John Shaw Neilson

[Editor: This article provides links to poems by, and to some biographical information about, John Shaw Neilson.]

John Shaw Neilson was born in Penola, South Australia, on 22 February 1872.

He died in Melbourne, of heart disease, on 12 May 1942.

Books by John Shaw Neilson:
[Books published during his lifetime, arranged by year]
[1916]: Old Granny Sullivan, Sydney: The Bookfellow
1919: Heart of Spring, Sydney: The Bookfellow in Sydney
1923: Ballad and Lyrical Poems, Sydney: Bookfellow in Australia
1923: New Poems, [Sydney]: The Bookfellow in Australia
1934: Collected Poems of John Shaw Neilson, Melbourne: Lothian Book Publishing Company [edited by R. H. Croll]
1938: Beauty Imposes: Some Recent Verse, Sydney: Angus & Robertson

Selected poetry by John Shaw Neilson:
All the World’s a Lolly-Shop [CP, HS]
* Along a River [see: “Bush Scene”]
April Weather [CP]
As Far as My Heart Can Go [CP, HS]
* At a Lowan’s Nest [see: “Lowan’s Nest”]
At the End of Spring [CP, HS]
The Ballad of Remembrance [CP]
The Bard and the Lizard [CP]
Beauty Imposes [BI]
The Birds Go By [CP]
The Blue Wren in the Hop-Bush [CP]
Break of Day [CP, HS]
Bush Scene [CP, HS]
The Child Being There [CP]
Child of Tears [CP, HS]
The Child We Lost [CP, HS]
Colour Yourself for a Man [CP]
The Crane is My Neighbour [BI]
“The Day is Thine” [HS]
Dear Little Cottage [CP, HS]
Dolly’s Offering [CP]
The Dream is Deep [CP, HS]
The Eleventh Moon [CP]
The Evening is the Morning [CP]
The Eyes of Little Charlotte [CP, HS]
The Flight of the Weary [CP]
For a Child [CP, HS]
For a Little Girl’s Birthday [CP]
From a Coffin [CP, HS]
The Gentle Water Bird [CP]
The Girl with the Black Hair [CP, HS]
Golden Fugitive [BI]
The Good Season [CP]
Green Lover [CP]
Green Singer [CP, HS]
Greeting [CP, HS]
Half a Life Back [CP]
The Heart Longs [HS]
Heart of Spring [CP, HS]
The Hen in the Bushes [CP]
Her Eyes [CP, HS]
He Saw the Jig [BI]
He Sold Himself to the Daisies [CP]
His Love was Burned Away [CP]
The Hour is Lost [CP, HS]
The Hour of the Parting [CP, HS]
Inland Born [CP, HS]
In the Dim Counties [CP]
In the Street [CP, HS]
The Irish Welcome [CP]
I Spoke to the Violet [BI]
It is the Last [CP, HS]
Julie Callaway [CP, HS]
The Lad Who Started Out [CP]
Lament for Early Buttercups [CP]
The Land Where I Was Born [CP, HS]
Little Dead Milliner [HS]
Little White Girl [CP, HS]
The Long Week-end [BI]
Love in Absence [CP]
The Lover Sings [CP, HS]
Love’s Coming [CP, HS]
The Loving Tree [CP, HS]
Lowan’s Nest [CP, HS]
The Luckless Bard to the Flying Blossom [CP, HS]
Maggie Tulliver [CP, HS]
The Magpie in the Moonlight [CP]
May [CP, HS]
Meeting of Sighs [CP, HS]
The Moon was Seven Days Down [CP]
Native Companions Dancing [CP]
O, Lady of the Dazzling Flowers [HS]
Old Granny Sullivan [CP, HS]
Old Nell Dickerson [CP, HS]
Old Violin [CP, HS]
The Orange Tree [CP]
Out to the Green Fields [CP]
Pale Neighbour [CP, HS]
Petticoat Green [CP, HS]
The Petticoat Plays [CP, HS]
The Poor Can Feed the Birds [BI]
The Poor, Poor Country [CP]
The Quarrel with the Neighbour [CP]
Ride Him Away [CP]
The Road to the Hospital [BI]
Roses Three [CP, HS]
The Sacrifice [CP, HS]
The Scent o’ the Lover [CP, HS]
Schoolgirls Hastening [CP]
Sheedy was Dying [CP, HS]
Show Me the Song [CP]
The Soldier is Home [CP]
The Song and the Bird [CP, HS]
Song Be Delicate [CP, HS]
Song for a Honeymoon [CP]
So Sweet a Mouth Had She [CP]
Stephen Foster [CP]
The Stolen Lament [CP]
Stony Town [CP]
Sunday Evening [BI]
The Sundowner [BI]
The Sun is Up [CP, HS]
Surely God was a Lover [CP, HS]
The Sweetening of the Year [CP]
The Theme Eternal [BI]
Those Shaded Eyes [CP]
The Time of Tumult [BI]
’Tis the White Plum Tree [CP]
To a Blue Flower [CP, HS]
To a Lodging-House Canary [CP]
To an Early-Flowering Almond [CP]
To a School-Girl [CP]
To a Sea Curlew [1942]
’Twas in the Early Summer Time [CP, HS]
Uncle to a Pirate [BI]
Under a Kurrajong [CP, HS]
The Unlovely Player [CP]
The Vine that is a Friend [BI]
The Wedding in September [CP, HS]
When Kisses are as Strawberries [CP]
The Whistling Jack [CP]
The White Flowers Came [CP, HS]
The Winter Sundown [CP]
The Woman of Ireland [CP]
You and Yellow Air [CP, HS]

All of the poetry in Heart of Spring (1919) was included in Collected Poems of John Shaw Neilson (1934), except for four poems:
1) Little Dead Milliner
2) O, Lady of the Dazzling Flowers
3) “The Day is Thine”
4) The Heart Longs

* “Bush Scene” was included in Collected Poems of John Shaw Neilson, but under the title of “Along a River”.
* “Lowan’s Nest” was included in Collected Poems of John Shaw Neilson, but under the title of “At a Lowan’s Nest”.

Further information:
Hugh Anderson, “Neilson, John Shaw (1872–1942)”, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University (accessed 25 September 2014)
Shaw Neilson, Wikipedia (accessed 25 September 2014)