A Mountain Station
I bought a run a while ago, On country rough and ridgy, Where wallaroos and wombats grow The Upper Murrumbidgee. The grass is rather scant, it’s true, But this a fair exchange is, The
The Deficit Demon
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
The Ballad of G. R. Dibbs
This is the story of G. R. D., Who went on a mission across the sea To borrow some money for you and me. This G. R. Dibbs was a stalwart man Who was
Buffalo Country
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
The Dam that Keele Built
This is the dam that Keele built. This is the stream that brought the water to fill the dam that Keele built; This is the Water and Sewer Brigade, That measured the stream that
A Triolet
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 Story of Mongrel Grey
This is the story the stockman told On the cattle-camp, when the stars were bright; The moon rose up like a globe of gold And flooded the plain with her mellow light. We watched
Not On It
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
Mulga Bill's Bicycle
‘Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that caught the cycling craze; He turned away the good old horse that served him many days; He dressed himself in cycling clothes, resplendent to be seen; He hurried
Jimmy Dooley's Army
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
The City of Dreadful Thirst
The stranger came from Narromine and made his little joke “They say we folks in Narromine are narrow-minded folk. But all the smartest men down here are puzzled to define A kind of new
Song of the Future
‘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
The Hypnotist
A man once read with mind surprised Of the way that people were “hypnotised”; By waving hands you produced, forsooth, A kind of trance where men told the truth! His mind was filled with
High Explosive
‘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.
The Lung Fish
The Honorable Ardleigh Wyse Was every fisherman’s despair; He caught his fish on floating flies, In fact he caught them in the air, And wet-fly men good sports, perhaps He called “those chuck-and-chance-it chaps”.