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THE MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER AND OTHER VERSES
(Second edition)
by Andrew Barton ‘Banjo’ Paterson
[Australian Poet, Reporter — 1864-1941.]
[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. ‘In Defence of the Bush’, included in this
selection, was one of Paterson’s replies to Lawson.]
[The 1913 printing (Sydney, Fifty-third Thousand) of the Second Edition
(first published in 1902) was used in the preparation of this etext. First
edition was first published in 1895.]
THE MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER AND OTHER VERSES
by A. B. Paterson (“The Banjo”)
with preface by Rolf Boldrewood
Preface
It is not so easy to write ballads descriptive of the bushland of
Australia as on light consideration would appear. Reasonably good verse on
the subject has been supplied in sufficient quantity. But the maker of
folksongs for our newborn nation requires a somewhat rare combination of
gifts and experiences. Dowered with the poet’s heart, he must yet have
passed his ‘wander-jaehre’ amid the stern solitude of the Austral waste
— must have ridden the race in the back-block township, guided the
reckless stock-horse adown the mountain spur, and followed the night-long
moving, spectral-seeming herd ‘in the droving days’. Amid such scarce
congenial surroundings comes oft that finer sense which renders visible
bright gleams of humour, pathos, and romance, which, like undiscovered
gold, await the fortunate adventurer. That the author has touched this
treasure-trove, not less delicately than distinctly, no true Australian
will deny. In my opinion this collection comprises the best bush ballads
written since the death of Lindsay Gordon.
Rolf Boldrewood
A number of these verses are now published for the first time, most of the
others were written for and appeared in “The Bulletin” (Sydney, N.S.W.),
and are therefore already widely known to readers in Australasia.
A. B. Paterson
Prelude
Contents with First Lines:
THE MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER AND OTHER VERSES
The Man from Snowy River
Old Pardon, the Son of Reprieve
Clancy of the Overflow
Conroy’s Gap
Our New Horse
An Idyll of Dandaloo
The Geebung Polo Club
The Travelling Post Office
Saltbush Bill
A Mountain Station
Been There Before
The Man Who Was Away
The Man from Ironbark
The Open Steeplechase
The Amateur Rider
On Kiley’s Run
Frying Pan’s Theology
The Two Devines
In the Droving Days
Lost
Over the Range
Only a Jockey
How M’Ginnis Went Missing
A Voice from the Town
A Bunch of Roses
Black Swans
The All Right ‘Un
The Boss of the ‘Admiral Lynch’
A Bushman’s Song
How Gilbert Died
The Flying Gang
Shearing at Castlereagh
The Wind’s Message
Johnson’s Antidote
Ambition and Art
The Daylight is Dying
In Defence of the Bush
Last Week
Those Names
A Bush Christening
How the Favourite Beat Us
The Great Calamity
Come-by-Chance
Under the Shadow of Kiley’s Hill
Jim Carew
The Swagman’s Rest
[From the section of Advertisements at the end of the 1911 printing.]
THE MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER, AND OTHER VERSES.
THE LITERARY YEAR BOOK: “The immediate success of this book of bush
ballads is without parallel in Colonial literary annals, nor can any
living English or American poet boast so wide a public, always excepting
Mr. Rudyard Kipling.”
SPECTATOR: “These lines have the true lyrical cry in them. Eloquent and
ardent verses.”
ATHENAEUM: “Swinging, rattling ballads of ready humour, ready pathos, and
crowding adventure. … Stirring and entertaining ballads about great
rides, in which the lines gallop like the very hoofs of the horses.”
THE TIMES: “At his best he compares not unfavourably with the author of
‘Barrack-Room Ballads’.”
Mr. A. Patchett Martin, in LITERATURE (London): “In my opinion, it is the
absolutely un-English, thoroughly Australian style and character of these
new bush bards which has given them such immediate popularity, such wide
vogue, among all classes of the rising native generation.”
WESTMINSTER GAZETTE: “Australia has produced in Mr. A. B. Paterson a
national poet whose bush ballads are as distinctly characteristic of the
country as Burns’s poetry is characteristic of Scotland.”
THE SCOTSMAN: “A book like this… is worth a dozen of the aspiring,
idealistic sort, since it has a deal of rough laughter and a dash of real
tears in its composition.”
GLASGOW HERALD: “These ballads… are full of such go that the mere
reading of them make the blood tingle…. But there are other things in
Mr. Paterson’s book besides mere racing and chasing, and each piece bears
the mark of special local knowledge, feeling, and colour. The poet has
also a note of pathos, which is always wholesome.”
LITERARY WORLD: “He gallops along with a by no means doubtful music,
shouting his vigorous songs as he rides in pursuit of wild bush horses,
constraining us to listen and applaud by dint of his manly tones and
capital subjects… We turn to Mr. Paterson’s roaring muse with
instantaneous gratitude.”