The Ballad Of The Rousabout Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDD EEFF GGHH IIHH IIJJ KKLL IIMM IINO PPQQ RRRR RRSS TTRR HHRR| A Rouseabout of rouseabouts from any land or none | A |
| I bear a nick name of the bush and I m a woman s son | A |
| I came from where I camp d last night and at the day dawn glow | B |
| I rub the darkness from my eyes roll up my swag and go | B |
| Some take the track for bitter pride some for no pride at all | C |
| But to us all the world is wide when driven to the wall | C |
| Some take the track for gain in life some take the track for loss | D |
| And some of us take up the swag as Christ took up the Cross | D |
| - | |
| Some take the track for faith in men some take the track for doubt | E |
| Some flee a squalid home to work their own salvation out | E |
| Some dared not see a mother s tears nor meet a father s face | F |
| Born of good Christian families some leap head long from Grace | F |
| - | |
| Oh we are men who fought and rose or fell from many grades | G |
| Some born to lie and some to pray we re men of many trades | G |
| We re men whose fathers were and are of high and low degree | H |
| The sea was open to us and we sailed across the sea | H |
| - | |
| And were our quarrels wrong or just has no place in my song | I |
| We seared our souls in puzzling as to what was right or wrong | I |
| We judge not and we are not judged tis our philosophy | H |
| There s something wrong with every ship that sails upon the sea | H |
| - | |
| From shearing shed to shearing shed we tramp to make a cheque | I |
| Jack Cornstalk and the ne er do weel the tar boy and the wreck | I |
| We learn the worth of man to man and this we learn too well | J |
| The shanty and the shearing shed are warmer spots in hell | J |
| - | |
| I ve humped my swag to Bawley Plain and further out and on | K |
| I ve boiled my billy by the Gulf and boiled it by the Swan | K |
| I ve thirsted in dry lignum swamps and thirsted on the sand | L |
| And eked the fire with camel dung in Never Never Land | L |
| - | |
| I know the track from Spencer s Gulf and north of Cooper s Creek | I |
| Where falls the half caste to the strong black velvet to the weak | I |
| From gold top Flossie in the Strand to half caste and the gin | M |
| If they had brains poor animals we d teach them how to sin | M |
| - | |
| I ve tramped and camped and shore and drunk with many mates Out Back | I |
| And every one to me is Jack because the first was Jack | I |
| A lifer sneaked from jail at home the straightest mate I met | N |
| A ratty Russian Nihilist a British Baronet | O |
| - | |
| I know the tucker tracks that feed or leave one in the lurch | P |
| The Burgoo Presbyterian track the Murphy Roman Church | P |
| But more the man and not the track so much as it appears | Q |
| For battling is a trade to learn and I ve served seven years | Q |
| - | |
| We re haunted by the past at times and this is very bad | R |
| And so we drink till horrors come lest sober we go mad | R |
| So much is lost Out Back so much of hell is realised | R |
| A man might skin himself alive and no one be surprised | R |
| - | |
| A rouseabout of rouseabouts above beneath regard | R |
| I know how soft is this old world and I have learnt how hard | R |
| A rouseabout of rouseabouts I know what men can feel | S |
| I ve seen the tears from hard eyes slip as drops from polished steel | S |
| - | |
| I learned what college had to teach and in the school of men | T |
| By camp fires I have learned or say unlearned it all again | T |
| But this I ve learned that truth is strong and if a man go straight | R |
| He ll live to see his enemy struck down by time and fate | R |
| - | |
| We hold him true who s true to one however false he be | H |
| There s something wrong with every ship that lies beside the quay | H |
| We lend and borrow laugh and joke and when the past is drowned | R |
| We sit upon our swags and smoke and watch the world go round | R |
Henry Lawson
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