Andrew Barton Paterson

Out in the grey cheerless chill of the morning light, Out on the track where the night shades still lurk, Ere the first gleam of the sungod’s returning light Round come the racehorses early

The sheep were shorn and the wool went down At the time of our local racing; And I’d earned a spell I was burnt and brown So I rolled my swag for a trip

In distant New Zealand, whose tresses of gold The billows are ceaselessly combing, Away in a village all tranquil and old I came on a market where porkers were sold A market for pigs

The actor struts his little hour, Between the limelight and the band; The public feel the actor’s power, Yet nothing do they understand Of all the touches here and there That make or mar

Oh, it’s dreadful to think in a country like this With its chances for work – and enjoyment That a man like McGuinness was certain to miss Whenever he tried for employment. He wrote

I ain’t a timid man at all, I’m just as brave as most, I’ll take my chance in open fight and die beside my post; But riding round the ‘ole day long as target

We buried old Bob where the bloodwoods wave At the foot of the Eaglehawk; We fashioned a cross on the old man’s grave For fear that his ghost might walk; We carved his name

The railway rattled and roared and swung With jolting and bumping trucks. The sun, like a billiard red ball, hung In the Western sky: and the tireless tongue Of the wild-eyed man in the

Our fathers, brave men were and strong, And whisky was their daily liquor; They used to move the world along In better style than now and quicker. Elections then were sport, you bet! A

Beside the bare and beaten track of travelling flocks and herds The woodpecker went tapping on, the postman of the birds, “I’ve got a letter here,” he said, “that no one’s understood, Addressed as

Morgan the drover explained, As he drank from his battered quart-pot, Many a slut I have trained; This is the best of the lot. Crossing these stringybark hills, Hungry and rocky and steep This

ALL of us play our very best game – Any other time. Golf or billiards, it’s all the same – Any other time. Lose a match and you always say, “Just my luck! I

‘Twas Saltbush Bill, with his travelling sheep, was making his way to town; He crossed them over the Hard Times Run, and he came to the Take ‘Em Down; He counted through at the

Oh, there’s some that breeds the Devon that’s as solid as a stone, And there’s some that breeds the brindle which they call the “Goulburn Roan”; But amongst the breeds of cattle there are

I dreamt a dream at the midnight deep, When fancies come and go To vex a man in his soothing sleep With thoughts of awful woe I dreamed that I was the corner man

The track that led to Carmody’s is choked and overgrown, The suckers of the stringybark have made the place their own; The mountain rains have cut the track that once we used to know

It came from the prison this morning, Close-twisted, neat-lettered, and flat; It lies the hall doorway adorning, A very good style of a mat. Prison-made! how the spirit is moven As we think of

“I’ll introduce a friend!” he said, “And if you’ve got a vacant pen You’d better take him in the shed And start him shearing straight ahead; He’s one of these here quiet men. “He

I thought, in the days of the droving, Of steps I might hope to retrace, To be done with the bush and the roving And settle once more in my place. With a heart

With never a sound of trumpet, With never a flag displayed, The last of the old campaigners Lined up for the last parade. Weary they were and battered, Shoeless, and knocked about; From under

Chris Watson, of the Parliament, By his Caucus Gods he swore That the great Labor Party Should suffer wrong no more. By his Caucus Gods he swore it, And named a trysting day, And

It was while we held our races Hurdles, sprints and steplechases Up in Dandaloo, That a crowd of Sydney stealers, Jockeys, pugilists and spielers Brought some horses, real heelers, Came and put us through.

It’s grand to be a squatter And sit upon a post, And watch your little ewes and lambs A-giving up the ghost. It’s grand to be a “cockie” With wife and kids to keep,

Now look, you see, it’s this way like, You cross the broken bridge And run the crick down till you strike The second right-hand ridge. The track is hard to see in parts, But

Now the new chum loaded his three-nought-three, It’s a small-bore gun, but his hopes were big. “I am fed to the teeth with old ewe,” said he, “And I might be able to shoot

There’s some that ride the Robbo style, and bump at every stride; While others sit a long way back, to get a longer ride. There’s some that ride as sailors do, with legs, and

There’s a sunny Southern land, And it’s there that I would be Where the big hills stand, In the South Countrie! When the wattles bloom again, Then it’s time for us to go To

I wooed her with a steeplechase, I won her with a fall, I made her heartstrings quiver on the flat When the pony missed his take-off, and we crached into the wall; Well, she

Another search for Leichhardt’s tomb, Though fifty years have fled Since Leichhardt vanished in the gloom, Our one Illustrious Dead! But daring men from Britain’s shore, The fearless bulldog breed, Renew the fearful task

Oh the airman’s game is a showman’s game, for we all of us watch him go With his roaring soaring aeroplane and his bombs for the blokes below, Over the railways and over the

It was the lunatic poet escaped from the local asylum, Loudly he twanged on his banjo and sang with his voice like a saw-mill, While as with fervour he sang there was borne o’er

Out where the grey streams glide, Sullen and deep and slow, And the alligators slide From the mud to the depths below Or drift on the stream like a floating death, Where the fever

Of all the sickly forms of verse, Commend me to the triolet. It makes bad writers somewhat worse: Of all the sickly forms of verse, That fall beneath a reader’s curse, It is the

The new chum’s polo pony was the smartest pony yet The owner backed it for the Cup for all that he could get. The books were laying fives to one, in tenners; and you

There’s a dashin’ sort of boy Which they call his Party’s Joy, And his smile-that-won’t-come-off would quite disarm ye; And he played the leadin’ hand In the Helter-Skelter Band, Known as Jimmy Dooley’s Circulating

‘Tis strange that in a land so strong So strong and bold in mighty youth, We have no poet’s voice of truth To sing for us a wondrous song. Our chiefest singer yet has

‘Twas the dingo pup to his dam that said, “It’s time I worked for my daily bread. Out in the world I intend to go, And you’d be surprised at the things I know.

They held a polo meeting at a little country town, And all the local sportsmen came to win themselves renown. There came two strangers with a horse, and I am much afraid They both

Oh! the circus swooped down On the Narrabri town, For the Narrabri populace moneyed are; And the showman he smiled At the folk he beguiled To come all the distance from Gunnedah. But a

Now this was what Macpherson told While waiting in the stand; A reckless rider, over-bold, The only man with hands to hold The rushing Rio Grande. He said, ‘This day I bid good-bye To

My Uncle Bill! My Uncle Bill! How doth my heart with anguish thrill! For he, our chief, our Robin Hood, Has gone to jail for stealing wood! With tears and sobs my voice I

Why, oh why was Kater lifted From the darkness, where he drifted All unknown, and raised to honour, Side by side with Dick O’connor, In the Council, free from row? Who is Kater, anyhow?

I ain’t the kind of bloke as takes to any steady job; I drives me bottle cart around the town; A bloke what keeps ‘is eyes about can always make a bob I couldn’t

The news came down on the Castlereagh, and went to the world at large, That twenty thousand travelling sheep, with Saltbush Bill in charge, Were drifting down from a dried-out run to ravage the

The Editor wrote his political screed In ink that was fainter and fainter; He rose to the call of his country’s need, And in spiderish characters wrote with speed, A column on “Cutting the

There came a stranger to Walgett town, To Walgett town when the sun was low, And he carried a thirst that was worth a crown, Yet how to quench it he did not know;

Into her presence he gaily pranced, A very fat spark, and a bit advanced. With a Samson tread on the earth he trod, He was stayed and gaitered, and fifty odd. And she was

To the voters of Glen Innes ’twas O’Sullivan that went, To secure the country vote for Mister Hay. So he told ’em what he’d borrowed, and he told ’em what he’d spent, Though extravagance

You see, the thing was this way there was me, That rode Panopply, the Splendor mare, And Ikey Chambers on the Iron Dook, And Smith, the half-caste rider on Regret, And that long bloke

‘TWAS to a small, up-country town, When we were boys at school, There came a circus with a clown, Likewise a bucking mule. The clown announced a scheme they had Spectators for to bring