IN THE DAYS WHEN THE WORLD WAS WIDE AND OTHER VERSES
(2 ed.)
by Henry Lawson
[Australian house-painter, author and poet — 1867-1922.]
[Note on content: Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson were writing for the
Sydney ‘Bulletin’ in 1892 when Lawson suggested a ‘duel’ of poetry to
increase the number of poems they could sell to the paper. It was
apparently entered into in all fun, though there are reports that Lawson
was bitter about it later. ‘Up the Country’ and ‘The City Bushman’,
included in this selection, were two of Lawson’s contributions to the
debate. Please note that this is the revised edition of 1900. Therefore,
even though this book was originally published in 1896, it includes two
poems not published until 1899 (‘The Sliprails and the Spur’ and ‘Past
Carin”).]
PREFACE
Most of the verses contained in this volume were first published in the
Sydney ‘Bulletin’; others in the Brisbane ‘Boomerang’, Sydney ‘Freeman’s
Journal’, ‘Town and Country Journal’, ‘Worker’, and ‘New Zealand Mail’,
whose editors and proprietors I desire to thank for past kindnesses and
for present courtesy in granting me the right of reproduction in book
form.
‘In the Days When the World was Wide’ was written in Maoriland and some of
the other verses in Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia.
The dates of original publication are given in the Table of Contents.
Those undated are now printed for the first time.
HENRY LAWSON.
To J. F. Archibald
To an Old Mate
CONTENTS WITH FIRST LINES
IN THE DAYS WHEN THE WORLD WAS WIDE AND OTHER VERSES
In the Days When the World was Wide
Faces in the Street
The Roaring Days
‘For’ard’
The Drover’s Sweetheart
Out Back
The Free-Selector’s Daughter
‘Sez You’
Andy’s Gone With Cattle
Jack Dunn of Nevertire
Trooper Campbell
The Sliprails and the Spur
Past Carin’
The Glass on the Bar
The Shanty on the Rise
The Vagabond
Sweeney
Middleton’s Rouseabout
The Ballad of the Drover
Taking His Chance
When the ‘Army’ Prays for Watty
The Wreck of the ‘Derry Castle’
Ben Duggan
The Star of Australasia
The Great Grey Plain
The Song of Old Joe Swallow
Corny Bill
Cherry-Tree Inn
Up the Country
Knocked Up
The Blue Mountains
The City Bushman
Eurunderee
Mount Bukaroo
The Fire at Ross’s Farm
The Teams
Cameron’s Heart
The Shame of Going Back
Since Then
Peter Anderson and Co.
When the Children Come Home
Dan, the Wreck
A Prouder Man Than You
The Song and the Sigh
The Cambaroora Star
After All
Marshall’s Mate
The Poets of the Tomb
Australian Bards and Bush Reviewers
The Ghost
The End.
[From the July, 1909 section of Advertisements.]
WHEN THE WORLD WAS WIDE,
AND OTHER VERSES.
THE ACADEMY: “These ballads (for such they mostly are) abound in spirit
and manhood, in the colour and smell of Australian soil. They deserve the
popularity which they have won in Australia, and which, we trust, this
edition will now give them in England.”
THE SPEAKER: “There are poems in ‘In the Days When the World was Wide’
which are of a higher mood than any yet heard in distinctively Australian
poetry.”
LITERARY WORLD: “Not a few of the pieces have made us feel discontented
with our sober surroundings, and desirous of seeing new birds, new
landscapes, new stars; for at times the blood tingles because of Mr.
Lawson’s galloping rhymes.”
NEWCASTLE WEEKLY CHRONICLE: “Swinging, rhythmic verse.”
WHILE THE BILLY BOILS.
THE ACADEMY: “A book of honest, direct, sympathetic, humorous writing
about Australia from within is worth a library of travellers’ tales. . . .
The result is a real book — a book in a hundred. His language is
terse, supple, and richly idiomatic. He can tell a yarn with the best.”
THE SCOTSMAN: “There is no lack of dramatic imagination in the
construction of the tales; and the best of them contrive to construct a
strong sensational situation in a couple of pages. But the chief charm and
value of the book is its fidelity to the rough character of the scenes
from which it is drawn.”
LITERATURE: “These sketches bring us into contact with one phase of
colonial life at first hand. . . . The simplicity of the narrative gives
it almost the effect of a story that is told by word of mouth.”
THE SPECTATOR: “It is strange that one we would venture to call the
greatest Australian writer should be practically unknown in England. Mr.
Lawson is a less experienced writer than Mr. Kipling, and more unequal,
but there are two or three sketches in this volume which for vigour and
truth can hold their own with even so great a rival. Both men have somehow
gained that power of concentration which by a few strong strokes can set
place and people before you with amazing force.”
THE TIMES: “A collection of short and vigorous studies and stories of
Australian life and character. A little in Bret Harte’s manner, crossed,
perhaps, with that of Guy de Maupassant.”
BRITISH WEEKLY: “Many of Mr. Lawson’s tales photograph life at the
diggings or in the bush with an incisive and remorseless reality that
grips the imagination. He silhouettes a swagman in a couple of pages, and
the man is there, alive.”
THE MORNING POST: “For the most part they are full of local colour, and,
correctly speaking, represent rather rapid sketches illustrative of life
in the bush than tales in the ordinary sense of the word. . . . They bear
the impress of truth, sincere if unvarnished.”
THE BOOK LOVER: “Any book of Lawson’s should be bought and treasured by
all who care for the real beginnings of Australian literature. As a matter
of fact, he is the one Australian literary product, in any distinctive
sense.”