 After all, by Henry Lawson, read for LibriVox.org by Brian Edwards. After all, the brooding ghosts of Australian night have gone from the bush and town. My spirit revives in the morning breeze, though it died when the sun went down. The river is high, and the stream is strong, and the grass is green and tall. And I feign would think that this world of ours is a good world after all. The light of passion in dreamy eyes, and a page of truth well-read. The glorious thrill in a heart grown cold of the spirit I thought was dead. A song that goes to a comrade's heart, and a tear of pride let fall. And my soul is strong, and the world to me is a grand world after all. Let our enemies go by their own dull tracks, and theirs be the fault or shame. The man is bitter against the world, who has only himself to blame. Let the darkest side of the past be dark, and only the good recall. For I must believe that the world, my dear, is a kind world after all. It may well be that I saw too plain, and it may be that I was blind. But I'll keep my face to the dawning light, that the devil may stand behind. That the devil may stand behind my back, I'll not see his shadow fall. But read the signs in the morning stars of a good world after all. Rest, for your eyes are weary, girl, you have driven the worst away. The ghost of the man I might have been is gone from my heart today. I will live for life, and the best it brings till I twilight shadows form. My heart grows brave, and the world, my girl, is a good world after all. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. An Australian Girl by Ethel Castilla Read for LibriVox.org by David Butler She has a beauty of her own, a beauty of a paler tone in English bells. The southern sun and southern air have kissed her cheeks until they wear the dainty tints that often appear on rosy shells. Her frank, clear eyes speak of mind, old world traditions fail to bind. She is not shy or bold, but simply self-possessed. Her independence adds a zest unto her speech, her pecan jest, her quaint reply. Or classic volume she will pour with joy, and some scholastic lore will often gain. In sports she bears away the bell, nor under music's siren spell to dance divinely, flirt as well. Does she disdain? End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Beneath the Wattle Bows by Frances Tyrell Gill Read for LibriVox.org by Lucy Burgoyne The wattles were sweet with September's rain. We drunk in their breath and the breath of the spring. Our pulses are strong with the tide of life. I said, and one year is so swift a thing. The land all around was yellow with bloom. The birds in the branches sum joyous and shrill. The blue range rose against the blue of the sky, yet she sighed, but death may be stronger still. Then I reached and gathered a blossomy bow, and divided its clustering sprays in twain. As a token for each, I closed one in her hand, till we come to the end of the year again. Then the years sped on strung high with life, and laughter and gold were the gifts they gave, till I chanced one day on some pale dead flowers, and spoke, shaking and white. One more gift, I craved. Nay, a shadow voice in the air replied, neath the blossoming wattles, you'll find a grave. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Malga Bill's Bicycle by Andrew Barton Banjo Patterson Read Philippi Vox.org by Brian Edwards Malga Bill's Bicycle It was Malga Bill from Eaglehawk that caught the cycling craze. He turned away the good old horse that served him many days. He dressed himself in cycling clothes, resplendent to be seen. He hurried off to town and bought a shining new machine, and as he wheeled it through the door with the air of lordly pride. The grinning shop assistant said, Excuse me, can you ride? See here young man's in Malga Bill, from Malga to the sea, from Coinroy's Gap to Carceray there's none can ride like me. I'm good all round at everything, as everybody knows, although I'm not the one to talk, I hate the man that blows, but riding is my special gift. My chief does soul delight, just ask a wild duck can it swim, a wildcat can it fight. There's nothing closed in hair or hide, or build a flesh or steel. There's nothing walks or jumps or runs on actual roof or wheel, but what I'll sit it while hide will hold and girths and straps are tight. I'll ride this here too, we'll concern, ride straight away at sight. There's Malga Bill from Eaglehawk that sawed his own abode, that perched above the dead man's creek beside the mounting road. He turned the cycle down the hill and mounted for the fray, but ere he'd gone a dozen yards it bolted clean away, it left the track and threw the trees just like a silver streak, it whistled down the awful slope towards the dead man's creek. It shaved a stump by half an inch, it dodged a big white box. The very Wallaroos in fright went scrambling up the rocks. The bombats hiding in their caves dug deeper underground, as Malga Bill as wide as chalk sat tight to every bound. It struck a stone and gave a spring that cleared off all on three. It raced beside a precipice as close as close could be, then as Malga Bill let out one last despair in shriek, it made a leap of twenty feet into the dead man's creek. It was Malga Bill from Eaglehawk that slowly swam ashore. He said, I've had some narrow shaves and lively rides before, I've rode a wildboard round a yard to win a five pound bet, but this was the most awful ride that I've accounted yet. I'll give that two wheel outlaw best, it shaken all my nerve to feed it whistled through the air and plunge and buck and swerve. It's safe at rest in dead man's creek, we'll leave it lying still. The horse's back is good enough, henceforth for Malga Bill. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. My Country by Dorothea McKellar Read for LibriVox.org by Larissa Jaworski of Brisbane, Australia My Country The love of field and coppers, of green and shaded lanes, of ordered woods and gardens is running in your veins, strong love of grey-blue distance, brown streams and soft dim skies, I know I cannot share it, my love is otherwise. I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains, of ragged mountain ranges, of droughts and flooding rains, I love her far horizons, I love her dual sea, her beauty and her terror, the wide brown land for me. A stark white ring of barked forest, all tragic to the moon, the sapphire misted mountains, the hot gold hush of noon. The green tangle of the brushes wear litheliana's coil, and orchards deck the treetops and ferns the warm dark soil. Core of my heart, my country, her pitiless blue sky, when sick at heart around us we see the cattle die, but then the grey clouds gather and we can bless again the drumming of an army, the steady soaking rain. Core of my heart, my country, land of rainbow gold, for flood and fire and famine she pays us back threefold. Over the thirsty paddocks watch after many days the filmy veil of greenness that thickens as we gaze, an opal hearted country, a willful lavish land, all you who have not loved her you will not understand. Though earth holds many splendours wherever I may die, I know to what brown country my homing thoughts will fly. Out Back by Henry Lawson Read Philippivox.org by Brian Edwards Out Back The old year went and a new returned in the withering weeks of drought. The check was spent that the shearer earned and the sheds were all cut out. The publican's words were short and few, and the publican's looks were black, and the time had come, as the shearer knew, to carry his swag out back. For time means tucker and tramp you must, when the scrubs and the plains are wide, would seldom attract that a man can trust or mount in peak to guide. All day long in the dust and heat, when summer is on the track, with stinted stomach and blistered feet, they carry their swags out back. He tripped away from the shanty there when the days were long and hot. We'd never have sold to know or care if he died on the track or not. The poor of the city have friends in woe, no matter how much they lack, but only God and the swagmen know how a poor man fares out back. He begged his way on the parts of Peru and Orogo tracks once more, and lived like a dog as the swagmen do, till the western stations sure. But men were many, and sheds were full, for work in the town was slack. The traveller never got hands in woe, though he tramped for a year out back. In stifling noons when his back was wrung by its load and the air seemed dead, and the water warmed in a bag that hung to his aching arm-like lead, or in times of flood when planes were seized and the scrubs were cold and black, he ploughed in mud to his trembling knees and paid for his sins out-pack. He blamed himself in the year too late, in the heaviest hours of life, for as little he dreamed that a shearing-mate had care of his home and wife. There are times when wrongs from your kindred come and treacherous tongues attack when a man is better away from home and dead to the world out back, and dirty and careless and old he wore, as his lamp of hope grew dim. He tramped for years till a swag he bore seemed part of himself to him. As the bullet drags in the sandy ruts, he followed the dreary track, with never a thought but to reach the huts when the sun went down out back. He chanced one day when a north wind blew in his face like a furnace breath. He left the track for a tank he knew, for the shortcut to his death. For the bed of the tank was hard and dry, and crossed with many a crack, and oh, it's a terrible thing to die of thirst in a scrub out-pack. A drover came but the fringe of law was eastward many a mile. He never reported a thing he saw, for it wasn't worth his while. The tanks had fallen the grass is high in the mulga off the track, where the bleaching bones of a white man lie by his mouldering swag out back. For time means tucker and tramp they must, where the plains and the scrubs are wide, with seldom the track that a man can trust, or a mountain peak to guide. All day long in the flies and heat, the men of the outside track, with stinted stomachs and blistered feet, must carry their swags out back. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. None ever saw his face again. It may be in the wild green wood, he wandered weary, spent a breath, till the all mastering solitude sunk to the deeper hush of death. Perchance he crawled, where the low bush, more verdant, whispered streams were nigh. Hopeful but desperate, made a rush, and found, oh God, the bed was dry. He was awake, and friends had none, who knows, but in some distant land, a mother mourns her errant son, a sister longs to clasp his hand. He was awake, but with him died, a world of yearnings deep within, yearning to loftiest things alight, but wrecked by krill fate or sin. None heard the lone ones die in prayer, save infinite pity-bending awe, who happily bore him, quietly were, they hunger, and they thirst no more. A ye thus woods, what fun life dreams ye close, what broken lives ye hide, darkly absorbed, like hopeful streams, that in dry desert lands subside. Stranger the tales ye could unfold, than wilder romance art ever penned, remaining buried in the mould, till time shall cease, and mystery end. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain.