Edward Dyson
Who is Edward Dyson
Edward George Dyson (4 March 1865 – 22 August 1931), or 'Ted' Dyson, was an Australian journalist, poet, playwright and short story writer. He was the elder brother of illustrators Will Dyson (1880–1938) and Ambrose Dyson (1876–1913), with three sisters also of artistic and literary praise.
Dyson wrote under several – some say many – nom-de-plumes, including Silas Snell. In his day, the period of Australia's federation, the poet and writer was "ranked very closely to Australia's greatest short-story writer, Henry Lawson". With Lawson known as the "swagman poet", Ogilvie the "horseman poet", Dyson was the "mining poet". Although known as a freelance writer, he was also considered part of The Bulletin writer group.
Early life
He was born at ...
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Edward Dyson Poems
- Of The True Endeavour
Happy he in whom the honest love of fair endeavour lingers,
Who has strength to do his labour, and has pride to do it well,
Carve he gems of purest water with an artist's cunning fingers,
Hew the granite, forge the beam, or make a simple tale to tell
...
- The Living Picture
He rode along one splendid noon,
When all the hills were lit with Spring,
And through the bushland throbbed a croon
Of every living, hopeful thing.
...
- The Toucher
He was a jobbing hand from the printers' flat. His name was Raymond Cato, but he acquired "Toucher" as a complimentary title when we knew him better. He was tall, sallow, languid and distressingly impecunious. I put it that way because Mr Cato's impecuniosity was more a trait of character than the result of misfortune. He was the sort of young man who would have been impecunious had he been born to ten thousand a year. He was slovenly in his dress, and his trousers were always worn to strings at the heels, and this fringe collected various foreign bodies, which dragged after him as be walked, Raymond being too languid or too indifferent to shake them off. You got to know when Toucher was coming by the clatter of vagrant articles attached to his trousers fringe. He once towed a disused fish-tin after him through a whole hot afternoon. That will give you an idea of the sort of person Raymond Cato was. But this depraved young man, while apparently sleeping against a case, could paw type with miraculous speed and precision, and he handled the most intricate jobs with absolute certainty when under the influence of two buckets of very bad beer.
Mr Cato had only been ten days in the factory when be came to the packer's board and leaned there. There were two peach-nuts, a metal rule, and the rind off a tin of red ink dangling at his fetlock. He passed his hand wearily over his brow, brushing back his long, black hair, and rested his eyes on the packer. Raymond's eyes were large and dark, and suffused with an overwhelming sadness. The Toucher owed his success largely to those appealing eyes.
...
- Quits
Ben Unger's wife was dark and small,
With little, round, black eyes;
Ben Unger started at her call,
For Ben had been made wise.
...
- Cleaning Up
When the horse has been unharnessed and we've flushed the old machine,
And the water o'er the sluice is running evenly and clean;
When there's thirty load before us, and the sun is high and bright,
And we've worked from early morning and shall have to work till night,
...
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