Book: Verses Popular and Humorous

• The Captain of the Push

  As the night was falling slowly down on city, town and bush,
      From a slum in Jones's Alley sloped the Captain of the

  82 lines
• The Men We Might Have Been

  When God's wrath-cloud is o'er me,
          Affrighting heart and mind;

  34 lines
• The Song of the Darling River

  The skies are brass and the plains are bare,
      Death and ruin are everywhere —

  37 lines
• Years After the War In Australia

  The Big rough boys from the runs out back were first where the balls flew free,
  And yelled in the slang of the Outside Track: ‘By Go

  75 lines, 1 comment
• The Captain of the Push

  As the night was falling slowly down on city, town and bush,
      From a slum in Jones's Alley sloped the Captain of the

  82 lines
• The Men We Might Have Been

  When God's wrath-cloud is o'er me,
          Affrighting heart and mind;

  34 lines
• The Song of the Darling River

  The skies are brass and the plains are bare,
      Death and ruin are everywhere —

  37 lines
• The Star of Australasia

  We boast no more of our bloodless flag, that rose from a nation's slime;
  Better a shred of a deep-dyed rag from the storms of the o

  108 lines
• The Christ of the 'Never'

  With eyes that are narrowed to pierce
  To the awful horizons of land,

  36 lines, 1 comment
• The Lights of Cobb & Co.

  Fire lighted; on the table a meal for sleepy men;
  A lantern in the stable; a jingle now and then;

  52 lines, 1 comment
• The Old Jimmy Woodser

  The old Jimmy Woodser comes into the bar
  Unwelcomed, unnoticed, unknown,

  37 lines
• The Paroo

  It was a week from Christmas-time,
  As near as I remember,

  49 lines
• The Professional Wanderer

  When you’ve knocked about the country—been away from home for years;
  When the past, by distance softened, nearly fills your eyes wit

  21 lines
• How the Land was Won

  The future was dark and the past was dead
  As they gazed on the sea once more –

  64 lines
• Reedy River

  Ten miles down Reedy River
  A pool of water lies,

  64 lines
• The Grog-an'Grumble Steeplechase

  'Twixt the coastline and the border lay the town of Grog-an'-Grumble
  In the days before the bushman was a dull 'n' heartless drudge,

  48 lines, 1 comment
• The Old Bark School

  It was built of bark and poles, and the floor was full of holes
  Where each leak in rainy weather made a pool;

  44 lines
• The Ships that Won't Go Down

  We hear a great commotion
  'Bout the ship that comes to grief,

  32 lines
• The Dons of Spain

  The Eagle screams at the beck of trade, so Spain, as the world goes round,
  Must wrestle the right to live or die from the sons of the land she found;

  25 lines
• Saint Peter

  Now, I think there is a likeness 'twixt St Peter's life and mine
  For he did a lot of trampin' long ago in Palestine

  20 lines
• The Days when we went Swimming

  The breezes waved the silver grass,
    Waist-high along the siding,

  43 lines
• Song of the Old Bullock-Driver

  Far back in the days when the blacks used to ramble
      In long single file ’neath the evergreen tree,

  60 lines
• Antony Villa

  Over there, above the jetty, stands the mansion of the Vardens,
  With a tennis ground and terrace, and a flagstaff in the gardens:

  68 lines
• At the Tug-0-War

  ’Twas in a tug-of-war where I—the guvnor’s hope and pride—
  Stepped proudly on the platform as the ringer on my side;

  28 lines
• The Ballad of Mabel Clare

  Ye children of the Land of Gold,
      I sing a song to you,

  150 lines
• The Ballad of the Rousabout

  A Rouseabout of rouseabouts, from any land—or none—
  I bear a nick-name of the bush, and I’m—a woman’s son;

  67 lines
• The Battling Days

  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 pr

  27 lines
• Bill and Jim Fall Out

  Bill and Jim are mates no longer—they would scorn the name of mate—
  Those two bushmen hate each other with a soul-consuming hate;

  42 lines
• Billys 'Square Affair'

  Long Bill, the captain of the push, was tired of his estate,
  And wished to change his life and win the love of something ‘straight’;

  53 lines
• The Boss Over the Board

  When he’s over a rough and unpopular shed,
  With the sins of the bank and the men on his head;

  67 lines
• The Boss's Boots

  The Shearers squint along the pens, they squint along the ‘shoots;’
  The shearers squint along the board to catch the Boss’s boots;

  72 lines
• The Bursting of the Boom

  The shipping-office clerks are ‘short,’ the manager is gruff—
  ‘They cannot make reductions,’ and ‘the fares are low enough.’

  67 lines
• The Cattle-Dog's Death

  The Plains lay bare on the homeward route,
  And the march was heavy on man and brute;

  43 lines, 2 comments
• Constable M‘Carty’s Investigations

  Most unpleasantly adjacent to the haunts of lower orders
      Stood a ‘terrace’ in the city when the current year began,

  115 lines
• A Derry on a Cove

  ’Twas in the felon’s dock he stood, his eyes were black and blue;
  His voice with grief was broken, and his nose was broken, too;

  17 lines
• Foreign Lands

  You may roam the wide seas over, follow, meet, and cross the sun,
  Sail as far as ships can sail, and travel far as trains can run;

  47 lines
• The God-Forgotten Election

  PAT M‘DURMER brought the tidings to the town of God-Forgotten :
  ‘There are lively days before ye—commin Parlymint’s dissolved!’

  64 lines
• The Green-Hand Rouseabout

  Call this hot? I beg your pardon. Hot!—you don’t know what it means.
  (What’s that, waiter? lamb or mutton! Thank you—mine is beef an

  53 lines
• Here's Luck

  Old Time is tramping close to-day—you hear his bluchers fall,
  A mighty change is on the way, an’ God protect us all;

  37 lines
• The Jolly Dead March

  If I ever be worthy or famous—
      Which I’m sadly beginning to doubt—

  81 lines
• A Little Mistake

  ’Tis a yarn I heard of a new-chum ‘trap’
      On the edge of the Never-Never,

  62 lines
• The Man from Waterloo (With kind Regards to Banjo)

  It was  the Man from Waterloo,
      When work in town was slack,

  76 lines, 2 comments
• Mary Called Him 'Mister'

  They'd parted but a year before—she never thought he’d come,
  She stammer’d, blushed, held out her hand, and called him ‘Mister Gum.’

  32 lines
• Mary Lemaine

  Jim Duff was a ‘native,’as wild as could be;
  A stealer and duffer of cattle was he,

  46 lines
• A May Night on the Mountains

  ’Tis a wonderful time when these hours begin,
      These long ‘small hours’ of night,

  33 lines
• The Men Who Come Behind

  There's a class of men (and women) who are always on their guard—
  Cunning, treacherous, suspicious—feeling softly—grasping hard—

  37 lines
• My Literary Friend

  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,

  23 lines, 1 comment
• The New Chum Jackeroo

  Let bushmen think as bushmen will,
      And say whate’er they choose,

  52 lines, 1 comment
• O'Hara, J.P.

  James Patrick O'Hara the Justice of Peace,
  He bossed the P.M. and he bossed the police;

  89 lines
• Old Stone Chimney

  The rising  moon on the peaks was blending
      Her silver light with the sunset glow,

  96 lines
• The Outside Track

  There were ten of us there on the moonlit quay,
      And one on the for’ard hatch;

  43 lines, 10 comments
• The Ports of the Open Sea

  Down here where the ships loom large in
      The gloom when the sea-storms veer,

  78 lines
• Rain in the Mountains

  The Valley's full of misty cloud,
      Its tinted beauty drowning,

  17 lines
• Rejected

  She says she’s very sorry, as she sees you to the gate;
      You calmly say ‘Good-bye’ to her while standing off a yard,

  52 lines
• Rise Ye! Rise Ye!

  Rise Ye! rise ye! noble toilers! claim your rights with fire and steel!
  Rise ye! for the cursed tyrants crush ye with the hiron ’eel

  29 lines
• The Rovers

  Some born of homely parents
      For ages settled down—

  105 lines
• The Shakedown on the Floor

  Set me back for twenty summers—
      For I’m tired of cities now—

  69 lines
• The Stranger's Friend

  The strangest things and the maddest things, that a man can do or say,
  To the chaps and fellers and coves Out Back are matters of ev

  47 lines
• A Study in the 'Nood'

  He  was bare—we don’t want to be rude—
      (His condition was owing to drink)

  41 lines, 1 comment
• Sydney-Side

  Where's the steward?—Bar-room steward? Berth? Oh, any berth will do—
  I have left a three-pound billet just to come along with you.

  37 lines
• The Three Kings [1]

  The  East is dead and the West is done, and again our course lies thus
  South-east by Fate and the Rising Sun where the Three Ki

  27 lines
• Trouble on the Selection

  You lazy boy, you’re here at last,
      You must be wooden-legged;

  33 lines
• The Uncultured Rhymer To His Cultured Critics

  Fight through ignorance, want, and care —
      Through the griefs that crush the spirit;

  42 lines
• The Way of the World

  When fairer faces turn from me,
      And gayer friends grow cold,

  24 lines
• The Writer's Dream

  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 thi

  94 lines
• Written Afterwards

  So the days of my tramping are over,
      And the days of my riding are done—

  60 lines
• A Word to Texas Jack

  Texas Jack, you are amusin’. By Lord Harry, how I laughed
  When I seen yer rig and saddle with its bulwarks fore-and-aft;

  70 lines
• When the Ladies Come to the Shearing Shed

  ‘THE LADIES are coming,’ the super says
      To the shearers sweltering there,

  61 lines

• By me, right now

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