Words: Henry Lawson Tune: Traditional (The Wearing of the Green)
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
He was 'union' when the workers first began to organize
And I'm glad that old St Peter keeps the gate of Paradise
When the ancient agitator and his brothers carried swags
I've no doubt he very often tramped with empty tucker-bags
And I'm glad he's Heaven's picket, for I hate explainin' things
And he'll think a union ticket just as good as Whitely King's
When I reach the great head-station which is somewhere 'off the track'
I won't want to talk with angels who have never been out back
They might bother me with offers of a banjo meanin' well
And a pair of wings to fly with, when I only want a spell
I'll just ask for old St Peter, and I think, when he appears
I will only have to tell him that I carried swag for years
'I've been on the track,' I'll tell him, 'an' I done the best I could'
And he'll understand me better than the other angels would
He won't try to get a chorus out of lungs that's worn to rags
Or to graft the wings on shoulders that is stiff with humpin' swags
But I'll rest about the station where the work-bell never rings
Till they blow the final trumpet and the Great Judge sees to things
Words: Henry Lawson Tune: Traditional (The Mudgee Waltz)
On a lonely selection far out in the West
An old woman works all the day without rest,
And she croons, as she toils 'neath the sky's glassy dome,
`Sure I'll keep the ould place till the childer come home.'
She mends all the fences, she grubs, and she ploughs,
She drives the old horse and she milks all the cows,
And she sings to herself as she thatches the stack,
`Sure I'll keep the ould place till the childer come back.'
It is five weary years since her old husband died;
And oft as he lay on his deathbed he sighed
`Sure one man can bring up ten children, he can,
An' it's strange that ten sons cannot keep one old man.'
Whenever the scowling old sundowners come,
And cunningly ask if the master's at home,
`Be off,' she replies, `with your blarney and cant,
Or I'll call my son Andy; he's workin' beyant.'
`Git out,' she replies, though she trembles with fear,
For she lives all alone and no neighbours are near;
But she says to herself, when she's like to despond,
That the boys are at work in the paddock beyond.
Ah, none of her children need follow the plough,
And some have grown rich in the city ere now;
Yet she says: `They might come when the shearing is done,
And I'll keep the ould place if it's only for one.'
This poem was combined with this tune by Mike Jackson in 1980 with a slight re-arrangement of the words. I've reverted to the original arrangement of the words but I believe the combination worth well.
The illustration to this post is Russell Drysdale's 1945 painting, The Drover's Wife.
Words: Henry Lawson Tune: Traditional (The Girl I Left Behind)
Twas merry when the hut was full of jolly girls and fellows, We danced and sang until we burst the concertina's bellows. From distant Darling to the sea; from the Downs to Riverina, Has e'er a gum in all the West not heard the concertina?
'Twas peaceful round the campfire blaze, the long white branches o'er us; We'd play the tunes of bygone days, to some good old bush chorus. Old Erin's harp may sweeter be, the Scottish pipes blow keener; But sing an old bush song for me to the good old concertina.
'Twas cosy by the hut-fire bright when the pint pot passed between us; We drowned the voice of the stormy night with the good old concertina's. Though trouble drifts along the years, and the pangs of care grow keener, My heart is gladdened when I hear that good old concertina.
Recorded with Wheatstone treble and baritone English-system concertinas.
A lonely young wife
In her dreaming discerns
A lily-decked pool
With a border of ferns,
And a beautiful child,
With butterfly wings,
Trips down to the edge of the water and sings:
‘Come, mamma! come!
‘Quick! follow me—
‘Step out on the leaves of the water-lily!’
And the lonely young wife,
Her heart beating wild,
Cries, ‘Wait till I come,
‘Till I reach you, my child!’
But the beautiful child
With butterfly wings
Steps out on the leaves of the lily and sings:
‘Come, mamma! come!
‘Quick! follow me!
‘And step on the leaves of the water-lily!
And the wife in her dreaming
Steps out on the stream,
But the lily leaves sink
And she wakes from her dream.
Ah, the waking is sad,
For the tears that it brings,
And she knows ’tis her dead baby’s spirit that sings:
‘Come, mamma! come!
‘Quick! follow me!
‘Step out on the leaves of the water-lily!’
Notes from: The Songs of Henry Lawson (2nd Ed) by Chris Kempster. Published with the following note:
This poem was first published in Lawson's mother's monthly journal, "The Dawn" with the line, "Suggested to the writer by a curious dream related to the writer by a lady friend". In Lawson's imagination, the child had butterfly wings.
/>Words: Henry Lawson Tune: Traditional (At the Close of an Irish Day)
Our fathers toiled for bitter bread while loafers thrived beside them But food to eat and clothes to wear their native land denied them And so they left their native land in spite of their devotion And so they came or if they stole were sent across the ocean
Our fathers toiled to make a home hard grubbing twas and clearing They wasn't troubled much by lords when they was pioneering But now that we have made the land a garden full of promise Old Greed must crook his dirty hand and come and take it from us
So we must fly a rebel flag as others did before us And we must sing a rebel song and join in rebel chorus We'll make the tyrants feel the sting of those that they would throttle They needn't say the fault is ours if blood should stain the wattle
Australia's a big country an' Freedom's humping bluey An' Freedom's on the Wallaby Oh dont you hear her cooey She's just begun to boomerang she'll knock the tyrants silly She's going to light another fire and boil another billy
Once Freedom couldn't stand the glare of Royalty's regalia She left the loafers where they were and came out to Australia But now across the mighty main the eagle comes to bind us We never thought we'd see again the wrongs we left behind us.
An edited version of Henry Lawson's famous commentary on the 1891 shearers' strike, set to a traditional Irish tune, At the Close of an Irish Day.
Words: Henry Lawson Tune: Unknown (Dave de Hugard?)
The tent poles are rotten and the campfire’s dead And the possums may ramble in the trees overhead I’m humping my bluey far out in the land And the prints of my bluchers sink deep in the sand I am out on the wallaby humping my drum And I come down the road where the sundowners come
It is nor’west by west o’er ridges and far To the plains where the cattle and sheep stations are With the sky for my roof and the earth for my bunk And a calico bag for my damper and my junk And scarcely a comrade my memory reveals The spirit still tingles in my toe and my heels
When my tent is all torn and my blankets are damp And the fast rising waters flow down by the camp And the cold water rises in jets from the floor I lie in my bunk and listen to it roar And I think of tomorrow how my footsteps will lag As I tramp ‘neath the weight of a rain sodden swag
But I think of the honest old light in my home When the stars hang in clusters like lamps in a dome And I think of the hearth where the dark shadows fall And the campfire I build in the wildest place of all But I’m following my fate for I know she knows best I follow she leads and it’s nor’west by west
Though the way of a swagman is mostly uphill There are joys to be found on the wallaby still When the day has gone by with its tramp and its toil Your campfire you build and the billy you can boil There’s comfort and peace in the bowl of you clay Or the yarn of a mate who is tramping that way
But beware of the city where it’s poison for years In the pleasure you find in drinking long beers Where a bushman gets bushed in the streets of the town Where he loses his friends when his cheques are knocked down He’s right ‘til his pocket is empty and then He must waltz his old bluey up the country again
From Dave De Hugard's 1970 album, Freedom on the Wallaby. The words are a slight variation on the original by Lawson (See the Mudcat discussion on this topic here).
O I dreamt I shore in a shearing shed and it was a dream of joy
For every one of the rouseabouts was a girl dressed up as a boy
Dressed up like a page in a pantomime the prettiest ever seen
They had flaxen hair they had coal black hair and every shade between
CHORUS:
There was short plump girls there was tall slim girls and the handsomest ever seen
They was four foot five they was six foot high and every shade between
The shed was cooled by electric fans that was over every shoot
The pens was of polished mahogany and everything else to suit
The huts had springs to the mattresses and the tucker was simply grand
And every night by the billabong we danced to a German band
Our pay was the wool on the jumbucks' backs so we shore till all was blue
The sheep was washed afore they was shore and the rams were scented too
And we all of us cried when the shed cut out in spite of the long hot days
For every hour them girls waltzed in with whisky and beer on trays
There was three of them girls to every chap and as jealous as they could be
There was three of them girls to every chap and six of them picked on me
We was drafting them out for the homeward track and sharing them round like steam
When I woke with my head in the blazing sun to find it a shearer's dream
From the "Old Bush Songs" album. (This link has some brief biographical notes on AL Lloyd as well).
The origins of this one are a little uncertain. This note is from the Mainly Norfolk site:
This song was first published in Children of the Bush in 1902. It is usually attributed to Henry Lawson and appears in most collections of the poet, however when John Meredith collected a version from Charles Ayger in 1957, he claimed to have heard it at school when Lawson would have been about nineteen. The tune is from A.L. Lloyd, who based it on The Girl I Left Behind.
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 grow, And they say I must write with a halting pen Do you think that I do not know?
When the love-burst came, like an English Spring, In days when our hair was brown, And the hem of her skirt was a sacred thing And her hair was an angel's crown. The shock when another man touched her arm, Where the dancers sat round in a row; The hope and despair, and the false alarm Do you think that I do not know?
By the arbour lights on the western farms, You remember the question put, While you held her warm in your quivering arms And you trembled from head to foot. The electric shock from her finger tips, And the murmuring answer low, The soft, shy yielding of warm red lips Do you think that I do not know?
She was buried at Brighton, where Gordon sleeps, When I was a world away; And the sad old garden its secret keeps, For nobody knows to-day. She left a message for me to read, Where the wild wide oceans flow; Do you know how the heart of a man can bleed Do you think that I do not know?
I stood by the grave where the dead girl lies, When the sunlit scenes were fair, And the white clouds high in the autumn skies, And I answered the message there. But the haunting words of the dead to me Shall go wherever I go. She lives in the Marriage that Might Have Been Do you think that I do not know?
They sneer or scoff, and they pray or groan, And the false friend plays his part. Do you think that the blackguard who drinks alone Knows aught of a pure girl's heart? Knows aught of the first pure love of a boy With his warm young blood aglow, Knows aught of the thrill of the world-old joy Do you think that I do not know?
They say that I never have written of love, They say that my heart is such That finer feelings are far above; But a writer may know too much. There are darkest depths in the brightest nights, When the clustering stars hang low; There are things it would break his strong heart to write Do you think that I do not know?
From Skyline Riders and Other Verses
TO MY FRIENDS
THESE are songs of the Friends I neglected-- And the Foes, too, in part; These are songs that were mostly rejected-- But songs from my heart.
Yours truly, HENRY LAWSON. Sydney, 19/9/'10.
You will find the book reproduced (including the excellent introduction) at Project Gutenberg.
Ten miles down Reedy River, a pool of water lies
And all the year 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, o'er countless rocky bars
Around the lower edges, there waves a bed of reeds
Where water rats are hidden and where the wild duck breeds
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 sheoaks cool
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 sheoaks 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
I pleaded for our future all through that moonlight ride
Until our weary horses drew closer side by side
Ten miles from Ryan's Crossing and five below the peak
I built a little homestead on the banks of Rocky Creek
I cleared the land and fenced it, and ploughed the rich, red loam
And my first crop was golden when I brought my Mary home
Now still down Reedy River, the grassy sheoaks sigh
The water-holes still mirror the pictures in the sky
The golden sand is drifting across the rocky bars
And over all for ever go sun and moon and stars
But of the hut I builded, there are no traces now
And many rains have levelled the furrows of my plough
The glad, bright days have vanished, for sombre branches wave
Their wattle blossom golden above my Mary's grave
Australia's first folk musical Reedy River premiered in Melbourne in 1953. The libretto, based on an historical event, the 1891 shearer's strike, was written by Dick Diamond with songs chosen by John Gray. Two new songs were written for the musical by Diamond with music by Miles Maxwell. Reedy River was inspired by the Australian traditional and folk music being collected by John Meredith, George Farwell, Vance Palmer, Margaret Sutherland and John Gray. Folk songs featured in the musical included the Ballad of '91, Eumeralla Shore and a musical version of the Henry Lawson poem Reedy River. A number of the folk songs performed were collected by John Meredith and the music to the poem Reedy River was composed by sixteen-year-old Chris Kempster, both members of Australia's first bush band, The Bushwhackers.
Reedy River, with music played by a small orchestra conducted by Miles Maxwell, was first produced by the Melbourne New Theatre on 11 March 1953, directed by John Gray. On the 5 December 1953 the musical was revived by the Sydney New Theatre with the orchestra replaced by The Bushwhackers. The band played improvised bush instruments like the bush bass (or tea-chest bass) and the lagerphone (or Murrumbidgee River Rattler) and folk instruments such as the button or "bush" accordion, mouth organ and the tin whistle, introducing these instruments to a wide audience for the first time.
The musical became enormously popular due to its uniquely Australian content, its then novel use of Australian traditional and folk songs and its affirmation of Australian bush culture and tradition. The Sydney season and the subsequent tour of NSW was seen by over 100 000 people and launched The Bushwhackers as a band. The production's popularity is regarded as the catalyst for the Australian folk music revival of the 1950s and the inspiration for generations of folklorists and folklore collectors.
Now up and down the siding brown
The great black crows are flyin',
And down below the spur, I know,
Another `milker's' dyin';
The crops have withered from the ground,
The tank's clay bed is glarin',
But from my heart no tear nor sound,
For I have gone past carin' —
Past worryin' or carin',
Past feelin' aught or carin';
But from my heart no tear nor sound,
For I have gone past carin'.
Through Death and Trouble, turn about,
Through hopeless desolation,
Through flood and fever, fire and drought,
And slavery and starvation;
Through childbirth, sickness, hurt, and blight,
And nervousness an' scarin',
Through bein' left alone at night,
I've got to be past carin'.
Past botherin' or carin',
Past feelin' and past carin';
Through city cheats and neighbours' spite,
I've come to be past carin'.
Our first child took, in days like these,
A cruel week in dyin',
All day upon her father's knees,
Or on my poor breast lyin';
The tears we shed — the prayers we said
Were awful, wild — despairin'!
I've pulled three through, and buried two
Since then — and I'm past carin'.
I've grown to be past carin',
Past worryin' and wearin';
I've pulled three through and buried two
Since then, and I'm past carin'.
'Twas ten years first, then came the worst,
All for a dusty clearin',
I thought, I thought my heart would burst
When first my man went shearin';
He's drovin' in the great North-west,
I don't know how he's farin';
For I, the one that loved him best,
Have grown to be past carin'.
I've grown to be past carin'
Past lookin' for or carin';
The girl that waited long ago,
Has lived to be past carin'.
My eyes are dry, I cannot cry,
I've got no heart for breakin',
But where it was in days gone by,
A dull and empty achin'.
My last boy ran away from me,
I know my temper's wearin',
But now I only wish to be
Beyond all signs of carin'.
Past wearyin' or carin',
Past feelin' and despairin';
And now I only wish to be
Beyond all signs of carin'.
I first heard this song in the mid-80's being performed by Lonnie Martin as part of the La Boite production of The Kelly Dance, a play by John Romeril, in Brisbane.
The words were first published in the Australian Magazine, Sydney, 30th May, 1899.
While at first I was unclear as to the origin of the tune (mistakenly believing like many others that it originated from either Mara Keik or Phyl Lobl) the writer of the tune has been in touch. Steve Ashley wrote this tune for the Bushwackers after they met up in Rotterdam back in the late seventies, along with three other Lawson settings (Freedom On The Wallaby, Old Joe Swallow and Faces In The Street), all of which can be found in the Second Bushwackers Songbook.
