• 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
  • Slang
  • Timeline
  • Topics
    • Anzac Day
    • Australia Day
    • Australian Aborigines
    • Australianism
    • Australian literature
    • The Eureka Rebellion
    • Explorers
    • Significant events and commemorative dates

The Squatter’s Dirge to his Ladye Love [song, 11 December 1860]

12 May 2012 · Leave a Comment

[Editor: This song is taken from a long letter to the The Sydney Morning Herald of 11 December 1860, in which the writer makes the point that the squatter’s life is not an easy one; the tune is a parody of the then popular song “Come, dwell with me”; some extracts from the letter are given here, to provide some context for the song. The song was also published in Banjo Paterson’s collection, The Old Bush Songs (1905), under the title of “Dwell not with me”, with some variations.]

The “poor man” of New South Wales.

[. . .] Then we have the outcry against the squatter. Now, what is there to envy in this class of our colonial community. How many of the self-styled poor men have refused to live such a life — damper and salt beef one day, and salt beef and damper the next for a change. No church, no schools, no wives, no husbands — an aboriginal life in fact, without any of its advantages. The mind of reasoning men abhors this solitude, and only the almost certain success ever leads the squatter to devote the best of his days to such seclusion from his fellowmen. Take the extensive plains of our more southern colony, hundreds of miles in extent, heaps of stones for boundaries to a run, and a heap of stone erected for protection from the weather and the sun. Squatting, like gold digging, is a life that man undertakes only upon the sanguine hopes of being the lucky man to make his pile and cut it. The following dirge to the squatter’s “Ladye love” may not be uninteresting — it is “Come, dwell with me” parodied:—

“THE SQUATTERS’ DIRGE TO HIS LADYE LOVE.”

Dwell not with me, dwell not with me,
For you’ll never see, for you’ll never see
More than ’possums or a cockatoo,
And now and then a kangaroo;
Your dwelling-place a hut shall be,
All shaded by the wild gum tree.
Of nightingales you must not dream,
Your only music is the cuckoo’s scream.
“Dwell not with me, dwell not with me.”

Wish not to be, wish not to be,
Along with me, along with me,
For instead of balls and a gay saloon
You’ll have a black’s corroboree by light of moon;
And instead of music a horrid din,
Of screams and shouts from black man’s gin,
And three words sung in a grunting chime,
With a beating Heillaman to mark the time.
“Dwell not with me, dwell not with me.”

Oh would you wish, oh would you wish,
Without a dish, without a dish,
Your scanty meal on a bit of bark,
And a black man’s fire to illumine the dark,
’Tis then you miss the soft woodbine,
That round you lattice now doth twine.
Fond friend, don’t leave such scenes as these,
To dwell with me among gum trees.
“Dwell not with me, dwell not with me.”

Dwell not with me, dwell not with me,
For if without good food you’d be,
A bandicoot, or perhaps a snake,
With a damper stale your meal must make;
And then, perhaps, being horribly dry,
With raging thirst you almost die;
And searching through the bush you’d roam,
Some great black savage makes you all his own.
“Dwell not with me, dwell not with me.”

[. . .] The squatter is the pioneer, the explorer of this as yet not half known country, and, like all explorers, should be met with the greatest consideration, and every assistance and encouragement given him by all classes and sections of our community

[. . .] ’POSSUM.
Port Macquarie, 27th November.



Source:
The Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney, NSW), Tuesday 11 December 1860, page 7

Filed Under: songs Tagged With: song, SourceTrove, variation of Paterson's Bush Songs, year1860

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

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

Primary Sidebar

Australian flag, 100hThe Institute of Australian Culture
Heritage, history, and heroes. Literature, legends, and larrikins. Stories, songs, and sages.

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

  • Vale! Percy Mahoney [by H. A. Burton, 14 December 1950]
  • Early-day sportsman’s death [obituary of Percy Mahoney, 7 December 1950]
  • Visits to the IAC site from various countries
  • Poems by J. Shaw Neilson [book review, 22 December 1923]
  • “Australia in Palestine” [book review, 6 November 1919]

Top Posts & Pages

  • The Man from Snowy River [poem by Banjo Paterson]
  • Clancy of The Overflow [poem by Banjo Paterson]
  • The Man from Ironbark [poem by Banjo Paterson]
  • Click Go the Shears [folk music, lyrics; traditional Australian song, 1890s]
  • The Bastard from the Bush [poem, circa 1900]

Categories

Archives

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

  • Rawlinson R on Rommel’s comments on Australian soldiers [1941-1942]
  • Mike Gregory on Australian slang
  • Peter Morgan on Rise of the wool industry: John Macarthur’s work for Australia [chapter 10 of “The story of Australia” by Martin Hambleton]
  • raymond on Ballad and Lyrical Poems [by John Shaw Neilson, 1923]
  • IAC on Ballad and Lyrical Poems [by John Shaw Neilson, 1923]

Search this site



For Australia


Copyright © 2022 · Log in