Preface 

My heartfelt thanks are offered to all those kindred spirits who encourage me to continue to produce individual rhyming pieces

which detail many facets and aspects of 

MY AUSTRALIA

*

Particularly the many and varied

Writers’ Groups

Library  Staff

Community Supporters

as well as those individuals

too numerous to detail

**

Those Men.

Midway through that long gone year, that year of ninety two, way back in eighteen hundred when Henry Lawson, who : wrote rhyming ballads of the bush, my friends that told the life and times of bush and city dwellers and also of their climes.

Now Henry tempted Banjo, he of ‘Snowy River’  fame,

and a colt from ‘Old Regret’   - it was thought that none would tame, to a joust within The Bulletin about people in the bush and of course the city slickers and the leader of the push.

So Henry played poor Banjo and he thought it very grand

to sling the first one at him that he titled -

‘Borderland’

which mentioned ‘miles and miles of thirsty gutters  - strings of muddy waterholes’ in the place of ‘shining rivers - walled by cliffs and forest boles’. There are ‘barren rivers, gullies, ridges, where the everlasting flies - fiercer than the plagues of Egypt - swarm about your blighted eyes.’

He changed the name to

‘Up the Country’

these new words, are those he spent -

‘I’m back from up the country - very sorry that I went

seeking out the Southern poets’ land whereon to pitch my tent. I have lost a lot of idols which were broken on the track, burnt a lot of fancy verses and I am glad that I am back.’

Banjo relished his reply in which he talks about

‘the push’

the title that he chose for it - was

‘In Defence of the Bush’

‘So you’re back from up the country, Mister Lawson, where you went and you’re cursing all the business in a bitter discontent - well, we grieve to disappoint you and it makes us sad to hear that it wasn’t cool and shady - and there wasn’t whips of beer and the loony bullock snorted when you first came into view -

well, you know, it’s not so often that he sees a swell like you.’

‘Did you hear no sweeter voices in the music of the bush

than the roar of trams and buses and the war-whoop of the push?

Did the magpies rouse your slumbers with their carol sweet and strange?

Did you hear the silver chiming of the bell-birds on the range?

But, perchance the wild birds’ music by your senses was despised, for you say you’ll stay in townships ‘til the bush is civilised.

Would you make it a tea-garden and on Sundays have a band where blokes might take their ‘donahs’ with the public close at hand?

You had better stick to Sydney and make merry with the push for the bush will never suit you and you’ll never suit the bush.’

Henry rhymed his answer -

‘True, the bush hath moods and changes and the bushman hath ‘em too for he’s not a poet’s dummy, he’s a man the same as you, for his back is growing rounder - slaving for the absentee - and his toiling wife is thinner than a country wife should be.

For I noticed that the faces of the folks I chanced to meet

should have made a greater contrast to the the faces in the street and in short I think the bushman’s being driven to the wall it is doubtful if his spirit will be loyal through it all.’

‘Though the bush has been romantic and is nice to sing about there’s a patriotic fervour that the land can do without -

sort of British Workman nonsense that shall perish in the scorn of the drover who is driven and the shearer who is shorn - of the struggling western farmers who have little time to rest, facing ruin on selections in the sheep-infested West.

Droving songs are very pretty but they call for little thanks

from the people of a country in possession of the Banks.’

Banjo, retorted with -

“ Well, I’ve waited mighty patient while they all came rolling in, Mister Lawson, Mr Dyson and the others of his kin with their dreadful, dismal stories of the Overlander’s camp, how his fire is always smoky and his boots are always damp.

They paint it so terrific it would fill one’s soul with gloom, but you know they’re fond of writing about corpses and the tomb.

So before they curse the bushland they should let their fancy range, take something for their livers and be cheerful for a change.”

“ Now, for instance Mr Lawson –

well, of course we almost cried at the sorrowful description, how his ‘ little Arvie ‘ died and we lachrymosed in silence when “ His Father’s Mate “ was slain - then he went and killed the father and we had to weep again.

Ben Duggan and Jack Denver, too ; he caused them to expire after which he cooked the gander of Jack Dunn, of Nevertire and no doubt the bush is wretched if you judge it by the groan of  the sad and soulful poet with a graveyard of his own.”

Nevertheless, he ended the debate on an amicable note -

“ But that ends it Mr Lawson and it’s time to say good-bye

so we must agree to differ in all friendship, you and I,

Yes, we’ll work our own salvation with the stoutest hearts we may and if fortune only favours we will take the road some day, go droving down the river ‘neath the sunshine and the stars, then return to Sydney and vermilionise the bars.”

In conclusion,

Rimeriter reminisces -

They both are rhyming poets but I find it hard to choose

between their bushman balladeering, when not nosing in the booze, they both have been immortalised, it is so right and just, that their poetry is  captured - not just hidden in the dust.

(c). Rimeriter.

15/6/03