60 Classic Australian Poems for Children
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60 Classic Australian Poems for Children
9781742754185
A Random House book
Published by Random House Australia Pty Ltd
Level 3, 100 Pacific Highway, North Sydney NSW 2060
www.randomhouse.com.au
First published by Random House Australia in 2009
Copyright in this selection and arrangement © Christopher Cheng 2009
Copyright in the foreword and afterword © Christopher Cheng 2009
Illustrations copyright © Gregory Rogers 2009
The moral rights of the author and illustrator have been asserted.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of Random House Australia.
Addresses for companies within the Random House Group can be found at www.randomhouse.com.au/offices.
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication Entry
Title: 60 classic Australian poems for children / edited by
Christopher Cheng; illustrator, Gregory Rogers
ISBN: 978 1 74166 414 0
Target Audience: For children
Subjects: Australian poetry
Other Authors/Contributors: Cheng, Christopher
Rogers, Gregory, 1957–
Dewey Number: A821.008
Cover and internal illustrations by Gregory Rogers
To my primary school teachers, especially Kevin and Helen. CC
For Matt. GR
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Imprint Page
Dedication
Introduction
Epigraph
1. Andy’s Gone with Cattle – Henry Lawson
2. The Ant Explorer – CJ Dennis
3. The Australian Slanguage – WT Goodge
4. A Ballad of Shearing (Shearing at Castlereagh) – Banjo Paterson
5. Bell-birds – Henry Kendall
6. Brumby’s Run – Banjo Paterson
7. A Bush Christening – Banjo Paterson
8. A Bush Christmas – CJ Dennis
9. The Circus – CJ Dennis
10. Clancy of the Overflow – Banjo Paterson
11. The Days of Cobb & Co. – GM Smith (Steele Grey)
12. The Digger’s Song – Barcroft Henry Boake
13. An Exile’s Farewell – Adam Lindsay Gordon
14. Freedom on the Wallaby – Henry Lawson
15. Fur and Feathers – Banjo Paterson
16. The Geebung Polo Club – Banjo Paterson
17. Going to School – CJ Dennis
18. Hist! – CJ Dennis
19. How M’Dougal Topped the Score – Thomas E Spencer
20. The Last of His Tribe – Henry Kendall
21. The Lights of Cobb and Co. – Henry Lawson
22. The Man from Ironbark – Banjo Paterson
23. The Man from Snowy River – Banjo Paterson
24. Mr Smith – DH Souter
25. Mulga Bill’s Bicycle – Banjo Paterson
26. My Typewriter – Edward Dyson
27. Native Companions Dancing – John Shaw Neilson
28. Old Granny Sullivan – John Shaw Neilson
29. Old Man Platypus – Banjo Paterson
30. On the Night Train – Henry Lawson
31. ‘Ough!’ – WT Goodge
32. The Pieman – CJ Dennis
33. Pioneers – Frank Hudson
34. Pioneers – Banjo Paterson
35. Pitchin’ at the Church – PJ Hartigan (John O’Brien)
36. Poets – CJ Dennis
37. Post-Hole Mick – GM Smith (Steele Grey)
38. The Roaring Days – Henry Lawson
39. A Ruined Reversolet – CJ Dennis
40. Said Hanrahan – PJ Hartigan (John O’Brien)
41. Santa Claus in the Bush – Banjo Paterson
42. The Shearer’s Wife – Louis Esson
43. A Snake Yarn – WT Goodge
44. Song of the Artesian Waters – Banjo Paterson
45. The Swagman – CJ Dennis
46. Tangmalangaloo – PJ Hartigan (John O’Brien)
47. The Teacher – CJ Dennis
48. The Teams – Henry Lawson
49. The Tram-Man – CJ Dennis
50. The Traveller – CJ Dennis
51. The Travelling Post-Office – Banjo Paterson
52. The Triantiwontigongolope – CJ Dennis
53. Waiting for the Rain (A Shearing Song) – John Neilson
54. Waltzing Matilda – Banjo Paterson
55. Waratah and Wattle – Henry Lawson
56. The Warrigal – Henry Kendall
57. Where the Dead Men Lie – Barcroft Henry Boake
58. Where the Pelican Builds – Mary Hannay Foott
59. The Women of the West – George Essex Evans
60. Woolloomooloo – CJ Dennis
Poet Biographies
Book References
Index of First Lines
Index of Poets
Introduction
I love stories, both writing them and reading them. I was privileged enough to attend a primary school where we were encouraged to play with words and where poetry was very much a part of our classroom. Sometimes we would begin lessons with words from some of the great Australian poets. Many of these belonged to our teachers’ personal collections of poems—the ones that they really loved. We too were encouraged to collect the poems that we really loved.
Our teachers would write the poems onto the chalkboard and we would copy the words into our poetry books (combining handwriting lessons with English lessons). Sometimes the teachers would print the poems that they had themselves carefully copied for us. We would glue the pages into our poetry books and decorate them with our own illustrations (which was often a homework task too). I kept the poems but ditched my attempts at illustrations … Gregory Rogers’s illustrations are much better! Often we would learn the poems (that was another homework task) and at the end of the week our class would recite the week’s new verse, another that we had memorised to perfection. Many school assemblies featured a class reciting poetry. Sometimes we even entered competitions reciting this wonderful Australian poetry.
The ballads and poems in this book are just like very short stories written in rhyming verse. When the poets were creating these poems they were often writing to explain the life that they saw around them or that they remembered … a very different Australia from the one we now live in. The poets were creating word-pictures of the environment and the landscape and the people they saw.
At the turn of the last century some of our most popular poets were employed by the major newspapers to travel around the country and report on ‘life on the land’. Other
poets simply travelled from town to town under their own steam and wrote of the life, as they saw it, in ballads and verse. Many of the poems in this collection are from those times.
Some of the poems are funny—just try to read ‘Mulga Bill’s Bicycle’ without giggling at the crazy antics of an over-confident person trying to learn to ride a pushbike and who ends up in the creek.
Some of them are serious—read ‘The Women of the West’ or ‘Pioneers’ to see how much of a struggle that life was.
Other poets such as PJ Hartigan (John O’Brien) are able to treat a serious subject like drought with humour and fun, as he does in ‘Said Hanrahan’.
And some of the poems are wonderful ways of playing with words.
So Tri-
Tri-anti-wonti-
Triantiwontigongolope.
In this book there are poems about the land, about the animals of the bush, about life in the city and the country (and sometimes about the vast differences between them), about ‘mateship’ and friendship, about personalities, and I have also included some simply silly, funny poems.
Over the years some of these poems, such as ‘The Man from Snowy River’ and ‘Hist!’, have been so popular that picture book illustrators have won awards for creating artwork to accompany the verse, in books of their own.
Some of the poems in this book have extra verses, or slightly different words from those we are used to. This is because many of the poems that I have chosen are in their original (or near-to-original) form, the way they were first published in the newspapers or journals. Many of these poems were written for specific publications. In many cases the poems were subsequently collated (sometimes after the poet’s death) and slightly altered by editors or publishers.
Why do I like these poems and ballads? I enjoy the rhyme and the rhythm. I also like them because I can read these words and then jump into my mind and imagine what the characters were doing and I can imagine what the poet was writing about. And I enjoy the way that each poem or ballad tells a complete story of a time in Australia’s recent history when the life that people lived was so very much different from the more comfortable and chaotic life that we live now—and it is a life that we must remember.
Poetry is fun. It is a wonderful way of expressing thoughts and feelings and impressions in mostly short grabs, so …
Read the poems and laugh.
Read the poems and be moved.
Read the poems to recite.
Read the poems to enjoy.
Read the poems, and then why not write your own!
CHRISTOPHER CHENG
www.chrischeng.com
1
Andy’s Gone with Cattle
Henry Lawson
Our Andy’s gone to battle now
’Gainst Drought, the red marauder;
Our Andy’s gone with cattle now
Across the Queensland border.
He’s left us in dejection now;
Our hearts with him are roving.
It’s dull on this selection now—
Since Andy went a-droving.
Who now shall wear the cheerful face
In times when things are slackest?
And who shall whistle round the place
When Fortune frowns her blackest?
Oh, who shall ‘cheek’ the squatter now
When he comes round us snarling?
His tongue is growing hotter now
Since Andy cross’d the Darling.
The gates are out of order now
Each wind the riders rattle;
For far far across the border now
Our Andy’s gone with cattle.
Poor Aunty’s looking thin and white;
And Uncle’s cross with worry;
And poor old ‘Blucher’ howls all night
Since Andy left Macquarie.
Oh, may the showers in torrents fall,
And all the tanks run over;
And may the grass grow green and tall
In pathways of the drover!
And may good angels send the rain
On desert stretches sandy;
And when the summer comes again
God grant ’twill bring us Andy!
Australian Town and Country Journal, 1888
* * *
In 1966, when Australia first issued decimal currency, an image of Henry Lawson, along with scenes from his childhood in Gulgong, decorated the back of the Australian $10 paper note.
* * *
2
The Ant Explorer
CJ Dennis
Once a little sugar ant made up his mind to roam—
To fare away far away, far away from home.
He had eaten all his breakfast, and he had his Ma’s consent
To see what he should chance to see; and here’s the way he went—
Up and down a fern frond, round and round a stone,
Down a gloomy gully where he loathed to be alone,
Up a mighty mountain range, seven inches high,
Through the fearful forest grass that nearly hid the sky,
Out along a bracken bridge, bending in the moss,
Till he reached a dreadful desert that was feet and feet across.
’Twas a dry, deserted desert, and a trackless land to tread;
He wished that he was home again and tucked-up tight in bed.
His little legs were wobbly, his strength was nearly spent,
And so he turned around again; and here’s the way he went—
Back away from desert lands, feet and feet across,
Back along the bracken bridge bending in the moss,
Through the fearful forest grass, shutting out the sky,
Up a mighty mountain range seven inches high,
Down a gloomy gully, where he loathed to be alone,
Up and down a fern frond and round and round a stone.
A dreary ant, a weary ant, resolved no more to roam,
He staggered up the garden path and popped back home.
A Book for Kids, 1921
3
The Australian Slanguage
WT Goodge
’Tis the everyday Australian
Has a language of his own,
Has a language, or a slanguage,
Which can simply stand alone;
And a ‘dickon pitch to kid us’
Is a synonym for ‘lie,’
And to ‘nark it’ means to stop it,
And to ‘nit it’ means to fly.
And a bosom friend’s a ‘cobber,’
And a horse a ‘prad’ or ‘moke,’
While a casual acquaintance
Is a ‘joker’ or a ‘bloke.’
And his lady-love’s his ‘donah’
Or his ‘clinah’ or his ‘tart’
Or his ‘little bit o’ muslin,’
As it used to be his ‘bart.’
And his naming of the coinage
Is a mystery to some,
With his ‘quid’ and ‘half-a-caser’
And his ‘deener’ and his ‘scrum!’
And a ‘tin-back’ is a party
Who’s remarkable for luck,
And his food is called his ‘tucker’
Or his ‘panem’ or his ‘chuck.’
A policeman is a ‘johnny’
Or a ‘copman’ or a ‘trap,’
And a thing obtained on credit
Is invariably ‘strap.’
A conviction’s known as ‘trouble,’
And a gaol is called a ‘jug,’
And a sharper is a ‘spieler,’
And a simpleton’s a ‘tug.’
If he hits a man in fighting
That is what he calls a ‘plug,’
If he borrows money from you
He will say he ‘bit your lug.’
And to ‘shake it’ is to steal it,
And to ‘strike it’ is to beg,
And a jest is ‘poking borac’
And a jester ‘pulls your leg.’
Things are ‘cronk’ when they go wrongly
In the language of the ‘push,’
But when things go as he wants ’em
He declares it is ‘all cush.’
When he’s bright he’s got a ‘napper,’
And he’s ‘ratty’ when he’s daft,
And when looking for employment
He is ‘out o’ blooming graft.’
And his clothes he calls his ‘clobber’
Or his ‘togs’, but what of that
When a ‘castor’ or a ‘kady’
Is the name he gives his hat!
And our undiluted English
Is a fad to which we cling,
But the great Australian slanguage
Is a truly awful thing!
The Bulletin, 1898
4
A Ballad of Shearing1
Banjo Paterson
The bell is set a-ringing and the engine gives a toot,