Henry Lawson

The short hour's halt is ended,
The red gone from the west,
The broken wheel is mended,
And the dead men laid to rest

The world is narrow and ways are short, and our lives are dull and slow,
For little is new where the crowds resort, and less where the wanderers go;
Greater, or smaller, the same old things we see by the dull road-side — And tired of all...

They lie, the men who tell us in a loud decisive tone That want is here a stranger, and that misery's unknown;
For where the nearest suburb and the city proper meet My window-sill is level with the faces in the street — Drifting past, driftin...

They say that I never have written of love,
As a writer of songs should do;
They say that I never could touch the strings With a touch that is firm and true;
They say I know nothing of women and men In the fields where Love's roses ...

The old year went, and the new returned, in the withering weeks of drought,
The cheque 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 ...

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 se...

I
TE this grinding poverty— To toil, and pinch, and borrow,
And be for ever haunted by The spectre of to-morrow
It breaks the strong heart of a man, It crushes out his spirit—Do what he will, do what he can, However high his merit...