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

The Swagman [poem, 25 July 1868]

22 July 2015 · Leave a Comment

[Editor: A poem published in The Mining Record and Grenfell General Advertiser, 25 July 1868.]

The Swagman.

Trudging on wearily, heavily, drearily,
Parching with thirst on a hot dusty road;
No one to speak a kind word to him cheerily,
No one to love him, no place of abode.
No change or variety, nought but anxiety
Hangs like a cloud o’er the wanderer’s track;
Still he’s a link in the chain of society,
Tho’ all he possesses is strapped to his back.

Looking forth fearfully, thinking back tearfully
On bright sunny days in his own native land,
When leaving a home, he had manfully, cheerfully,
Started away for a southerly strand;
Hope fondly smiling, and sweetly beguiling
With soft fairy visions his path o’er the sea,
As the waves bore him on to the land he was styling
The labourer’s refuge, the home of the free.

Mark him arriving, and uselessly striving
With all his contriving, fair work to obtain;
And often himself of a dinner depriving,
To hang on, in hopes that he his end might gain.
His money has vanished, all hoping is banished
From his mind, which now carries a harassing load;
Sad, dejected, and lonely, dishearten’d, and famished,
He packs up his swag, and is off on the road.

Treat him not slightfully, haughty, or spitefully,
Tho’ he is ragged and weary with toil:
The day may yet brighten when honestly, rightfully,
He’ll stand as an owner and lord of the soil;
Stout heart and arm linking, will keep you from sinking —
Stand firm to the blast, ’tis but cowards who kneel.
There are many roads open to fortune, I’m thinking,
If a shoulder is manfully put to the wheel.

Trudging on wearily, heavily, drearily,
Parching with thirst on a hot, dusty road;
Pass him not jeeringly, chat with him cheeringly —
A word kindly spoken will lighten his load.
If you have piety, calm his anxiety,
Soothing his feelings, so long on the rack;
For he’s still a link in the chain of society,
Tho’ all he possesses is strapped to his back.

C.W.L.

— Southern Argus.



Source:
The Mining Record and Grenfell General Advertiser (Grenfell, NSW), 25 July 1868, p. 4

Editor’s notes:
o’er = over (pronounced the same as “oar”, “or”, and “ore”)

Filed Under: poetry Tagged With: poem, SourceTrove, swagmen, year1868

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

  • Mercenary Mum, by Neryl Joyce [book review]
  • The Year of the Angry Rabbit, by Russell Braddon [book review]
  • Western bush fire: Several crops burnt [5 January 1906]
  • Buy “Australian-Made” [by W. R. Bagnall, 22 June 1928]
  • The Bad Boy [poem regarding Henry Parkes, 12 May 1877]

Top Posts & Pages

  • The Bard and the Lizard [poem by John Shaw Neilson]
  • The Man from Snowy River [poem by Banjo Paterson]
  • To a Blue Flower [poem by John Shaw Neilson]
  • The drover’s wife [by Henry Lawson]
  • The Man from Ironbark [poem by Banjo Paterson]

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]

Search this site



For Australia


Copyright © 2022 · Log in