“Nobody’s enemy save his own”—

No female neighbours lift their handsAnd say “The brute!—he’s drinking!”No mischief-maker runs with smilesTo give your wife a notion,For she may be ten thousand milesAcross the bounding ocean.Oh! I’ve been Scottish “fu” all night,(O’er ills o’ life victorious),And I’ve been Dutch and German tight,And French and Dago glorious.We saw no boa-constrictors then,In every lady’s boa,Though…

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 curse…

And have a long, great, glorious reign,Through calm or tempest, weal or woe.And strange things set me wondering –As man and youth, we knew him here,The one the only British King,To see his Southern Hemisphere.‘Midst pealing bells and cannons’ dinThe countless thousands cheer and striveTo catch one glance of their new KingAnd queenly Mary, his…

By lonely graves where rest the dead,Up-Country and Out-Back:To where beneath the clustered starsThe dreamy plains expand-My home lies wide a thousand milesIn Never-Never Land.It lies beyond the farming belt,Wide wastes of scrub and plain,A blazing desert in the drought,A lake-land after rain;To the skyline sweeps the waving grass,Or whirls the scorching sand-A phantom land,…

I came from where I camp’d 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,…

Of the everlasting friction that most husbands must endure—Tale of nagging and of drinking—and a secret whisky cure.Name of Jones—perhaps you know him—small house-agent here in town—(Friend of Smith, you know him also—likewise Robinson and Brown),Just a hopeless little husband, whose deep sorrows were obscure,And a bitter nagging Missis—and death seemed the only cure.’Twas a…

It’s hard to go away alone and leave old chums behind-It’s hard to travel steerage when your tastes are more refined-To reach a place when times are bad, and to be standing there,No money in your pocket nor a decent rag to wear.But be forced from that fond clasp, from that last clinging kiss-By poverty!…

She is not “pert an’ bonny,”Nor “winsome, wee, an’ fair.”But when a man’s in trouble,And darkest shadows fall,She’s just a little womanI’d back against them all.I’d back against them all,When friends on rocks are hurled—Oh, she’s the little womanI’d back against the world.She has her little temper(As all the world can know)When things are running…

Why are the dead hopes forever dying?(Dead hopes that died and are with us still.)As you make it and what you will.Why are the ridges forever waiting?Ridges that waited ere one man came,Still by the towns with their life vibratingLonely ridges that wait the same.Ridges and gullies without a name.Why is the strong heart forever…

Past old Bullock-Yoke and Bog Flat, and the “Pinch” at Stick-to-me,Lies the camp that we have christened—christened “Broken Axletree.”We were young and strong and fearless, we had not seen Mount Despair,And the West was to be conquered, and we meant to do our share;We were far away from cities, and were fairly off the spreeWhen…

Her limbs in weariness relaxed,And in her eyes a sad desire.But soon a wreath is on her brow;A bonny prince has claimed her hand;And she’s as proud and happy nowAs any lady in the land.Ah, then to see a fairy bright,And to have granted what you would,You only needed to do right,You only needed to…

Public robbing, and lying that death cannot erase—“Private” strife and deception—Cover the bad dead face!Drinking, gambling and madness—Cover and bear it away—But what have we all forgotten at the dawn of the seventh day?These are the years of plenty—years when the “tanks” are full—Stacked by the lonely sidings mountains of wheat and wool.Country crowds to…