banjo paterson funeral poem banjo paterson funeral poem

had I the flight of the bronzewing,Far o'er the plains would I fly,Straight to the land of my childhood,And there would I lay down and die. So fierce his attack and so very severe, it Quite floored the Rabbi, who, ere he could fly, Was rammed on the -- no, not the back -- but just near it. A Bushman's Song I'm travelling down the Castlereagh, and I'm a station-hand, I'm handy with the ropin' pole, I'm handy with the brand, And that was the end of this small romance, The end of the story of Conroy's Gap. . The landscapes and wildlife of the Brindabellas, west of our national capital, provided inspiration for renowned Australian writer Miles Franklin. Weight! With dragging footsteps and downcast head The hypnotiser went home to bed, And since that very successful test He has given the magic art a rest; Had he tried the ladies, and worked it right, What curious tales might have come to light! Lift ye your faces to the sky Ye barrier mountains in the west Who lie so peacefully at rest Enshrouded in a haze of blue; 'Tis hard to feel that years went by Before the pioneers broke through Your rocky heights and walls of stone, And made your secrets all their own. "The goat -- was he back there? Then right through the ruck he was sailing -- I knew that the battle was won -- The son of Haphazard was failing, The Yattendon filly was done; He cut down The Don and The Dancer, He raced clean away from the mare -- He's in front! why, he'd fall off a cart, let alone off a steeplechase horse. Some say it was a political comment on the violent shearers strikes happening at the time, while a new book Waltzing Matilda: the true story argues it may have been about a love triangle happening in Patersons life when he wrote it. Embossed with Australian Animals, these premium notebooks are perfect for Back To School. * * * * * * * But he's old -- and his eyes are grown hollow Like me, with my thatch of the snow; When he dies, then I hope I may follow, And go where the racehorses go. 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! Our chiefest singer yet has sung In wild, sweet notes a passing strain, All carelessly and sadly flung To that dull world he thought so vain. This never will do. D'you know the place? O ye strange wild birds, will ye bear a greeting To the folk that live in that western land? Banjo Paterson was an Australian bush author who is remembered for his ballads about life in Australia. Wearer of pearls in your necklace, comfort yourself if you can. The Rule Of The A.j.c. We were objects of mirth and derision To folks in the lawn and the stand, Anf the yells of the clever division Of "Any price Pardon!" Langston Hughes (100 poem) 1 February 1902 - 22 May 1967. They were outlaws both -- and on each man's head Was a thousand pounds reward. He rode all noght, and he steered his course By the shining stars with a bushman's skill, And every time that he pressed his horse The Swagman answered him gamely still. Then signs to his pal "for to let the brute go". Come back! The native grasses, tall as grain, Bowed, waved and rippled in the breeze; From boughs of blossom-laden trees The parrots answered back again. A Bush Christening. Eye-openers they are, and their system Is never to suffer defeat; It's "win, tie, or wrangle" -- to best 'em You must lose 'em, or else it's "dead heat". And they read the nominations for the races with surprise And amusement at the Father's little joke, For a novice had been entered for the steeplechasing prize, And they found it was Father Riley's moke! He looked to left and looked to right, As though men rode beside; And Rio Grande, with foam-flecks white, Raced at his jumps in headlong flight And cleared them in his stride. And yet, not always sad and hard; In cheerful mood and light of heart He told the tale of Britomarte, And wrote the Rhyme of Joyous Garde. So Abraham ran, like a man did he go for him, But the goat made it clear each time he drew near That he had what the racing men call "too much toe" for him. He was a wonder, a raking bay -- One of the grand old Snowdon strain -- One of the sort that could race and stay With his mighty limbs and his length of rein. `As silently as flies a bird, They rode on either hand; At every fence I plainly heard The phantom leader give the word, "Make room for Rio Grande!" Mulga Bill's Bicycle was written by Banjo Paterson in 1896. An early poem by Banjo Paterson's grandmother (In Memoriam) does not augur well: Grief laid her hand upon a stately head / And streams of silver were around it shed . And that's the story. They started, and the big black steed Came flashing past the stand; All single-handed in the lead He strode along at racing speed, The mighty Rio Grande. He has heard the sound of a sheep-dog's bark, And his horse's warning neigh, And he says to his mate, "There are hawks abroad, And it's time that we went away." One is away on the roving quest, Seeking his share of the golden spoil; Out in the wastes of the trackless west, Wandering ever he gives the best Of his years and strength to the hopeless toil. Conroy's Gap 154. )MACPUFF: Now, yield thee, tyrant!By that fourth party which I once did form,I'll take thee to a picnic, there to liveOn windfall oranges!MACBREATH: . And their grandsire gave them a greeting bold: "Come in and rest in peace, No safer place does the country hold -- With the night pursuit must cease, And we'll drink success to the roving boys, And to hell with the black police." `"But when you reach the big stone wall, Put down your bridle hand And let him sail - he cannot fall - But don't you interfere at all; You trust old Rio Grande." That unkempt mound Shows where they slumber united still; Rough is their grave, but they sleep as sound Out on the range as in holy ground, Under the shadow of Kiley's Hill. We still had a chance for the money, Two heats remained to be run: If both fell to us -- why, my sonny, The clever division were done. today Banjo Paterson is still one of. He gave the mother -- her who died -- A kiss that Christ the Crucified Had sent to greet the weary soul When, worn and faint, it reached its goal. The race is run and Shortinbras enters,leading in the winner.FIRST PUNTER: And thou hast trained the winner, thou thyself,Thou complicated liar. A.B. Nay, rather death!Death before picnic! Scarce grew the shell in the shallows, rarely a patch could they touch; Always the take was so little, always the labour so much; Always they thought of the Islands held by the lumbering Dutch -- Islands where shell was in plenty lying in passage and bay, Islands where divers could gather hundreds of shell in a day. 'Enter Two Heads.FIRST HEAD: How goes the battle? And soon it rose on every tongue That Jack Macpherson rode among The creatures of his dream. A dreadful scourge that lies in wait -- The Longreach Horehound Beer! But, as one half-hearing An old-time refrain, With memory clearing, Recalls it again, These tales, roughly wrought of The bush and its ways, May call back a thought of The wandering days, And, blending with each In the memories that throng, There haply shall reach You some echo of song. The first heat was soon set a-going; The Dancer went off to the front; The Don on his quarters was showing, With Pardon right out of the hunt. He had called him Faugh-a-ballagh, which is French for 'Clear the course', And his colours were a vivid shade of green: All the Dooleys and O'Donnells were on Father Riley's horse, While the Orangemen were backing Mandarin! . did you see how he struck, and the swell never moved in his seat? He mounted, and a jest he threw, With never sign of gloom; But all who heard the story knew That Jack Macpherson, brave and true, Was going to his doom. Follow him close.Give him good watch, I pray you, till we seeJust what he does his dough on. Think of all the foreign nations, negro, chow, and blackamoor, Saved from sudden expiration, by my wondrous snakebite cure. In fact as they wandered by street, lane and hall, "The trail of the serpent was over them all." Fourth Man "I am an editor, bold and free. There was a girl in that shanty bar Went by the name of Kate Carew, Quiet and shy as the bush girls are, But ready-witted and plucky, too. They went tearin' round and round, And the fences rang and rattled where they struck. B. I've prayed him over every fence -- I've prayed him out and back! We ran him at many a meeting At crossing and gully and town, And nothing could give him a beating -- At least when our money was down. Away in the camp the bill-sticker's tramp Is heard as he wanders with paste, brush, and notices, And paling and wall he plasters them all, "I wonder how's things gettin' on with the goat," he says, The pulls out his bills, "Use Solomon's Pills" "Great Stoning of Christians! "Come from your prison, Bourke,We Irishmen have done our work,God has been with us, and old Ireland is free. Down along the Mooki River, on the overlanders camp, Where the serpents are in millions, all of the most deadly stamp, Wanders, daily, William Johnson, down among those poisonous hordes, Shooting every stray goanna, calls them black and yaller frauds. Stump, old man, says he, well show them weve the genwine antidote. Both the dogs were duly loaded with the poison-glands contents; Johnson gave his dog the mixture, then sat down to wait events. . What's that that's chasing him -- Rataplan -- regular demon to stay! Some of the chaps said you couldn't, an' I says just like this a' one side: Mark me, I says, that's a tradesman -- the saddle is where he was bred. They started, and the big black steed Came flashing past the stand; All single-handed in the lead He strode along at racing speed, The mighty Rio Grande. He never flinched, he faced it game, He struck it with his chest, And every stone burst out in flame And Rio Grande and I became Phantoms among the rest. But the reason we print those statements fine Is -- the editor's uncle owns the mine." Come, Stumpy, old man, we must shift while we can;All our mates in the paddock are dead.Let us wave our farewells to Glen Eva's sweet dellsAnd the hills where your lordship was bred;Together to roam from our drought-stricken homeIt seems hard that such things have to be,And its hard on a "hogs" when he's nought for a bossBut a broken-down squatter like me!For the banks are all broken, they say,And the merchants are all up a tree.When the bigwigs are brought to the Bankruptcy Court,What chance for a squatter like me.No more shall we muster the river for fats,Or spiel on the Fifteen-mile plain,Or rip through the scrub by the light of the moon,Or see the old stockyard again.Leave the slip-panels down, it won't matter much now,There are none but the crows left to see,Perching gaunt in yon pine, as though longing to dineOn a broken-down squatter like me.When the country was cursed with the drought at its worst,And the cattle were dying in scores,Though down on my luck, I kept up my pluck,Thinking justice might temper the laws.But the farce has been played, and the Government aidAin't extended to squatters, old son;When my dollars were spent they doubled the rent,And resumed the best half of the run. Good for the new chum! Best Poets. They had rung the sheds of the east and west, Had beaten the cracks of the Walgett side, And the Cooma shearers had given them best -- When they saw them shear, they were satisfied. -- Still, there may be a chance for one; I'll stop and I'll fight with the pistol here, You take to your heels and run." Dustjacket synopsis: "The poetry selected for this collection reveals Paterson's love and appreciation for the Australina bush and its people. Unnumbered I told them In memories bright, But who could unfold them, Or read them aright? With gladness we thought of the morrow, We counted our wages with glee, A simile homely to borrow -- "There was plenty of milk in our tea." And some have said that Nature's face To us is always sad; but these Have never felt the smiling grace Of waving grass and forest trees On sunlit plains as wide as seas. Bookmakers call: 'Seven to Four on the Field! In the depth of night there are forms that glide As stealthily as serpents creep, And around the hut where the outlaws hide They plant in the shadows deep, And they wait till the first faint flush of dawn Shall waken their prey from sleep. Battleaxe, Battleaxe wins! we're going on a long job now. The watchers in those forests vast Will see, at fall of night, Commercial travellers bounding past And darting out of sight. Andrew Barton Paterson was born on the 17th February 1864 in the township of Narambla, New South Wales. From the southern slopes to the western pines They were noted men, were the two Devines. the land But yesterday was all unknown, The wild man's boomerang was thrown Where now great busy cities stand. It contains not only widely published and quoted poems such as "On Kiley's Run . What meant he by his prateOf Fav'rite and outsider and the like?Forsooth he told us nothing. The field was at sixes and sevens -- The pace at the first had been fast -- And hope seemed to drop from the heavens, For Pardon was coming at last. It was not much! Alas! With pomp and solemnity fit for the tomb They lead the old billy-goat off to his doom: On every hand a reverend band, Prophets and preachers and elders stand And the oldest rabbi, with a tear in his eye, Delivers a sermon to all standing by. Make room for Rio Grande!' isn't Abraham forcing the pace -- And don't the goat spiel? The waving of grasses, The song of the river That sings as it passes For ever and ever, The hobble-chains' rattle, The calling of birds, The lowing of cattle Must blend with the words. And we thought of the hint that the swagman gave When he went to the Great Unseen -- We shovelled the skeleton out of the grave To see what his hint might mean. Here it is, the Grand Elixir, greatest blessing ever known, Twenty thousand men in India die each year of snakes alone. Facing it yet! But on his ribs the whalebone stung, A madness it did seem! The Reverend Mullineux 155. It follows a mountainous horseback pursuit to recapture the colt of a prize-winning racehorse living with brumbies. Clancy of the Overflow is a poem by Banjo Paterson, first published in The Bulletin, an Australian news magazine, on 21 December 1889. Rataplan never will catch him if only he keeps on his pins; Now! On Banjo Patersons 150th birthday anniversary, here are his best ballads. Lonely and sadly one night in NovemberI laid down my weary head in search of reposeOn my wallet of straw, which I long shall remember,Tired and weary I fell into a doze.Tired from working hardDown in the labour yard,Night brought relief to my sad, aching brain.Locked in my prison cell,Surely an earthly hell,I fell asleep and began for to dream.I dreamt that I stood on the green fields of Erin,In joyous meditation that victory was won.Surrounded by comrades, no enemy fearing. He caught her meaning, and quickly turned To the trooper: "Reckon you'll gain a stripe By arresting me, and it's easily earned; Let's go to the stable and get my pipe, The Swagman has it." The tongue-in-cheek story of Mulga Bill, a man who claimed he was an excellent cyclist only to crash, was published by The Sydney Mail. And more than 100 years after the words were penned we find they still ring out across the nation. His ballads of the bush had enormous popularity. Then he dropped the piece with a bitter oath, And he turned to his comrade Dunn: "We are sold," he said, "we are dead men both! His Father, Andrew a Scottish farmer from Lanarkshire. To many, this is the unofficial Aussie anthem, but the intended meaning of this ballad that describes the suicide of an itinerant sheep-stealing swagman to avoid capture, is debated to this day. Drunk as he was when the trooper came, to him that did not matter a rap -- Drunk or sober, he was the same, The boldest rider in Conroy's Gap. those days they have fled for ever, They are like the swans that have swept from sight. Another search for Leichhardt's tomb, Though fifty years have fled Since Leichhardt vanished in the gloom, Our one Illustrious Dead! Billy Barlow In Australia One shriek from him burst -- "You creature accurst!" The trooper stood at the stable door While Ryan went in quite cool and slow, And then (the trick had been played before) The girl outside gave the wall a blow. "Who'll bet on the field? But they're watching all the ranges till there's not a bird could fly, And I'm fairly worn to pieces with the strife, So I'm taking no more trouble, but I'm going home to die, 'Tis the only way I see to save my life. Banjo Paterson is one of Australia's best-loved poets and his verse is among Australia's enduring traditions. The infant moved towards the light, The angel spread his wings in flight. Australian Geographic acknowledges the First Nations people of Australia as traditional custodians, and pay our respects to Elders past and present, and their stories and journeys that have lead us to where we are today. (Voter approaches the door. Jan 2011. "For I've always heard --" here his voice grew weak, His strength was wellnigh sped, He gasped and struggled and tried to speak, Then fell in a moment -- dead. "Dress no have got and no helmet -- diver go shore on the spree; Plenty wind come and break rudder -- lugger get blown out to sea: Take me to Japanee Consul, he help a poor Japanee!" Get incredible stories of extraordinary wildlife, enlightening discoveries and stunning destinations, delivered to your inbox. For he rode at dusk with his comrade Dunn To the hut at the Stockman's Ford; In the waning light of the sinking sun They peered with a fierce accord. But he weighed in, nine stone seven, then he laughed and disappeared, Like a banshee (which is Spanish for an elf), And old Hogan muttered sagely, "If it wasn't for the beard They'd be thinking it was Andy Regan's self!" -- now, goodbye!" . Poems of Banjo Paterson. . 'Twas a reef with never a fault nor baulk That ran from the range's crest, And the richest mine on the Eaglehawk Is known as "The Swagman's Rest". Johnson was a free-selector, and his brain went rather queer, For the constant sight of serpents filled him with a deadly fear; So he tramped his free-selection, morning, afternoon, and night, Seeking for some great specific that would cure the serpents bite. Then lead him away to the wilderness black To die with the weight of your sins on his back: Of thirst let him perish alone and unshriven, For thus shall your sins be absolved and forgiven!" Roll up to the Hall!! Then the races came to Kiley's -- with a steeplechase and all, For the folk were mostly Irish round about, And it takes an Irish rider to be fearless of a fall, They were training morning in and morning out. "There's tea in the battered old billy;Place the pannikins out in a row,And we'll drink to the next merry meeting,In the place where all good fellows go. "On," was the battle cry,"Conquer this day or die,Sons of Hibernia, fight for Liberty!Show neither fear nor dread,Strike at the foeman's head,Cut down horse, foot, and artillery!