• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

The Institute of Australian Culture

Heritage, history, and heroes; literature, legends, and larrikins

  • Home
  • Articles
  • Biographies
  • Books
  • Ephemera
  • Poetry & songs
    • Recommended poetry
    • Poetry and songs, 1786-1900
    • Poetry and songs, 1901-1954
    • Rock music and pop music [videos]
    • Early music [videos]
  • Slang
  • Timeline
    • Timeline of Australian history and culture
    • Calendar of Australian history and culture
    • Significant events and commemorative dates
  • Topics

The Homeward Track [poem by C. J. Dennis]

8 May 2012 · Leave a Comment

[Editor: This poem by C. J. Dennis was published in Backblock Ballads and Other Verses (1913) and Backblock Ballads and Later Verses (1918).]

The Homeward Track

Once a year we lumber southward with the clip from Yarradee;
Spell the bullocks in the township while we run our yearly spree.
What’s a bullocky to live for? Days of toil are hard and long;
And you’d not begrudge him yearly one short week of wine and song.
While it lasts he asks no better. When it’s over “Yoke ’em up”
And we’ll make another promise to reject the brimming cup.
When we’ve done our little cheque in, and the township’s at our back,
Then we start to think of mending — out along the Homeward Track.

For there comes a time of reck’ning when we’re trudging by the team;
Back again to work an’ worry; kind of waking from a dream;
We begin to see the folly of a week of wicked fun,
Bought with months of weary slaving, punching bullocks on the run.
But our views are somewhat tempered when we’ve done a twelve months’ drouth;
And our thoughts ain’t so religious when the team is heading south.
When the pleasure is before us, work and worry at our back,
We forget the grim reformers out along the Homeward Track.

What’s the odds? It’s got to happen. What we’ve done we’ll do again;
And we know it while we make ’em, resolutions are in vain.
Life’s a weary track to travel, mostly full of ruts and stumps:
Them that spends their days in drudging have to take their joy in lumps.
Yoke ’em up an’ get a move on! Gayest times must have an end,
There’s a weary track to travel when we’ve nothing left to spend.
If there’s still a bob we’ll wet it, and a last glad joke we’ll crack,
Time enough for vain regretting when we’re on the Homeward Track.



Source:
C. J. Dennis, Backblock Ballads and Later Verses, Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1918, pages 57-58

Previously published in:
C. J. Dennis, Backblock Ballads and Other Verses, Melbourne: E. W. Cole, [1913], pages 33-34

Filed Under: poetry Tagged With: Backblock Ballads and Later Verses (C. J. Dennis 1918), Backblock Ballads and Other Verses (C. J. Dennis 1913), C. J. Dennis (1876-1938) (author), poem, SourceArchiveOrg, year1918

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

The Institute of Australian Culture
Heritage, history, and heroes. Writers, workers, and wages. Literature, legends, and larrikins. Stories, songs, and sages.

Search this site

Featured books

The Man from Snowy River and Other Verses, by Banjo Paterson A Book for Kids, by C. J. Dennis  The Bulletin Reciter: A Collection of Verses for Recitation from The Bulletin The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke, by C. J. Dennis The Complete Inner History of the Kelly Gang and Their Pursuers, by J. J. Kenneally The Foundations of Culture in Australia, by P. R. Stephensen The Australian Crisis, by C. H. Kirmess Such Is Life, by Joseph Furphy
More books (full text)

Featured lists

Timeline of Australian history and culture
Significant events and commemorative dates
A list of significant Australiana
Australian slang
Books (full text)
Australian explorers
Australian literature
Recommended poetry
Poetry and songs, 1786-1900
Poetry and songs, 1901-1954
Rock music and pop music (videos)
Folk music and bush music (videos)
Early music (videos)
Topics
Links

Featured posts

Advance Australia Fair: How the song became the Australian national anthem
Brian Cadd [music videos and biography]
Ned Kelly: Australian bushranger
Under the Southern Cross I Stand [the Australian cricket team’s victory song]

Some Australian authors

Barcroft Boake
E. J. Brady
John Le Gay Brereton
C. J. Dennis
Mary Hannay Foott
Joseph Furphy
Mary Gilmore
Charles Harpur
Grant Hervey
Lucy Everett Homfray
Rex Ingamells
Henry Kendall
“Kookaburra”
Henry Lawson
Jack Moses
“Dryblower” Murphy
John Shaw Neilson
John O’Brien (Patrick Joseph Hartigan)
“Banjo” Paterson
Marie E. J. Pitt
A. G. Stephens
P. R. Stephensen
Agnes L. Storrie (Agnes L. Kettlewell)

Recent Posts

  • Died on Active Service / Heroes of the Empire [Australian military personnel (WW1, WW2), 24 April 1943]
  • Flooded house on Villiers Street, Grafton (NSW) [postcard, circa 1950]
  • Fossicker’s claim, Daylesford [postcard, circa 1905-1912]
  • The Bathing Beach Flinders [postcard, early 20th Century]
  • The Lass of Yackandandah [poem, 11 June 1857]

Top Posts & Pages

  • Australian slang, words, and phrases
  • The Man from Snowy River [poem by Banjo Paterson]
  • Flooded house on Villiers Street, Grafton (NSW) [postcard, circa 1950]
  • Timeline of Australian history and culture
  • Drop Bears

Archives

Categories

Posts of note

The Bastard from the Bush [poem, circa 1900]
A Book for Kids [by C. J. Dennis, 1921]
Click Go the Shears [traditional Australian song, 1890s]
Core of My Heart [“My Country”, poem by Dorothea Mackellar, 24 October 1908]
Freedom on the Wallaby [poem by Henry Lawson, 16 May 1891]
The Man from Ironbark [poem by Banjo Paterson]
Nationality [poem by Mary Gilmore, 12 May 1942]
The Newcastle song [music video, sung by Bob Hudson]
No Foe Shall Gather Our Harvest [poem by Mary Gilmore, 29 June 1940]
Our pipes [short story by Henry Lawson]
Rommel’s comments on Australian soldiers [1941-1942]
Shooting the moon [short story by Henry Lawson]

Recent Comments

  • Keith Street on Flooded house on Villiers Street, Grafton (NSW) [postcard, circa 1950]
  • IAC on Those Names [poem by Banjo Paterson]
  • Paul on Those Names [poem by Banjo Paterson]
  • Floyd Black on Eurunderee [poem by Henry Lawson]
  • Warren fahey on The Institute of Australian Culture: An introduction

For Australia

Copyright © 2025 · Log in