• 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 Sliprails and the Spur [poem by Henry Lawson]

17 September 2012 · Leave a Comment

[Editor: This poem by Henry Lawson was published in In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses, 1896.]

The Sliprails and the Spur

The colours of the setting sun
Withdrew across the Western land —
He raised the sliprails, one by one,
And shot them home with trembling hand;
Her brown hands clung — her face grew pale —
Ah! quivering chin and eyes that brim! —
One quick, fierce kiss across the rail,
And, ‘Good-bye, Mary!’ ‘Good-bye, Jim!’
Oh, he rides hard to race the pain
Who rides from love, who rides from home;
But he rides slowly home again,
Whose heart has learnt to love and roam.

A hand upon the horse’s mane,
And one foot in the stirrup set,
And, stooping back to kiss again,
With ‘Good-bye, Mary! don’t you fret!
‘When I come back’ — he laughed for her —
‘We do not know how soon ’twill be;
‘I’ll whistle as I round the spur —
‘You let the sliprails down for me.’

She gasped for sudden loss of hope,
As, with a backward wave to her,
He cantered down the grassy slope
And swiftly round the dark’ning spur.
Black-pencilled panels standing high,
And darkness fading into stars,
And blurring fast against the sky,
A faint white form beside the bars.

And often at the set of sun,
In winter bleak and summer brown,
She’d steal across the little run,
And shyly let the sliprails down.
And listen there when darkness shut
The nearer spur in silence deep;
And when they called her from the hut
Steal home and cry herself to sleep.

* * * * * *

A great white gate where sliprails were,
A brick house ’neath the mountain brow,
The ‘mad girl’ buried by the spur
So long ago, forgotten now.
And he rides hard to dull the pain
Who rides from one that loves him best;
And he rides slowly back again,
Whose restless heart must rove for rest.




Source:
Henry Lawson. In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1903 [first published 1896], pages 72-73

Filed Under: poetry Tagged With: Henry Lawson (1867-1922) (author), In The Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses (Henry Lawson 1896), poem, SourceArchiveOrg, year1896

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.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

Primary Sidebar

Australian flag, Kangaroo, Wattle, 100hThe Institute of Australian Culture
Heritage, history, and heroes. 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
A list of significant Australiana
Significant events and commemorative dates
Australian slang
Books (full text)
Australian literature
Rock music and pop music (videos)
Folk music and bush music (videos)
Early music (videos)
Recommended poetry
Poetry and songs, 1786-1900
Poetry and songs, 1901-1954
Australian explorers
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

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

  • Boy soldiers: Cadets fine physique [29 March 1911]
  • Military: Notes for senior cadets [1 March 1911]
  • Compulsory military training [letter to the editor, from “Little Red Riding Hood”, 11 February 1911]
  • Compulsory military training [letter to the editor, from “Mary…”, 11 February 1911]
  • Compulsory military training [letter to the editor, from the Rev. William Shaw, 11 February 1911]

Top Posts & Pages

  • The Man from Snowy River [poem by Banjo Paterson]
  • Taking His Chance [poem by Henry Lawson]
  • Timeline of Australian history and culture
  • Australian slang
  • The Man from Ironbark [poem by Banjo Paterson]

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

  • IAC on [Group of Australian soldiers, or soldier-cadets] [postcard, WW1 era (1914-1918)]
  • Raymond on [Group of Australian soldiers, or soldier-cadets] [postcard, WW1 era (1914-1918)]
  • IAC on Australia Shearing [postcard, 1907]
  • Raymond on Australia Shearing [postcard, 1907]
  • Raymond on Advance Australia [postcard, WW1 era (1914-1918)]

For Australia

Copyright © 2023 · Log in