flower and she died as such girls do while away in northern Queensland working hard I never knew and we suffer for our sorrows and we suffer for our joys from the old bush days when mother spread the shakedown for the boys but to call the living fever comes a cold breath to my brow and I feel that Mary's spirit is beside me even now and a poem this recording is in the public domain Reedy River by Henry Lawson wrote for librafox.org by Elaine Conway England ten miles down Reedy River a pool of water lies and all the air it mirrors the changes in the skies and in that pool's broad bosom is room for all the stars its bed of sand has drifted a cantileous rocky bars around the lower edges their waves a bed of reeds where water rats are hidden and where the wild duck breathes and grassy slopes rise gently to ridges long and low where groves of wattle flourish and native bluebells grow beneath the granite ridges the eye may just discern where rocky creek emerges from deep green banks of fern and standing tall between them the grassy she oaks call the hard blue tinted waters before they reach the pool ten miles down Reedy River one Sunday afternoon I rode with Mary Campbell to that broad bright lagoon we left our horses grazing till shadows climbed the peak and strolled beneath the she-oaks on the banks of rocky creek then home along the river that night we rode a race and the moonlight lent a glory to Mary Campbell's face and I pleaded for my future all through that moonlight ride until our weary horses drew closer side by side ten miles from Ryan's crossing at five below the peak I built a little homestead on the banks of rocky creek I cleared the land and fenced it and plowed the rich red loam and my first crop was golden when I brought Mary home now still done Reedy River the grassy she-oaks sigh and the waterholes still mirror the pictures in the sky and over all forever goes sun and moon and stars where the golden sand is drifting across the rocky bars but of that I build it there are no traces now and many rains have levelled the furrows of the plough and my bright days are olden for the twisted branches wave and the wattle blossoms golden on the hill by Mary's grave end of poem this recording is in the public domain Old Stone Chimney by Henry Lawson red for LibriVox.org by Nima the rising moon on the peaks was blending her silver light with a sunset glow when a swagman came as the day was ending along a path that he seemed to know but all the fences were gone or going the hand of ruin was everywhere the creek unchecked in its course was flowing for none of the old play damn was there here time had been with his swiftest changes and husbandry had westward flown the cattle tracks and the rugged ranges were long ago with the scrub or grown it must have needed long years to soften the road that as hard as rock had been the mountain path he had trod so often lay hidden now with a carpet green he thought at times from the mountain courses he heard the sound of a bullock bell the distant gallop of Stockman's horses the stock whips crack that he knew so well but these were sounds of his memory only and they were gone from the flatten hill for when he listened the place was lonely the range was dumb and the bush was still the swagman paused by the gap and faltered for down the gully he feared to go the scene in memory never altered the scene before him had altered so but hope is strong and his heart grew bolder and over his sorrows he raised his head he turned his swag to the other shoulder and plotted on with a firmer tread hope is always the keenest here and fancies much when assailed by fear the swagman thought as the farm junior he heard the sounds that he used to hear his weary heart for a moment founded for a moment brief he forgot his dread for plainly still in his memory sounded the welcome bark of a dog long dead a few steps more in his face grew ghostly then white his death in the twilight gray deserted holy and ruined mostly the old selection before him lay like startled specters that paused and listened the few white posts of the stockyard stood and seemed to move as the moonlight glistened and paled again on the whitened wood and thus he came from a life long banished to other lands and of peace bereft to find the farm and the homestead vanished and only the old stone chimney left the field his father had cleared and gardened was overgrown with samplings now the rain had set and the drought had hardened the furrows made by a vanished plow and this and this was the longed for haven where he might rest from a life of woe he read a name on the mantle graven the name was his airy stained it so and so remorse on my tear and croaches i have not suffered enough he said that name is pregnant with deeper approaches the past won't bury dishonored dead ah now he knew it was long years after and felt house swiftly a long year speeds the hardwood post and the beam and rafter had rotted long in the tangled weeds he found that time had for years been sowing the coarse wild scrub on the homestead path and saw young trees by the chimney growing and mountain ferns on the wide stone hearth he wildly thought of the evil courses that brought disgrace on his father's name the escort robbed in the stolen horses the felons dock with its last shame ah god ah god is there then no pardon he cried in a voice that was strained in horse he fell on the weeds that were once a garden and sobbed aloud in his great remorse but grief must end in his heart sea staking when pitying sleep to his eyelids crept and home and friends who were lost and waking they all came back while the stockman slept and when he woke on the empty morrow the pain at his heart was a deadened pain and bravely bearing his load of sorrow he wandered back to the world again end of poem this recording is in the public domain song of the old bullock driver by Henry Lawson read for LibriVox.org by Bruce Kachuk far back in the days when the blacks used to ramble in long single file neith the evergreen tree the wool teams in season came down from Kunambal and journeyed for weeks on their way to the sea it was then that our hearts and our sinews were stronger for those were the days when the bushman was bred we journeyed on roads that were rougher and longer than roads were the feet of our grandchildren tread with mates who have gone to the great never never and mates whom i've not seen for many a day i camped on the banks of the Khajigong river and yarned at the fire by the old bullock drae i would summon them back from the far river arena from days that shall be from all others distinct and sing to the sound of an old concertina their rugged old songs where strange fancies were linked we never were lonely for camping together we yarned and we smoked the long evenings away and little i cared for the signs of the weather when snog in my hammock slung under the drae we rose with the dawn where it ever so chilly when yolks and tarpaulins were covered with frost and toasted the bacon and boiled the black billy where high on the campfire the branches were tossed on flats where the air was suggestive of possums and homesteads and fences were hinting of change we saw the faint glimmer of apple tree blossoms and far in the distance the blue of the range and here in the rain there was small use in flogging the poor tortured bullocks that tugged at the load when down to the axels the wagons were bogging and traffic was making a marsh of the road it was hard on the beasts on the terrible pinches where two teams of bullocks were yoked to a load and tugging and slipping and moving by inches halfway to the summit they clung to the road and then when the last of the pinches was bested you'll surely not say that a glass was a sin the bullocks lay down beneath the gum trees and rested the bullockies steered for the bar of the inn then slowly we crawled by the trees that kept tally of miles that were passed on the long journey down we saw the wild beauty of caper tea valley as slowly we rounded the base of the crown but ah the poor bullocks were cruelly goaded while climbing the hills from the flats and the veils it was here that the teams were so often unloaded that all knew the meaning of counting your bails and oh but the best paying load that I carried was one to the run where my sweetheart was nurse we courted a while and agreed to get married and couple our futures for better or worse and as my old feet grew too weary to drag on the miles of rough metal they met by the way my eldest grew up and I gave him the wagon he's plodding along by the bullocks today and a poem this recording is in the public domain the lights of carban co by henry lawson read for livery vox.org by brusker chuck fire lighted on the table a meal for sleepy men a lantern in the stable a jingle now and then the male coach looming darkly by light of moon and star the growl of sleepy voices a candle in the bar a stumble in the passage of folk with wits abroad a swear word from a bedroom the shout of all aboard get up hold fast there and down the range we go 500 miles of scattered camps will watch for carban co old coaching towns already decaying for their sins uncounted halfway houses and scores of 10 mile ins the riders from the stations by lonely granite peaks the black boy for the shepherds on sheep and cattle creeks the roaring camps of golgong and many a diggers rest the diggers on the lachlan the huts of further west some 20 000 exiles who sailed for wheel or woe the bravest hearts of 20 lands will wait for carban co the morning star has vanished the frost and fog are gone in one of those grand mornings which bought on mountains dawn a flask of friendly whiskey each other's hopes we share and throw our top coats open to drink the mountain air the roads are rare to travel and life seems all complete the grind of wheels on gravel the trot of horses feet the trot trot trot and canter as down the spur we go the green sweeps to horizons blue that call for cob and co we take a bright girl actress through western dust and dams to bear the homeworld message and sing for sinful camps to wake the hearts and break them wild hearts that hope and ache ah when she thinks of those days her own must nearly break five miles this side the gold field a loud triumphant shout 500 cheering diggers have snatched the horses out with old langzine in chorus through roaring camps they go that cheer for her and cheer for home and cheer for cob and co three lamps above the ridges and gorgeous dark and deep a flash on sandstone cuttings we're sheer the siding sweep a flash on shrouded wagons on water ghastly white weird bush and scattered remnants of rushes in the night across the swollen river a flash beyond the ford right hard to warn the driver he's drunk or mad good lord bought on the bank to westward a broad triumphant glow a hundred miles shall see tonight the lights of cob and co swift scramble up the siding where teams climb inch by inch pause birdlike on the summit then breakneck down the pinch past haunted halfway houses where convicts made the bricks scrub yards and new bark shanties we dash with five and six by clear ridge country rivers and gaps where tracks run high where waits the lonely horsemen cut clear against the sky through stringy bark and blue gum and box and pine we go new camps are stretching cross the planes the roots of cob and co throw down the reins old driver there's no one left to shout the ruined in survivor must take the horses out a poor old coach hereafter we're lost to all such things no bursts of songs or laughter shall shake your leather and springs when creeping in unnoticed by railway sidings drear or left in yards for lumber decaying with the year oh who'll think how in those days when distant fields were broad you raced across the Lachlan side with 25 on board not all the ships that sail away since roaring days are done not all the boats that steam from port nor all the trains that run shall take such hopes and loyal hearts for men shall never know such days as when the royal mail was run by cob and co the greyhounds race across the sea the special cleaves the haze but these seem dull and slow to me compared with roaring days the eyes that watched are dim with age and souls are weak and slow the hearts are dust or hardened now that broke for cob and co in a poem this recording is in the public domain how the land was won by Henry Lawson read for LibriVox.org by Bruce Kechak the future was dark and the past was dead as they gazed on the sea once more but a nation was born when the immigrants said goodbye as they stepped ashore in their loneliness they were parted thus because of the work to do a wild white land to be won for us by hearts and hands so few the darkest land neath a blue sky's dome and the widest waste on earth the strangest scenes and the least like home in the lands of our father's birth the loneliest land in the wide world then and away on the furthest seas a land most barren of life for men and they won it by twos and threes with god or a dog to watch they slept by the campfire's ghastly glow where the scrubs were dark as the blacks that crept with nulla and spear held low death was hidden amongst the trees and bare on the glaring sand they fought and perished by twos and threes and that's how they won the land it was two that failed by the dry creek bed while one reeled on alone the dust of australia's greatest dead with the dust of the desert blown gaunt cheekbones cracking the parchment skin that scorched in the blazing sun black lips that broke in a ghastly grin and that's how the land was won starvation and toil on the tracks they went and death by the lonely way the childbirth under the tilt or tent the childbirth under the drae the childbirth out in the desolate hut with a half-wild gin for nurse that's how the first were born to bear the brunt of the first man's curse they toiled and they fought through the shame of it through wilderness flood and drought they worked in the struggles of early days their sons salvation out the white girl wife in the hut alone the men on the boundless run the miseries suffered unvoiced unknown and that's how the land was won no armchair rest for the old folk then but ruined by blight and drought they blazed the tracks to the camps again in the big scrubs further out the worn half wet with the father's wet gripped hard by the eldest son the boys back formed to the hump of toil and that's how the land was won and beyond upcountry beyond outback and the rainless belt they ride the currency lad and the ne'er do wheel and the black sheep side by side in wheeling horizons of endless haze that disc through the great northwest they ride forever by twos and by threes and that's how they win the rest end of poem this recording is in the public domain the boss over the board by Henry Lawson read for libelfox.org by Elaine Conway England when he's over a rough and unpopular shed with the sins of the bank and the men on his head when he mustn't look black or indulge in a grin and 30 or 40 men hate him like sin i am moved to admit and the total is scored that it's just a bit off for the boss of the board i have battled a lot but my dreams never soared to the lonely position of boss of the board it was a black listed shed down the darling the boss was a small man to see there were big man to cross we had not to complain of except what we thought and the boss didn't boss any more than he ought but the union was booming and the brotherhood soared so we hated like poison the boss of the board we could tolerate hands we respected the cook but the name of the boss was a blot in our book he'd a rare with big dougan a rough sort of gym or rather gym dougan was laying for him his hate of injustice and greed was so deep that his shearing grew rough and he ill used the sheep and i fancied that dougan his manliness lowered when he took off his shirt to the boss of the board for the boss was ten stone and the shearer full grown and he might have they said let the crawler alone though some of us there wished the fight to the strong yet we knew in our hearts that the shearer was wrong and the crawler was plucky it can't be denied for he had to fight freedom and justice beside but he came up so gamely as often as flawed that a black leg stood up for the boss of the board and the fight was a sight and impondered that night it's surprising how some of those black legs can fight next day at the office when sadly the wreck of jim dougan came up at a lamb for his check said the boss don't be childish it's all past and gone i'm sure to good shearers you'd better stay on and we fancied jim dougan our dignity lowered and he stopped to oblige a damned boss of the board we said nothing to jim for a joke might be grim and the subject we saw was distasteful to him the boss just went on as he'd done from the first and he favored big dougan no more than the worst and when we'd cut out and the steamer came down with the hawkers and spelers to take us to town and we'd all got aboard it was jim dougan good lord he yelled for three cheers for the boss of the board it was a bit off no doubt and with freedom about but a lot is forgot when a shed is cut out with freedom of contract maintained in his shed and the curse of the children of light on his head he's apt along sadly for sweet heart or wife at his views being climbed to the dark side of life the truth must be spread and the cause must be shored but it's just a bit rough on the boss of the board i am all for the right but perhaps out of sight as a son or a husband or a father he's white and a poem this recording is in the public domain when the ladies come to the shearing shed by Henry Lawson read for leberfox.org by Elaine Conway england the ladies are coming the super says to the shearers sweltering there and the ladies means in the shearing shed don't cut them too bad don't swear the ghost of a pause in the shed's rough heart and lower is bowed each head and nothing is heard save a whispered word and the roaring of the shearing shed the tall shy rouser has lost his wits at his limbs are all astray he leaves a fleece on the shearing board at his broom in the shearers way there's a curse in store for that jackaroo as down by the wall he slants and the ringer bends with his legs askew and wishes he'd patched them pants their girls from the city our hearts rebel as we squint at their dainty feet and they gush and say in a girly way that the dear little lambs are sweet and Bill the Ringo who'd scorn the use of a childish word like damn would give a panned that his tongue were loose as he tackles a lively lamb swift thoughts of homes in the coastal towns or rivers and waving grass and a weight on our hearts that cannot define that it comes as the ladies pass but the rouser ventures a nervous dig in the ribs of the next to meet him and the bark who says to his penmate twig the style of the blast and gym gym moonlight gives her a careless glance then he catches his breath with pain his strong hand shapes and the sunlight's dance as he bends to his work again but he's well disguised in a bristling beard bronzed skin and his shearers dress and whatever gym moonlight hoped or feared were hard for his fates to guess gym moonlight wiping his broad white brow explains with a doful smile a stitch in the side and he's all right now and he leans on the beam a while and gazes out in the blazing noon on the clearing brown and bare she has come and gone like a breath of tune in december's heat and glare the bushmen are big rough boys at the best with hearts of a larger growth but they hide those hearts with a brutal chest and the pain with a reckless oath though the bills and gyms of the bushbards sing of their life loves lost or dead the love of a girl is a sacred thing not voiced in a shearing shed and a poem this recording is in the public domain the ballad of the rousabout by Henry Lawson read for LibriVox.org by Josh Kibbie a rousabout of rousabouts for many land or none i bear a nickname of the bush and i'm a woman's son i came from where i camped last night and at the day dawn glow i rub the darkness from my eyes roll up my swag and go some take the track for bitter pride some for no pride at all but to us all the world is wide when driven to the wall some take the track for gain in life some take the track for loss and some of us take up the swag as christ took up the cross some take the track for faith in men some take the track for doubt some flee a squalid home to work their own salvation out some dared not see a mother's tears nor meet a father's face born of good christian families some leap headlong from grace oh we are men who fought and rose or fell from many grades some born to lie and some to pray we're men of many trades we're men whose fathers were and are of high and low degree the sea was open to us and we sailed across the sea and were our quarrels wrong or just has no place in my song we seared our souls in puzzling as to what was right or wrong we judge not and we are not judged to our philosophy there's something wrong with every ship that sails upon the sea from shearing shed to shearing shed we tramp to make a check jack corn stock in the near dwell the tarboy in the wreck we learn the worth of man to man and this we learn too well the shanty in the shearing shed or warmer spots in hell i've humped my swag to bolly plain and further out and on i've boiled my billy by the gulf and boiled it by the swan i've thirsted and dry lignum swamps and thirsted on the sand and eeked the fire with camel dung and never never land i know the track from spencer's gulf and north of cooper's creek where falls the half cast to the strong black velvet to the weak from gold top flossy in the strand to half cast in the gin if they had brains poor animals we'd teach them how to sin i've tramped and camped and shore and drunk with many mates out back and every one to me is jack because the first was jack a lifer sneaked from jail at home the straightest maid i met a ratty russian nihilist a british baronet i know the tucker tracks that feed or leave one in the lurch the burgu presbyterian track the murphy roman church but more the man and not the track so much as it appears for battling is a trade to learn and i've served seven years we're hunted by the past at times and this is very bad and so we drink till horrors come lest sober we go mad so much is lost out back so much of hell is realized a man might skin himself alive and no one be surprised a rouse about of rouse abouts above beneath regard i know how soft is this old world and i have learned how hard a rouse about of rouse abouts i know what men can feel i've seen the tears from hard eyes slip as drops from polished steel i learned what college had to teach and in the school of men by campfires i have learned or say unlearned it all again but this i've learned that truth is strong and if a man goes straight he'll live to see his enemy struck down by time and fate we hold him true who's true to one however false he be there's something wrong with every ship that lies beneath the quay we lend and borrow laugh and joke and when the past is drowned we sit upon our swags and smoke and watch the world go round end of poem this recording is in the public domain years after the war in australia by henry lawson red for libravox dot org by josh kibby the big rough boys from the runs out back were first with the balls flew free and held in the sling of the outside track by god it's a christmas spree it's not too rusty and wool away staying clear of the blazing shoots sheep oh sheep oh we'll cut out today look out for the boss's boots would price the tally in camp tonight would price the boys out back go with you tigers for ride our might on the pride of the outside track needle and thread i have broke my home now ride you flower bags ride fight for your mates and the folks at home here's for the lachlan side those men of the west would sneer and scoff at the gates of hella jar and off the site of a head cut off was hailed by a yell for tar i heard the push in the red redoubt i rated a luckless shot look out for the blooming shell look out go blind me but that's red hot it's bill the slugger poor bloke he's done a chunk of the shell was his i wish the beggar the fire that gun could get within reach of liz those foreign gunners will give us rats but i wish it was bill they missed i'd like to get at their bleeding hats with a rock of my something fist hold up billy i'll stick to you they've hit you under the belt if we get the water i'll swag you through if the blazing mountains melt you remember the night when the traps got me for stashing a bleeding chow and you went for him proper and laid out three and i won't forget it now and groaning and swearing the pug replied i'm done they've knocked me out i'd fight them all for a pound aside from the boss to the rouse about i not just cracked and my legs is broke and it gives me worse than hell i trained for a scrap with 12 stone bloke and not with the bursting shell you need mag for i know it'll chum i know it'll pal you'd stick but you can't hold out till the regulars come and you'd best be nowhere quick they've got a force and a gun ashore both of our wings is broke they'll storm the ridge in a minute more and the best you can do is smoke and jim exclaimed you can smoke you chaps bemig or blimey no the push the ram from the george street traps won't run from a foreign foe i'll stick to the gun while she makes them sick and i'll stick to what's left of bill and they hiss through their blackened teeth we'll stick by the blazing flame we will and long years after the war was passed they told in the town in bush how the ridge of death to the bloody last was held by a sydney push how they fought to the end in a sheet of flame how they fought with their rifle and earned in an oldler sense the name of their ancient weapons rocks in the western camps it was ever our boast when it was bad for the kangaroo if the enemy's forces take the coast they must take the mountains too they may force their way by the western line around by a northern track but they won't run short of a decent spree with the men who are left up back when we burst the enemy's ironclads and won by a run of luck we whooped as loudly as nelson's lads when a french three decker struck and when the enemy's troops prevailed the truth was never heard we lied like heroes who never failed explaining how that occurred you bushmen sneer in the old bush way at the new chum jackaroo but cuffs and collars were out that day and they stuck to their posts like glue i never believed that a dude could fight till johnny led us then we buried his bits in the rear that night for the honor of george streetman and jim the ringer he fought he did the regiment nicknamed jim old heads a caser and heads a quid but it never was tails with him the way that he rode was a racing rhyme and the way that he finished grand he backed the enemy every time and died in a hand to hand i'll never forget when the ringer and i were first in the bush brigade with warigo bill from the live to you die in the last grand charge we made and billy died he was full of sand he said as i raised his head i'm full of love for my native land but a lot too full of lead tell him said billy and tell old dad to look after the cattle pup but his eyes grew bright though his voice was sad and he said as i held him up i have been happy on western farms and once when i first went wrong around my neck were the trembling arms of the girl i'd love so long far out on the southern seas i've sailed and ridden where brumbies roam and oft when all on the station failed i've driven the outlaw home i've spent a check in a day and night and i've made a check as quick i struck a nugget when times were tight and the stores had stopped our tick i've led the field on the old bay mare and i hear the cheering still when mother and sister and she were there and the old man yelled for bill but say for her could i live my while again in the old bush way i'd give it all for the last half mile in the race we rode today and he passed away as the stars came out he died as old heroes die i heard the sound of the distant route and the southern cross was high end of poem this recording is in the public domain the old jimmy wood sir by henry lawson read for libra fox dot org by elaine conway england the old jimmy wood sir comes into the bar and welcomed and noticed unknown too old and too odd to be drunk with by far and he glides to the end where the lunch baskets are and they say that he temples alone his frock coat is green and the nap is no more and the style of his hat is at rest he wears the peat collar our grandfather's wall the black ribboned tie that was legal of yore and the coat buttoned over his breast when first he came in for a moment i thought that my vision or wits were astray for a picture and page out of dickens he brought it was an old file dropped in from the chancery court to a vine vault just over the way i dreamed as he tasted his bitters tonight and the lights in the bar room grew dim that the shades of the friends of that other day's light and of girls that were bright in our grandfather's sight lifted shadowy glasses to him and i opened the door as the old man passed out with his short shuffling step and bowed head and i sighed for i felt as i turned me about an odd sense of respect born of whiskey no doubt for the life that was fifty years dead and i thought there were times when our memory trends through the nature as twer on its own that i out of date ear my pilgrimages in a new fashioned bar to dead loves and dead friends might drink like the old man alone while they whisper he boozes alone and a poem this recording is in the public domain the christ of the never by henry lawson read for livery vox.org by michael beige with eyes that seem shrunken to pierce to the awful horizons of land through the haze of hot days and the fierce white heat waves that flow on the sand through the neverland westward and norward bronzed bearded and gaunt on the track quite voiced and hard knuckle drives forward the christ of the outer our back for the cause that will near be relinquished spite of all the great cynics on earth in the ranks of the bush undistinguished by manor or dress if by birth god's preacher of church is unheeded god's vineyard though barren the sod plain spokesman with spokesmen as needed ruffling twixt the bush men and god he works with the hearts of all nations are withered in flame from the sky with the sinners work out their salvations in their hell upon earth ere they die in their camp or the lonely hut lying in a waste that seems out of god's sight he's the doctor the mate of the dying through the smothering heat of the night by his work in their hells of the shearers where the drinking is ghastly and grim where the roughest and worst of his hearers have listened bareheaded to him by his path through the partial desolation hot rides and terrible tramps by the hunger of the thirst the privation of his work in the furthest camps by his worth in the light that shall search men and prove I and justify each I place him in front of old churchmen who feel not who know not but preach end of poem this recording is in the public domain the cattle dog staff by Henry Lawson read for LibriVox.org by Neema the planes lay bare on the homeward root and the march was heavy on man and brute for the spirit of drought was on all the land and the white heat danced on the glowing sand the best of our cattle dogs legged at last his strength gave out ere the planes were passed and our hearts grew sad when he crept and laid his languid limbs in the near shade he saved our lives in the years gone by when no one dreamed of the danger nigh and the treacherous blacks on the darkness crept on the silent camp where the drovers slept the dog is dying as Stockman said as he knelt and lifted the shaggy head to a long day's march ere this run be near and he's dying fast shall we leave him here but the super cried there's an answer there as he raised a tuft of the dog's gray hair and strangely vivid each man described the old spear mark on the shaggy hide we laid a bluey and coat to cross the camping pack of the lightest horse and raised the dog to his deathbed high and brought him far underneath the burning sky at the kindly touch of the Stockman rude his eyes grew human with gratitude and though we parched in the heat that fags we gave him the last of the water bags the super's daughter we knew would chide if we left the dog in the desert wide so he brought him far or the burning sand for a parting stroke of a small white hand but long ere the station was seen ahead his pain was o'er to the dog was dead and the folks all knew by our looks of gloom it was a comrade's corpse that we carried home and a poem this recording is in the public domain the song of the Darling River by Henry Lawson read for LibreBox.org by Kathleen the only national work of the blacks was a dam or dike of stones across the Darling River at Brew Arena the stones they carried from Lord knows where and the Lord knows how the people of Burke kept up navigation for months above the town by a dam of sand bags the darling rises in blazing droughts from the Queen's land rains there are banks and beds of good clay and rock along the river the skies are brass and the plains are bare death and ruin are everywhere and all that is left of the last year's flood is a sickly stream on the gray black mud the salt springs bubble and quagmire's quiver and this is the dirge of the Darling River I rise in the drought from the Queen's land rain I fill my branches again and again I hold my billabongs back in vain for my life and my people's the South Seas drain and the land grows old and the people never will see the worth of the Darling River I drowned dry gullies and lav bear hills I turned drought roots into rippling rills I form fair island and glades all green till every bend is a sylvan scene I have watered the barren land 10 leagues wide but in vain I have tried uh in vain I have tried to show the sign of the great all giver the word to a people oh lock your river I want no blistering barge aground but racing steamers the seasons round I want fair homes on my lonely ways a people's love and a people's praise and rosy children to dive and swim and fair girls feet in my rippling brim and cool green forests and gardens ever oh this is the hem of the Darling River the sky is brass and the scrub lands glare death and ruin are everywhere thrown high to bleach or deepen the mud the bones lie buried by last year's flood and the demon stands from the never never to laugh at the rise of the Darling River end of poem this recording is in the public domain reign in the mountains by Henry Lawson red for labor box dot org by Kathleen the valley's full of misty cloud its tinted beauty drowning the eucalypti roar aloud the mountain fronts are frowning the mist is hanging like a pall from many granite ledges and many a little waterfall starts or the valley's edges the sky is of a leaden gray save where the north is surly the driven daylight speeds away and night comes or us early but love the rain will pass full soon far sooner than my sorrow and in a golden afternoon the sun may set tomorrow end of poem this recording is in the public domain a may night on the mountains by Henry Lawson red for labor box dot org by Kathleen it is a wonderful time when these hours begin these long small hours of night when grass is crisp and the air is thin and the stars come close and bright the moon hangs caught in a silvery veil from clouds of a steely gray and the hard cold blue of the sky grows pale in the wonderful milky way there is something wrong with this star of ours a mortal plank unsound that cannot be charged to the mighty powers who guide the stars around though man is higher than bird or beast though wisdom is still his boast he surely resembles nature least and the things that dex her most oh say some use of a larger star some use of the universe if they who people those planets far are better than we or worse are they exempted from deaths and births and have they greater powers and greater heavens and greater earths and greater gods than ours are our lies theirs and our truth their truth are they cursed for pleasure's sake do they make their hells in their reckless youth ere they know what hells they make and do they toil through each weary hour till the tedious day is over for food that gives but the fleeting power to toil and strive for more end of poem this recording is in the public domain the new chum jacaruse by henry lawson read for libra bucks dot org by kathleen let bushman think his bushman will and say what air they choose i hate to hear the stupid sneer at new chum jacaruse he may not ride as you can ride or do what you can do but sometimes you'd seem small beside the new chum jacaruse his share of work he never shirks and through the blazing drought he lives the old things down and works his own salvation out when older wiser chums despond he battles brave of heart to his he who sailed of old beyond the margin of the chart to his he who proved the world was round in crazy square canoes the lands you're living in were found by new chum jacaruse he crossed the deserts hot and bare from barren hungry shores the plains that you would scarcely dare with all your tanks and boars he fought away through stubborn hills towards the setting sun your father's all and Burke and wills were new chums everyone when england fought with all the world in those brave days gone by and all its strength against her hurled he held her on her high by southern palms and northern pines where air was life to lose she held her own with thin red lines of new chum jacaruse through shunt and shell and solitudes wherever feet have gone the new chums fought while eyeglass dudes and johnny's led them on and though he wear a foppish coat and these old things forget in stormy times i'd give a vote for cuffs and collars yet end of palm this recording is in the public domain the dawns of spain by henry lawson read for leperbox.org by cathleen the ego screams at the back of trade so spain as the world goes round must wrestle the right to live or die from the sins of the land she found for as in the days when the buccaneer was abroad on the spanish main the national honor is one thing dear to the hearts of the dawns of spain she has slaughtered thousands with fire and sword as the christian world might know we murder millions but thank the lord we only starve them slow the times have changed since the days of old but the same old facts remain we fight for freedom and god and gold and the spaniards fight for spain we fought with the strength of the moral right and they as their ships went down they only fought with the grit to fight with their armor to help them drowned it mattered little what chance for our hope for ever their path was plain the church was the church and the pope the pope but the spaniards fought for spain if providence struck for the honest thief at times in the battle's dim if ever it struck at the hypocrite well that's where the Turks came in but this remains ere we leave the wise to argue it through in vain there's something great in the wrong that dies as the spaniards died for spain the foes of spain may be kin to us who are english heart and soul and proud of our national righteousness and proud of the lands we stole but we yet might pause while those brave men die and the death drink pledge again for the sake of the past if you're doomed say I may your death be a grand one spain then here's to the bravest of freedoms foes whoever with death have stood for the sake of the courage to die on steel as their fathers died on wood and here's a cheer for the flag on furled in a hopeless cause again for the sake of the days when the christian world was saved by the dawns of spain end of poem this recording is in the public domain the bursting of the boom by Henry Lawson read for laborbox.org by Kathleen the shipping office clerks are short the manager is gruff they cannot make reductions and the fares are low enough they ship us west with cattle and we go like cattle too and fight like dogs three times a day for what we get to chew we'll have the pick of empty bunks and lots of stretching room and go for next to nothing at the bursting of the boom so wait till the boom bursts we'll all get a show then when the boom bursts it's our time to go we'll meet them coming back in shoals with looks of deepest gloom but we're the sort that battle through at the bursting of the boom the captain's easygoing when freemantle comes in sight he can't say when you'll get ashore perhaps tomorrow night your coins are few the charge is high you must not linger here you'll get your boxes from the hold when she's alongside the pier the launch will follow the gangway and the trembling bulwarks loom above a feet of harbour craft at the bursting of the boom so wait till the boom bursts we'll all get a show he'll take you for a bob sir and where you want to go he'll take the big portman too sir if he might so presume you needn't hump your luggage at the bursting of the boom it's loafers customs loafers and you pay and pay again they hinder you and cheat you from the gangway to the train the pubs and restaurants are full they haven't room for more they charge us three shillings for a shakedown on the floor but show this gentle man upstairs the first front parlor room we'll see about your luggage sir at the bursting of the boom so wait till the boom bursts we'll all get a show and wait till the boom bursts and swear mighty low we mostly charge a pound a week how do you like the room and show this gentle man the bath at the bursting of the boom i go down to the timber yard i cannot face the rent to get some strips of ore gone to frame my hessie intent to buy some scraps of lumber for a table or a shelf the boss comes up and says i might just look round for myself the foreman grunts and turns away as silent as the tomb the boss himself will wait on me at the bursting of the boom so wait till the boom bursts we'll all get a load you had better take those scraps sir they're only in the road now where the hell's the carter you'll hear the foreman fume and take that timber round at once at the bursting of the boom each one a penny grosser in his box of board and tin we'll think it condescending to consent to take you in and not content with twice as much as what is just and right they charge and cheat you doubly for the boom is at its height it's take it now or leave it now your money or your room but who's attending mr. brown at the bursting of the boom so wait till the boom bursts and take what you can get there's not the slightest hurry and your bill ain't ready yet they'll call and get your orders until the crack o doom and send them round directly at the bursting of the boom no country and no brotherhood such things are dead and cold a camp from all the lands are none all mad for love of gold where tether cider number one makes slave of number two and the vilus women of the world the vilus ways pursue and men go out and slave and bake and die in agony and western hells that god forgot where never a man should be i feel a profit in my heart that speaks the one word doom and i you'll hear the devil laugh at the bursting of the boom end of poem this recording is in the public domain antony villa by henry lawson read for the rebox dot org by cathleen a ballad of 93 over there above the jetty stands the mansion of the vardens with a tennis ground in terrace and a flagstaff in the gardens they are gentle men and ladies they've been toffs for generations but oh vardens been unlucky lost a lot in speculations troubles gathered fast upon him when the mining bubble busted then the bank suspended payment where his little all he trusted and the butcher and the baker sent their bills and when they read it even john the child that served him has refused to give him credit and the daughters of the vardens they are beautiful as graces but the balconies deserted and they rarely show their faces and the swells of their acquaintance never seemed to venture near them and the bailiff says they seldom have a cup of tea to cheer them they were butterflies i always was a common caterpillar but i'm sorry for the ladies over there in tony villa shut up there in tony villa with the bailiff and their trouble and the dried up reservoir where my tears were seems to bubble mrs rooney thinks it nothing when she sends a brat to bori just a pinch of tea and sugar till the grocer comes to mori but it's different with the vardens they would starve to death as soon as knuckle down you know they weren't raised exactly like the runes there is gossip in the boxes in the drying rooms and gardens have you heard of vardens failure have you heard about the vardens and no doubt each tony mother on the point across the waters mighty glad about the downfall of the rivals of her daughters though the poets and the writers say that man to man's inhuman i'm inclined to think it's nothing to what woman is to woman more especially the ladies say perhaps a fellow's mother and i think that men are better they are kinder to each other there's a youngster by the jetty gathering cinders from the ashes he was known as master varden ere the great financial crushes and his manner shows the difference tweaks the nursery and gutter but i've seen him at the grocers buying half a pound of butter and his mother fights her trouble in the house across the water she is just as proud as varden though she was a cocky stutter and at times i think i see her with the flick ring of firelight or her sitting pale and straight and quiet gazing vagantly before her there's a sight and girlish figure varden's youngest daughter netty on the terrace after sunset when the boat is near the jetty she's good and pure and pretty and her rivals don't deny it though they say that netty varden takes and sowing on the quiet how her sister graced the circle all unconscious of a lover in the city god who watched her from the gallery above her shade of poverty was on him and the light of wealth upon her but perhaps he loved her better than the swells attending on her there's a white man's heart and varden despite of all the blue blood in him there are working men who wouldn't stand and hear a word again him but his name was never printed by the side of his donations save on hearts that have in this world very humble circulations he was never stiff or hawkish he was affable and jolly and he'd always say good morning to the deckhand on the poly he would barrack with the newsboys on the key across the ferry and he'd very often tip him coming home a trifle merry but his chin is getting higher and his features daily harden he will not give up possession there's a lot of fight in varden and the way he steps the gangway oh you couldn't but admire it just as proud as ever hero walked the plank aboard a pirate he will think about the hardships that his girls were never used to and it must be mighty heavy on the thoroughbred old rooster but he'll never strike his colors and i tell a lying tale if ardent's pride don't kill him sooner than the bankers or the bailiff you remember when we often had to go without our dinners in the days when pride and hunger fought to finish out within us and how pride would come up groggy hunger whooping loud and louder and the swells are proud as we are they are just as proud and prouder yes the toffs have grit in spite of all our sneering and our scorning what's the crowd what's that god help us varden shot himself this morning there'll be gossip in the circle and the drying rooms and gardens but i'm sorry for the family yes i'm sorry for the vardens end up poem this recording is in the public domain second class wait here by henry lawson red for libravox dot org by nemo on suburban railway stations you may see them as you pass there are signboards on the platform saying wait here second class and to me the war and thunder and the clock of running gear seem to be forever saying saying second class wait here wait here second class second class wait here seem to be forever saying saying second class wait here and the second class were waiting in the days of serf and prince and the second class are waiting They've been waiting ever since. There are gardens in the background and the line is barren drear, yet they wait beneath the signboard, sneering, second-class, wait here. I have waited often winter in the mornings dark and damp, when the asphalt platform glistened underneath the lonely lamp. Gasly on the brick-faced cutting, sell'em soap and blower's beer. Gasly on enameled signboards with their second-class wait here. And the others seemed like burglars, slouched and muffled to the throats, standing round apart and silent in their shoddy-over coats, and the wind among the wires and the poplars bleak and bare seemed to be forever snarling, snarling, second-class wait there. Out beyond the further suburb, beneath the chimney's stack alone, lay the works of grinder brothers with a platform of their own. And I waited there and suffered, waited there for many a year, slaved beneath the phantom signboard, telling our class to wait here. Ah, a man must feel revengeful for a boyhood such as mine. God, I hate the very houses near the workshop by the line, and the smell of railway stations and the roar of running gear, and the scornful seeming signboard saying, second-class wait here. There's a train with Beth for driver, which is ever going past, and there are no class compartments, and we all must go at last to the long white jasper platform, with an Eden in the rear, and there won't be any signboard saying, second-class wait here. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Ships That Won't Go Down by Henry Lawson Read for Libelvox.org by Elaine Conway England We hear a great commotion, but the ship that comes to grief, that found is in mid-ocean, was driven on a reef, because it's cheap and brittle, a score of sinners drown, but we hear but mighty little of the ships that won't go down. Here's honour to the builders, the builders of the past. Here's honour to the builders, that builded ships to last. Here's honour to the captain, and honour to the crew. Here's double column headlines to the ships that battle through. They make a great sensation about famous men that fail, that sink a world of chances in the city morgue or jail, who drink or blow their brains out because of fortune's frown, but we hear far too little of the men who won't go down. The world is full of trouble, and the world is full of wrong, but the heart of man is noble, and the heart of man is strong. They say the sea sings dirges, but I would say to you, that the wild wave songs peen the men that battle through. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Men We Might Have Been by Henry Lawson read for LibriVox.org by Jim Gallagher When God's wrath cloud is over me, a frightening heart in mind. When days seem dark before me, and days seem black behind. Those friends who think they know me, who deem their insight keen, they never forget to show me the man I might have been. He's rich and independent, or rising fast to fame, his bright star is ascended, the country knows his name. His houses and his gardens are splendid to be seen. His fault the wise world pardons, the man I might have been. His fame and fortune haunt me, his virtues waive me back. His name and prestige dot me, when I would take the track. But you, my friend, true hearted, God keep our friendship green. You know how I was parted, from all I might have been. But what avails the ache of remorse and weak regret? We'll battle for the sake of the men we might be yet. We'll strive to keep in sight of the brave, the true, and clean, and triumph yet in spite of the men we might have been. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Way of the World by Henry Lawson Read for LibriVox.org by Bruce Gachuck When fairer faces turn from me, and gayer friends grow cold, and I have lost through poverty the friendship bought with gold. When I have served the selfish turn of some all-worldly few, and folly's lamps have ceased to burn, then I'll come back to you. When my admirers find I'm not the rising star they thought, and praise or blame is all forgot my early promise brought. When brighter rivals lead a host where once I led a few, and kinder times reward their boast, then I'll come back to you. You loved me not for what I had or what I might have been. You saw the good but not the bad was kind for that between. I know that you'll forgive again that you will judge me true. I'll be too tired to explain when I come back to you. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Battling Days by Henry Lawson Read for LibriVox.org by Bruce Gachuck So sit you down in a straight-backed chair with your pipe and your wife content, and cross your knees with your wisest air, and preach of the days miss spent. Grown fat and moral apace, old man, you prayed of the change since then. In spite of all, I'd as leaf be back in those hard old days again. They were hard old days. They were Battling Days. They were cruel at times. But then, in spite of all, I would rather be back in those hard old days again. The land was barren to sow wild oats in the days when we sowed our own. T'was little we thought or our friends believed that ours would ever be sown. But the wild oats wave on their stormy path, and they speak of the hearts of men. I would sow a crop if I had my time in those hard old days again. We travel first, or we go saloon, on the planned out trips we go, with those who are neither rich nor poor, and we find that the life is slow. It's a pleasant trip where they cried, good luck, there was fun in the steerage then. In spite of all, I would faint be back in those vagabond days again. On Saturday night we've a pound to spare, a pound for a trip downtown. We took more joy in those hard old days for a hardly spared half-crown. We took more pride in the pants we patched than the suits we have had since then. In spite of all, I would rather be back in those comical days again. T'was we and the world and the rest go hang as the outside tracks we trod. Each thought of himself as a man and mate and not as a martyred god. The world goes wrong when your heart is strong, and this is the way with men. The world goes right when your liver is white, and you preach of the change since then. They were hard old days, they were battling days, they were cruel times, but then, in spite of all, we shall live to-night in those hard old days again. So the days of my tramping are over, and the days of my riding are done. I'm about as content as a rover, will ever be under the sun. I write after reading your letter, my pipe with old memories rife, and I feel in a mood that had better not meet the true eyes of the wife. You must never admit a suggestion, that old things are good to recall. You must never consider the question, was I happier then, after all. You must banish the old hope and sorrow, that make the sad pleasures of life. You must live for today and tomorrow, if you want to be just to the wife. I have changed since the first day I kissed her, which is due, heaven bless her, to her. I'm respected and trusted, I'm mister, addressed by the children as sir, and I feel the respect without feigning. But you'd laugh the great laugh of your life, if you only saw me entertaining, an old lady friend of the wife. By the way, when you're writing, remember that you never went drinking with me, and forget her last night of December, lest our several accounts disagree. And for my sake, old man, you had better avoid the old language of strife, for the technical terms of your letter may be misunderstood by the wife. Never hint of the girls I pertaining, to the past when you're writing again, for they take such a lot of explaining, and you know how I hate to explain. There are some things we know to our sorrow, that cut to the heart like a knife, and your past is today and tomorrow, if you want to be true to the wife. I believe that the creed we were chums in, was grand but too abstract and bold, and the knowledge of life only comes in when you're married and fathered and old. And it's well. You may travel as few men, you may stick to a mistress for life, but the world as it is, born of woman, must be seen through the eyes of the wife. No doubt you are dreaming, as I did, and going the careless old pace, while my future grows dull and decided, and the world narrows down to the place. Let it be, if my treasons resented, you may do worse, old man, in your life. Let me dream, too, that I am contented, for the sake of a true little wife. And a poem, this recording is in the public domain. The Uncultured Rimer to His Cultured Critics by Henry Lawson read for LibreVox.org by Josh Kibbe Fight through ignorance, want and care, through the griefs that crush the spirit, push your way to a fortune fair, and the smiles of the world you'll merit, long as a boy for the chance to learn, for the chance that fate denies you, when degrees with the lifelights burn and scores will teach and advise you. My cultured friends, you have come too late with your bypass nicely graded. I fought thus far on my track of fate, and I'll follow the rest unaided. Must I be stopped by a college gate on the track of life encroaching, be dumb to love, and be dumb to hate for the lack of a college coaching? You grope for truth in a language dead, and the dust beneath tower in steeple, what know you of the tracks we tread, and what know you of our people? I must read this and that and the rest, and write as the cult expects me. I'll read the book that may please me best, and write as my heart directs me. You were quick to pick on a faulty line that I strove to put my soul in. Your eyes were keen for a dash of mine in the place of a semicolon, and blind to the rest, and is it for such as you I must brook restriction? I was taught too little, I learned too much to care for a pet instiction. Must I turn aside from my destined way, for a task your joss would find me? I come with strength of a living day, and with half the world behind me. I leave you alone in your cultured halls to drivel and croak and cavill, till your voice goes further than college walls, keep out of the tracks we travel. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Writer's Dream by Henry Lawson, read for LibriVox.org A writer wrote of the hearts of men, and he followed their tracks afar. For his was a spirit that forced his pen to write of the things that are. His heart grew tired of the truths he told, for his life was hard and grim. His land seemed barren, its people cold, yet the world was dear to him. So he sailed away from the streets of strife he traveled by land and sea, in search of a people who lived a life as life in the world should be. And he reached a spot where the scene was fair, with forest and field and wood, and all things came with the seasons there, and each of its kind was good. There were mountain rivers and peaks of snow, there were lights of green and gold, and echoing caves in the cliffs below were a worldwide ocean world. The lives of men, from the wear of change, and the strife of the world were free, for steam was barred by the mountain range and the rocks of the open sea. And the last that were born of a noble race, when the page of the South was fair, the last of the conquered dwelt in peace with the last of the victors there. He saw their hearts, with the author's eyes, who had written their ancient lore, and he saw their lives as he dreamed of such, ah, many a year before. And I'll write a book of these simple folk, air-eye to the world return, and the cold who read shall be kind for these and the wise who read shall learn. Never again, in a song of mine, shall a jarring note be heard. Never again shall a page or line be marred by a bitter word, but love and laughter and kindly hours will the book I'll write recall, with chastening tears for the loss of one, and sighs for their sorrows all. Old eyes will light with a kindly smile, and the young guys dance with glee, and the heart of the cynic will rest awhile for my simple folk and me. The lines ran on as he dipped his pen, ran true to his heart and ear, like the brighter pages of memory, when every line is clear. The pictures came and the pictures passed, like days of love and light. He saw his chapters from first to last, and he thought at grand to write. And the writer kissed his girlish wife, and he kissed her twice for pride. It is a book of love, though a book of life, and a book you'll read, he cried. He was blind at first to each senseless slight, for shabby and poor he came. From local fashion and mortgaged pride, that scarce could sign its name. What dreamer would dream of such paltry pride, in his scene so fresh and fair, but the local spirit intensified, with its pitiful shams was there. There were cliques wherever two houses stood, no rest for a family ghost. They hated each other as women could, but they hated the stranger most. The writer wrote by day and night, and he cried in the face of fate. I'll cleave to my dream of life in spite of the cynical ghosts that wait. Tis the shyness born of their simple lives, he said to the paltry pride. The homely tongues of the simple wives, nair-air'd on the generous side. They'll prove me true, and they'll prove me kind, ere the year of grace be passed. But the ignorant whisper of axe to grind went home to his heart at last. The writer sat by his driftwood fire, three nights of the southeast gale. His pen lay idle on Page's vein, for his book was a fairy tale. The world-wise lines of an elder age were plain on his aching brow, as he sadly thought of each brighter page that would never be written now. I'll write no more, but he bowed his head, for his heart was in dreamland yet. The page is written, I'll burn, he said, and the page is thought, forget. But he heard the hymn of the open sea, and the old fierce anger burned, and he wrenched his heart from its dreamland free as the fire of his youth returned. The weak man's madness, the strong man's scorn, the rebellious hate of youth, from a deeper love of the world are born, and the cynical ghost is truth. And the writer rose with a strength anew, where in doubt could have no part. I'll write my book, and it shall be true, the truth of a writer's heart. I cover the wrong with a fairy tale, who never knew want or care, a bright green scum on a stagnant pool, that will weak the longer there. You may starve the writer and buy the pen, you may drive it with want and fear, but the lines run false in the hearts of men, and false to the writer's ear. The bard's rebel and strife his part, and he'll burst from his bonds anew, till all pens write from a single heart, and so may the dream come true. Tis ever the same in the paths of men, where money and dress are all? The crawler will bully whenever he can, and the bully who can't will crawl. And this is the creed, in the local hole, where the souls of the selfish rule borrow and cheat while the stranger's green, then sneer at the simple fool. Spit your spite at the men whom fate has placed in the head-race first, and hate till death with a senseless hate the man you have injured worst. There are generous hearts in the grinding street, but the hearts of the world go west, for the men who toil in the dust and heat of the barren lands are best, the stranger's hand to the stranger yet, for a roving folk are mine, the stranger's store for the stranger's set, and the campfire glow the sign. The generous hearts of the world we find thrive best on the barren sod, and the selfish thrive where nature's kind, the bully or crawl to God. I was born to write of the things that are, and the strength was given to me. I was born to strike at the things that are, the world as the world should be. By the dumb heart hunger and dreams of youth, by the hungry tracks I've trod, I'll fight as a man for the sake of truth, nor pose as a martyred God. By the heart of Bell and the heart of Jim, and the men that their hearts deem white, by the hand grips fierce and the hard eyes dim, with forbidden tears, I'll write. I'll write untroubled by cultured fools, or the dents that fume and fret, for against the wisdom of all their schools I would stake mine instinct yet. For the cynical strain in the writer's song is the world not he to blame, and I'll write as I think in the knowledge strong that thousands think the same, and the men who fight in the dry country grim battles by day, by night, will believe in me, and will stand by me, and will say to the world he's right. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. My work was the work of the land, but I hope that my country will shout me the price of a decent brass band. Thump thump of the drum and tov'er it. Thump thump in the music it's grand, if only in dreams or in spirit, to riot or march after the band, and myself on my mourners go straying, and strolling and drifting along, with a band in the front of us playing, the tune of an old battle song. I ask for no turnout to bear me, I ask not for railings or slabs, and spare me, my country oh spare me, the hearse in the long string of cabs. I ask not the baton, or starts of the bore with the musical ear, but the music that's blown from the hearts of the men who work hard and drink beer, and let them strike up any lorry, and let them burst out with langzine, twin voices of sadness and glory that have ever been likings of mine, and give the French war him deep throated, the watch of the Germans between, and let the last mile be devoted to Britannia and wearing the green. And if in the end, more is the pity, there is fame more than money to spare, there's a van man I know in the city who'll convey me right side up with care. True sons of Australia and noble have gone from the long dusty way, while the soul mourner fought down his trouble with this pipe on the shaft of the drae, but let them strike up any lorry, and let them burst out with langzine, twin voices of sadness and glory that have ever been likings of mine, and give the French war him deep throated, the watch of the Germans between, and let the last mile be devoted to Britannia and wearing the green. And my spirit will join the procession, will pause if it may on the brink, nor feel the least shade of depression when the mourners drop out for a drink. It may be a hot day in December, or a cold day in June it may be, and the drink will but help them remember the good points the world missed in me, and help him to love any lorry, and help him to raise a langzine, twin voices of sadness and glory that have ever been likings of mine, and give the French war him deep throated, the watch of the Germans between, and let the last mile be devoted to Britannia and wearing the green. Unhook the west port for an orphan, and old digger course revive, if you don't hear a whoop from the coffin, I am not being buried alive, but I'll go with the spiritless bitter, then mine own on the earth may have been, and perhaps to save trouble St. Peter will pass me two comrades between, and let them strike up any lorry, and let them burst out with langzine, twin voices of sadness and glory that have ever been likings of mine, let them swell the French war him deep throated, and I'll not buck at God save the Queen, but let the last mile be devoted to Britannia and wearing the green. Thump thump of the drums we inherit, war drums of my dreams, oh it's grand, if only in fancier spirit to ride or march after a band, and we, the world battlers, go straying, and loving and laughing along, with hope in the lead of us playing the tune of a life-battle song. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. My Literary Friend by Henry Lawson, read for LibriVox.org by Jim Gallagher. Once I wrote a little poem, which I thought was very fine, and I showed the printer's copy to a critic friend of mine. First he praised the thing a little, then he found a little fault. The ideas are good, he muttered. But the rhythm seems to halt. So I straightened up the rhythm where he marked it with his pen, and I copied it and showed it to my clever friend again. You've improved the meter greatly, but the rhymes are bad, he said, as he read it slowly, scratching surplus wisdom from his head. So I worked as he suggested, I believe in taking time, and I burnt the midnight taper while I straightened up the rhyme. It is better now, he muttered. You go on and you'll succeed. It has got a ring about it. The ideas are what you need. So I worked for hours upon it, I go on when I commence, and I kept in view the rhythm and the jingle and the sense, and I copied it and I took it to my solemn friend once more. It reminded him of something he had somewhere read before. Now the people say I'd never put such horrors into print. If I wasn't too conceited to accept a friendly hint, and my dearest friends are certain that I'd profit in the end, if I'd always show my copy to a literary friend. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Mary Called Him Mister by Henry Lawson Read for LibriVox.org by Campbell Shelp They'd parted but a year before she never thought he'd come. She stammered, blushed, held out her hand, and called him Mister Gum. How could he know that all the while she longed to murmur John? He called her Miss Libruc and asked how she was getting on. They'd parted but a year before they'd loved each other well, but he'd been to the city, and he came back such a swell. They longed to meet and fond embrace, they hungered for a kiss. But Mary called him Mister, and the idiot called her Miss. He stood and leaned against the door, a stupid chap was he, and when she asked if he'd come in and have a cup of tea, he looked to left, he looked to right, and then he glanced behind, and slowly doffed his cabinetry and said he didn't mind. She made a shy apology because the meat was tough, and then she asked if he was sure his tea was sweet enough. He stirred the tea and sipped it twice and answered plenty quite. And cut the smallest piece of beef and said that it was right. She glanced at him at times and coughed an awkward little cough. He stared at anything but her and said, I must be off. That evening he went riding north, a sad and lonely ride. She locked herself inside her room and there sat down and cried. They'd parted but a year before they loved each other well. But she was such a country girl, and he was such a swell. They longed to meet and fond embrace, they hungered for a kiss. But Mary called him Mr., and the idiot called her Miss. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain.