Recently in Poets and Writers Category

The lizard leans in to October,
   He walks on the yellow and green;
The world is awake and unsober,
   It knows where the lovers have been.
The wind, like a faint violoncello,
   Comes up and commands him to sing:
He says to me, "Courage, good fellow!
We live by the folly of Spring!"

A fish that the sea cannot swallow,
   A bird that can never yet rise,
A dreamer no dreamer can follow,
   The snake is at home in his eyes.
He tells me the paramount Treason;
   His words have the resolute ring;
"Away with the homage to Reason!
   We live by the folly of Spring!"

The leaves are about him; the berry
   Is close in the red and the green.
His eyes are too old to be merry,
   He knows where the lovers have been.
And yet he could never be bitter;
   He tells me no sorrowful thing:
"The Autumn is less than a twitter!
   We live by the folly of Spring!"

As green as the light on a salad,
   He leans in the shade of a tree;
He has the good breath of a Ballad,
   The strength that is down in the sea.
How silent he creeps in the yellow --
   How silent! and yet can he sing:
He gives me, "Good morning, good fellow!
   We live by the folly of Spring!"

I scent the alarm of the faded
   Who love not the light and the play;
I hear the assault of the jaded,
   I hear the intolerant bray.
My friend has the face of the wizard;
   He tells me no desolate thing:
"I learn from the heart of the lizard,
   We live by the folly of Spring!"

First published in Aussie, 14 March 1931;
and later in
An Introduction to Australian Literature edited by C. D. Narasimhaiah, 1965;
Cross-Country: A Book of Australian Verse edited by John Barnes, 1984;
My Country: Australian poetry and Short Stories, Two Hundred Years edited by Leonie Kramer, 1985;
Two Centuries of Australian Poetry edited by Mark O'Connor, 1988;
An Anthology of Australian Poetry edited by C. D. Narasimhaiah, 1990;
John Shaw Neilson: Poetry, Autobiography and Correspondence edited by Cliff Hanna, 1991;
Selected Poems edited by Robert Gray, 1993; and
Hell and After: Four Early English Language Poets of Australia edited by Les Murray, 2005.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library

See also.

Like my friend the Sword, I am fond of a drink,
   And am intimate with the bottle,
But the tipple is never red blood, but ink,
   Wherewith I moisten my throttle.
That the Sword is a mighty power I know,
   Yet methinks I am more than its match.
For that which requires from the Sword a blow
   I do with a quiet scratch.

That the Sword has travelled the wide world round
   I am quite prepared to own,
But let me ask has it ever found
   A spot where the Pen's unknown?
My faith! though the Sword in times past schooled
   The various breeds of men,
To-day the affairs of the world are ruled
   As much by the peaceful Pen.

Majestic indeed is the ship of steel
   As it ploughs the billowy seas,
But the sailor in charge of the steering wheel
   Can demolish it should he please.
Of the engine's strength we are often told
   With its ponderous driving gear,
But its giant forces are all controlled
   By the hand of the engineer.

I do not flash in the sun's bright ray,
   'Midst the shouting of armed men.
Yet none the less must the Sword give way
   To the mightier power of the Pen.
Yet which of us two has the greatest might
   Let men for themselves decide:
'Tis the role of the Sword to drive and smite,
   'Tis that of the Pen to guide.

First published in Melbourne Punch, 14 November 1907

Author: Allan Fullerton Wilson (1857-1917) was born in Glasgow, Scotland and arrived in Australia around 1861.  Wilson was educated in Geelong and Melbourne, and worked for his father before moving to rural Queensland and New South Wales to work on the land. He eventually returned to Geelong where he died in 1917.

Author reference site: Austlit

The Mecca of Bohemian men
Was Archibald's untidy den.
Firm-footed near the portals there
Uprose, as now, a spacious stair
That carried nearer to the sky
Their inky hopes in days forebye.

This ladder to Parnassus, they
Expectant climbed - as still one may.
Oft-times upon its steps appeared
The wiry brush of Daley's beard,
Of Henry Lawson's drooped moustache
Would upward glide and downward dash.

Betimes - a gem his pocket in -
Meandered upward Ronald Quinn,
Or Bayldon bore a sonnet new,
Or Broomfield occupied the view
Insistent, in a manner vain,
On making passes with his cane.

These might encounter on the way
The "Banjo" glum, or Hugh McCrae
Or Souter with a leering cat
Or Bedford in a Queensland hat;
And other penmen debonair
Familiar with that famous stair.

The Red Tressed Maiden, all aglow,
And Clancy of the Overflow
And Dad and Dave, in company
With Ginger Mick and Jock MacFee,
From time to time, in singles, pairs,
By hand or post went up those stairs!

Awaiting by McMahon's door
For silver, little, less, or more,
Met jesting genius to abuse
The landlords and the lending Jews.
Anon with cash in hand such drear
Considerations - drowned in beer -

Would pass as pass the clouds of morn;
And from their ready wits, reborn
As from a fount in Arcady,
Would flow fair dreams of Days-to-Be,
When, in this Southland, shore to shore,
Art was enthroned for evermore.

That noble vision yet I hold
More precious is than all the gold
That men have dug from southern earth.
In loyal hearts it had its birth;
In loyal minds it will become
A trumpet-note, a calling drum

To lead this nation onward, and
To glorify and grace the land.
And through that fellowship may ne'er,
As then it was, re-climb the Stair
Its voices echo down the years -
The voices of the pioneers!

First published in The Bulletin, 13 November 1946, and again in the same magazine on 1 February 1950.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library

See also.

They lie in casual heaps, these lorn, lost books,
   Love lyrics, thrilling tale, historic tome,
Where none but heedless hands and scornful looks
   Take notice of their last neglected home.
A soulless publisher has marked them down
To sixpence each, or eight for half a crown.

"Remainders" now, they have outlived their time,
   Their publisher has cast them out of sight,
Not spareth he the gentle poet's rhyme,
   Nor funny narratives some authors write.
He throws them to the wide, wide world, and eke
The nursemaid's novellete and sage critique.

Here lies "Lord Rudolph's Secret love," and here
   "If Maids but Knew," a passionate romance
That drew from fair frail flappers many a tear,
   Tossed in with Coffyn's "Sermon's," just by chance.
"Roses of Rapture" and "In Chloe's Day"
(Such daring books!) have gone the self-same way.

Here is a name, the pride of yesterday,
   A hundred thousand readers was his score;
His masterpiece, now marked a modest tray,
   None but a passing straggler glances o'er.
Best sellers, like poor blokes without a name,
They drop into the basket just the same.

They lie, poor books, neglected, put to rest,
   "Remainders," now scarce able to entice,
Though lauded loudly as the last and best.
   Reluctant purchasers to risk the price.
This is the end of every author's stocks,
Oblivion in a little dusty box.

First published in The Bulletin, 20 August 1925

Author: Thomas Louis Buvelot Esson (1878-1943) was born in Leith Scotland, and arrived in Australia in 1881.  He studied arts at the University of Melbourne but left Australia in 1904.  He returned in 1906, enthusiastic about drama.  Esson published some poems during his life but was best known for his theatrical works - the annual Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Drama is named after him. He moved to Sydney in the 1930s and died there in 1943.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library

Oh bury me in books when I am dead,
   Fair quarto leaves of ivory and gold,
And silk octavos bound in brown and red,
   That tales of love and chivalry unfold.

Heap me in volumes of fine vellum wrought,
   Creamed with the close content of silent speech.
Wrap me in sapphire tapestries of thought
   From some old epic out of common reach.

I would my shroud were verse-embroidered too --
   Your verse for preference, in starry stitch,
And powdered o'er with rhymes that poets woo,
   Breathing dream-lyrics in moon-measures rich.

Night holds me with a horror of the grave
   That knows not poetry, nor song, nor you;
Nor leaves of love that down the ages wave
   Romance and fire in burnished cloths of blue.

Oh bury me in books, and I'll not mind
   The cold, slow worms that coil around my head;
Since my lone soul may turn the page and find
   The lines you wrote to me, when I am dead.

First published in The Bulletin, 1 March 1917

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Old Qld Poetry

See also.

We sit all day, my mate and I,
   With wan eyes fixed on proof and screed,
While all the world goes streaming by,
   In mad procession as we read.

With wan eyes fixed on proof and screed,
   Ah, who would guess the things we see
In mad procession, as we read
   From morn till night, unceasingly?

Ah, who would guess the things we see!
   The lives and loves of all the earth,
From morn till night, unceasingly -
   Their tragedies and dreams and mirth!

The lives and loves of all the earth,
   We murmur in a lifeless drone,
Their tragedies and dreams and mirth
   Are tempered in a monotone.

We murmur in a lifeless drone,
   The throbbing lynotypes below
Are tempered to a monotone;
   The copy boys run to and fro.

The throbbing lynotypes below
   With us are neither sad nor gay;
The copy boys run to and fro,
   My mate and I no haste display.

With us are neither sad nor gay
   The deeds of men and clowns and kings;
My mate and I no haste display
   Though the world laughs or weeps or sings.

The deeds of men and clowns and kings
   (Through dreams and hopes and fears disproved,
Though the world laughs or weeps or sings)
   We watch with weary eyes unmoved.

Through dreams and hopes and fears disproved
   We sit all day, my mate and I:
We watch with weary eyes, unmoved,
   While all the world goes streaming by.

First published in The Bulletin, 25 February 1915

Author:  Madoline (Nina) Murdoch (1890-1976) was born in Carlton in Melbourne before moving with her family to Sydney when she was young.  She was educated at Sydney Girls' High School and began writing poetry there before marrying James Duncan Mackay Brown and moving back to Melbourne.  She began work on The Sun-News Pictorial before being retrenched during the Depression.  She travelled through Europe in the 1920s and 30s and wrote a number of travel books which were very well received.  Work at ABC radio saw her begin the famous Argonauts Club for children but her writing output slowed as she was forced to nurse her sick mother and husband.  Nina Murdoch died in Melbourne in 1976.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography

See also.

I've sung of ladies dark and fair,
   Of blue, and black and hazel eyes;
Of golden, brown and raven hair;
   Of maidens simple, maidens wise;
   Of small, slim dames, and dames who rise
To manly heights: the thin and stout.
   Now, Muse, what more can you devise --
What is there left to rhyme about?

I've rhymed of happy lovers where
   The wind-blown, golden blossom flies;
I've told of fierce-eyed loves who share
   A passion for some wild emprise;
   I've sung of love that shrewdly lies
And love that has no kind of doubt;
   Of love that blights or sanctifies --
What is there left to rhyme about?

Too oft in writing here and there
   A tender song did I devise
Of lovers in a rosy lair,
   Where vengeance came in grimmest guise.
   Of loves who weep and agonise,
Of loves who jubilantly shout
   Their joyance to the smiling skies --
What is there left to rhyme about?

ENVOY.

Erato, give thy slave a prize --
   New views of love a bard may spout:
Of love that lives or love that dies --
   What is there left to rhyme about?

First published in The Bulletin, 17 February 1921

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library

See also.

I long for the streets but the Lord knoweth best,
   For there I am never a saint;
There are lovable characters out in the West,
   with humour heroic and quaint;
And, be it Up Country, or be it Out Back,
   When I shall have gone to my Home,
I trust to be buried 'twixt River and Track
   Where my lovable characters roam.
 
There are lovable characters drag through the scrub,
   Where the Optimist ever prevails;
There are lovable characters hang round the pub,
   There are lovable jokers at sales
Where the auctioneer's one of the lovable wags
   (Maybe from his "order" estranged),
And the beer is on tap, and the pigs in the bags
  Of the purchasing cockies are changed.

There are lovable characters out in the West,
   Of fifty hot summers, or more,
Who could not be proved, when it came to the test,
   Too old to be sent to the war;
They were all forty-five and were orphans, they said,
   With no one to keep them, or keep;
And mostly in France, with the world's bravest dead,
   Those lovable characters sleep.

I long for the streets but the Lord knoweth best,
   For there I am never a saint;
There are lovable characters out in the West,
   with humour heroic and quaint;
And, be it Up Country, or be it Out Back,
   When I shall have gone to my Home,
I trust to be buried 'twixt River and Track
   Where my lovable characters roam.

First published in The Bulletin, 8 February 1917 ;
and later in
A Fantasy of Man: Henry Lawson Complete Works 1901-22 edited by Leonard Cronin, 1984

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library, The Poetry of Henry Lawson website

See also.

Great God be thank'd, that there are men like thee,
Who ever rise, in sovereignty of mind,
Lifting against the oppressors of our kind
The voice of genius, -- still most sovereignly,
When boldest waxeth their arch-villainy,
Who, with the tyrant's purpose, are combined;
I thank Almighty God, who intertwined
Justice and truth with man's nobility,
For such as thou, true poet! Nothing can
Enhance the gusts of joyance now that thrills me,
In knowing how thy heart beats in this cause;
Or what I owe thy kindness, Halloran,
Would mingle in the feeling which so fills me
With happy thankfulness, and pure applause.

First published in The Australasian Chronicle, 24 January 1843;
and later in
The Empire, 12 April 1851;
Murmurs of the Stream by Henry Parkes, 1857; and
The Bulletin, 17 December 1881.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library

See also.

[Note: you can read Henry Halloran's original sonnet here.]

How we wish the clever writers
   Of our prose and of our verse
For their characters would take a wider range!
There are some which keep recurring
   Like a decimal -- we curse
Their recurrence, and we're aching for a change.

We are weary of the legend
   Where the sergeant of police
Loves the fascinating sister of a "crook,"
And condones a lot of felonies
   And breaches of the peace,
And won't prosecute when cattle have been "shook."

People say, "It's so Australian!"
   And some similar event
May have happened long ago as in the tale,
But police are not romantic
   Now - at least to that extent -
And the "crooks" they cop are handed to the gaol.

There's the big, gum-booted digger --
   Crimson-shirted, with the sash
Which he wore when Ballarat first played the game.
And he's nearly always doing
   Something venturesome and rash
When he isn't "slinging mullock" in his claim.

All the writers since the "'fifties"
   Have delighted in this type,
Who is always big and masterful and flash.
And, whatever he is doing --
   Diggin' - dancin' - stewin' tripe -
Why, he always wears the shirt and boots and sash.

There's the beauteous bush maiden --
   Though her father keeps a pub,
In the local estimation she is IT! --
And she rides unbroken "brumbies"
   Through impenetrable scrub,
An exasperating female, you'll admit.

She is cultured and accomplished,
   And with virtue she's supplied
In accordance with a lavish kind of scale.
So, when tempted by the squatter,
   She prefers to be the bride
Of a humble chap who runs the local mail.

Ah! these types are too familiar,
   They disturb our peace of mind;
But the one which makes us actually ill,
Is that weird, elusive bushman --
   He's in every tale you'll find
And he bears the simple sobriquet of "Bill."

The great prevalence of William
   Makes our indignation boil --
Every reader of Australian fiction knows
How he praces through the poems
   Which are "racy of the soil,"
While he positively permeates our prose.

He's a shepherd, he's a shearer,
   He's a breaker-in of nags,
And he always swims some river in a flood.
But he wrecks our nervous system,
   And reduces it to rags,
'Till we really feel we want to have his blood.

He's a stockman, he's a drover --
   He's on any kind of "lay"
Which may chance to suit the man who slings the ink --
But he always plays the hero
   In an offhand kind of way --
That's enough to make a reader take to drink.

There is game and there is glory
   To be gathered by the bard,
Or the fiction manufacturer who will
Write a stirring backblock story
   (Oh! we know it will be hard!)
Or a poem that is innocent of Bill.

First published in The Bulletin, 22 January 1914;
and later in
The Macmillan Anthology of Australian Literature edited by Ken L. Goodwin and Alan Lawson, 1990.

Author: George Herbert Gibson (1846-1921) was born in Plymouth, England, in 1846 and emigrated, first to New Zealand in 1869, and then to Sydney, New South Wales, in 1874.  He was well-known for his humorous poetry in The Bulletin and published four collections of that poetry during his lifetime.  He died in Lindfield, NSW, in 1921.

Author reference site: Austlit

See also.

They are rising in endless numbers
   From ways that are wide and lone,
Dream-eyed with the fire that slumbers
   And feeds on the heart, unknown;
Deep-souled, but with lips grown scornful,
   And shallow to careless eyes,
With hearts that are tender -- mournful
   Those cynical writers rise.

From realms of a restless roaming,
   From creeks where the camp-fires glow,
From flash of the waters foaming,
   From plains where the night-winds blow;
From dreams of a mighty longing
   To deeds of a sordid world,
From the memories softly thronging
   To lips that are grimly curled.

By shadow and star, in sadness,
   By dusk and the lonely moon,
By moan of the midnight madness,
   By calm of the deep mid-noon;
Pale-browned o'er their sun-brown faces,
   Hard-handed and soft of heart,
All reckless, the squadron paces,
   And each in his soul apart.

And what are the hopes they cherish?
   And what are the dreams they dream
When cynical scornings perish,
   And lawless the lovelights gleam?
Bent low o'er the sweat-stained bridle
   They rise, with a careless hold;
Each with his broken idol,
   Each with his dream untold.

First published in The Bulletin, 20 January 1900

Author: William Montgomery Fleming (1874-1961) was born in the Wimmera district of Victoria but undertook his schooling in New South Wales.  He was a member of the NSW State Legislative Assembly from 1901 to 1910 when he resigned to contest and win a seat in Federal Parliament.  He volunteered for the First World War and served as a driver with Australian Army Service Corps.  He again took up politics after his return to Australia but lost his seat in 1922 and was never re-elected. He died in Terrigal, New South Wales, in 1961.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography

See also.

Seasons bloom and seasons wither; dark or bright, they cannot last.
Must we try with floods of bitter teas to vivify the past?
Vainly chase the brown and broken blossoms blown along the blast?

Shall we scorn the flowers around us -- red, or blue, or white as snow --
Flowers giving loads of fragrance unto all the winds that blow
Must we hide our eyes and falter: "O, the days of long ago!"

Never stop to look behind you, if the blaze of glory there
Blinds you to the splendour stretching round about and everywhere.
True, the past was pleasant, Lawson, but the present is as fair.

I, too, love the days when heroes, seeking treasure, seaward sped;
Days of Drake, when English sailors followed where their leaders led;
Days when Marlowe trod the glowing clouds, that thundered to his tread.

Even then, though, there were cowards, traitors, swindler, "business men,"
Plot and murder, slave and master, secret sneer, and wounding pen;
And the poets thought the present vile and barren even then.

And their comrades were no better than some modern mates we meet --
Even though they don't go wearing tights and feathers in the street;
And the girls are dear as ever, and their kisses just as sweet.

Sing the present; drop the drivel of the "days evanished," please!
Though you pray until your pants are burst or baggy at the knees,
You can't bid the sun go backward -- no, not even ten degrees.

First published in The Bulletin, 18 January 1896, and later in the same magazine on 29 January 1980.

Author: J. Le Gay Brereton (1871-1933) was born in Sydney in 1871. His father John Le Gay Brereton who was a minor poet, and Bererton appears to have used his first initial in order to differentiate his work from that of his father's.  Brereton graduated from the University of Sydney, he worked in the university's library and was later appointed as professor of English.  He was active in the Sydney literary circles of his time - he was friends with Henry Lawson and Christopher Brennan - and published 6 collectons of his work during his lifetime.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography

See also.

Some sing the songs of the storied past, and some of the lights-o'-love;
Some chant refrains of the underworld, and some of the world above,
Let each man sing of the things he feels in a voice that is clear and strong,
That each shall achieve the work of his heart and add to his nation's song.

For there's often a twist of the master-hand in the build of a hodman's brain
That his fellows may fail to understand if he speak not the trite and plain;
And an inexpensive and puerile wit may gird at the thought in rhyme,
Unaware of the message enwrapt in it, addressed to a broader time.

For many a body is like a hearse -- its passenger dead within;
And there's many a mouth to gibe at a verse with a sneering, cynical grin,
While its fellow, bred on the same coarse fare, must suffer the jeers inane,
For beneath the grime of his sordid life is a shoot of the golden vein.

Yea, a man may stand in a dingy bar and traffic in beer and rum,
And the soul of the man go wand'ring far -- though the voice of his soul be dumb --
Apart from the barman's meaner self, a thing of another sphere,
Abhorring the stale tobacco smoke, and loathing the smell of beer.

For there's many a good sea-song been writ in a city garret bare;
And some have scaled the Olympian heights at the head of a creaky stair;
And some have sat on an office stool and dreamed of the deeper things,
While the chrysalis-soul of the man's desire bides ever with folded wings.

Let each man sing of the things he feels, in a voice that is sure and strong,
That each shall achieve the work of his heart, and add to his nation's song;
That the dream of a miner touch the stars, and a barman hear the bees,
And the cabman's soul go out to the bush, and the pawn-broker's to the seas! 

First published in The Bulletin, 16 January 1908

Author: Little is known about the author C.G.A. Colles, other than he lived in Hawthorn, Victoria where he was a local bank manager for a number of years.

Author reference sites: Austlit

Want ground the faces of the Prophets old;     
Our greatest Bards were only rich in song;       
The golden-hearted ever wanted gold;
And they who wronged not ever suffered wrong.
Such, in this unintelligible World,
Seems still the Patriot's, Sage's, Poet's fate!
The mountain of its scorn upon them hurled,
Or grinds to misery, or constrains to hate!
To hate sometimes -- but with a perfect will
To this superior they should ever be;
Though sacrificed, like Jesus, loving still
The injured Spirit of Humanity:
For God's beholding patience makes it plain,
That so to suffer, and to die, are GAIN.

First published in The Maitland Mercury & Hunter River General Advertiser, 13 January 1847,
and later in:
The Poetical Works of Charles Harpur edited by Elizabeth Perkins, 1984.

Author: Charles Harpur (1813-68) was born on the Hawkesbury River, New South Wales to parents who had both been transported: his father from Ireland and his mother from England. Harpur was a very prolific writer - his volume of collected poems runs to over 1000 pages - and is considered by many to be the first great Australian-born poet.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography

See also.

Where the gum-trees' long shadows are spearing
   The highway's red zone,
There passes athwart the thin clearing
   A rider alone.
Head bowed over breast, forehead smitten
   By fortune his foe --  
So we see, who have read what is written,
   The Gordon we know.

No! racing apace, not at canter
   We see him to-day.
We hear not the quip or the banter
   Of comrades at play.
But slow in his saddle goes leaning
   The stockrider sick,
And the thinker who sought for life's meaning
   Is tired of the trick.

Around him new lands, but within him
   Old fancies, old themes.
No thunder of horse-hoofs could win him
   From making of dreams.
Let others sweep past us with chorus,
   Exultant of eye.
A hush of grey sunsets comes o'er us
   As Gordon goes by.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 11 January 1930

Note: the subject of this poem is the poet Adam Lindsay Gordon (1833-1870).

Author: Lance Fallaw (1876-1959) was born in England and arrived in Australia some time around 1907. He edited regional newspapers in Queensland and Victoria, and was, for a time, associate editor of the Sydney Morning Herald (1929-1936).

Author reference sites: Austlit

See also.

In the parlour of the shanty where the lives have all gone wrong,
When a singer or reciter gives a story or a song,
Where the poet's heart is speaking to their hearts in every line,
Till the hardest curse and blubber at the thoughts of Auld Lang Syne;
Then a boozer lurches forward with an oath for all disguise --
Prayers and curses in his soul, and tears and liquor in his eyes --
Grasps the singer or reciter with a death-grip by the hand:
"That's the truth, bloke! Sling it at 'em! Oh! Gorbli'me, that was grand!
Don't mind me; I've got 'em. You know! What's yer name, bloke! Don't yer see?
Who's the bloke what wrote the po'try? Will yer write it down fer me?"

And the backblocks' bard goes through it, ever seeking as he goes
For the line of least resistance to the hearts of men he knows;
And he tracks their hearts in mateship, and he tracks them out alone --
Seeking for the power to sway them, till he finds it in his own,
Feels what they feel, loves what they love, learns to hate what they condemn,
Takes his pen in tears and triumph, and he writes it down for them.

First published in The Bulletin, 3 January 1903;
and later in:
When I was King and Other Verses by Henry Lawson, 1905;
Humorous Verses by Henry Lawson, 1941;
The Collins Book of Australian Poetry compiled by Rodney Hall, 1981; and
A Fantasy of Man: Henry Lawson Complete Works 1901-1922 edited by Leonard Cronin, 1984.

Author: Henry Lawson (1867-1922) vies with "Banjo" Paterson for the title of Best Known Australian Poet.  Prolific, both as a poet and short story writer, Lawson battled poverty, deafness and alcoholism for most of his adult life, finally dying destitute at the age of 55.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library, The Poetry of Henry Lawson website

See also.