The Cambaroora Star Poem Rhyme Scheme

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So you're writing for a paper Well it's nothing very new	A
To be writing yards of drivel for a tidy little screw	A
You are young and educated and a clever chap you are	B
But you'll never run a paper like the CAMBAROORA STAR	B
Though in point of education I am nothing but a dunce	C
I myself you mayn't believe it helped to run a paper once	C
With a chap on Cambaroora by the name of Charlie Brown	D
And I'll tell you all about it if you'll take the story down	D
	-
On a golden day in summer when the sunrays were aslant	E
Brown arrived in Cambaroora with a little printing plant	E
And his worldly goods and chattels rather damaged on the way	F
And a weary looking woman who was following the dray	F
He had bought an empty humpy and instead of getting tight	E
Why the diggers heard him working like a lunatic all night	E
And next day a sign of canvas writ in characters of tar	B
Claimed the humpy as the office of the CAMBAROORA STAR	B
	-
Well I cannot read that's honest but I had a digger friend	E
Who would read the paper to me from the title to the end	E
And the STAR contained a leader running thieves and spielers down	D
With a slap against claim jumping and a poem made by Brown	D
Once I showed it to a critic and he said 'twas very fine	G
Though he wasn't long in finding glaring faults in every line	G
But it was a song of Freedom all the clever critic said	E
Couldn't stop that song from ringing ringing ringing in my head	E
	-
So I went where Brown was working in his little hut hard by	H
My old mate has been a reading of your writings Brown ' said I	H
I have studied on your leader I agree with what you say	F
You have struck the bed rock certain and there ain't no get away	F
Your paper's just the thumper for a young and growing land	E
And your principles is honest Brown I want to shake your hand	E
And if there's any lumping in connection with the STAR	B
Well I'll find the time to do it and I'll help you there you are '	-
	-
Brown was every inch a digger bronzed and bearded in the South	I
But there seemed a kind of weakness round the corners of his mouth	I
When he took the hand I gave him and he gripped it like a vice	C
While he tried his best to thank me and he stuttered once or twice	C
But there wasn't need for talking we'd the same old loves and hates	C
And we understood each other Charlie Brown and I were mates	C
So we worked a little paddock' on a place they called the Bar'	B
And we sank a shaft together and at night we worked the STAR	B
	-
Charlie thought and did his writing when his work was done at night	E
And the missus used to set' it near as quick as he could write	E
Well I didn't shirk my promise and I helped the thing I guess	C
For at night I worked the lever of the crazy printing press	C
Brown himself would do the feeding and the missus used to fly'	J
She is flying with the angels if there's justice up on high	H
For she died on Cambaroora when the STAR began to go	K
And was buried like the diggers buried diggers long ago	K
	-
	-
	-
Lord that press It was a jumper we could seldom get it right	E
And were lucky if we averaged a hundred in the night	E
Many nights we'd sit together in the windy hut and fold	E
And I helped the thing a little when I struck a patch of gold	E
And we battled for the diggers as the papers seldom do	E
Though when the diggers errored why we touched the diggers too	E
Yet the paper took the fancy of that roaring mining town	D
And the diggers sent a nugget with their sympathy to Brown	D
	-
Oft I sat and smoked beside him in the listening hours of night	E
When the shadows from the corners seemed to gather round the light	E
When his weary aching fingers closing stiffly round the pen	L
Wrote defiant truth in language that could touch the hearts of men	L
Wrote until his eyelids shuddered wrote until the East was grey	B
Wrote the stern and awful lessons that were taught him in his day	B
And they knew that he was honest and they read his smallest par	B
For I think the diggers' Bible was the CAMBAROORA STAR	B
	-
Diggers then had little mercy for the loafer and the scamp	M
If there wasn't law and order there was justice in the camp	M
And the manly independence that is found where diggers are	B
Had a sentinel to guard it in the CAMBAROORA STAR	B
There was strife about the Chinamen who came in days of old	E
Like a swarm of thieves and loafers when the diggers found the gold	E
Like the sneaking fortune hunters who are always found behind	E
And who only shepherd diggers till they track them to the find'	E
	-
Charlie wrote a slinging leader calling on his digger mates	C
And he said We think that Chinkies are as bad as syndicates	C
What's the good of holding meetings where you only talk and swear	B
Get a move upon the Chinkies when you've got an hour to spare '	-
It was nine o'clock next morning when the Chows began to swarm	N
But they weren't so long in going for the diggers' blood was warm	N
Then the diggers held a meeting and they shouted Hip hoorar	B
Give three ringing cheers my hearties for the CAMBAROORA STAR '	-
	-
But the Cambaroora petered and the diggers' sun went down	D
And another sort of people came and settled in the town	D
The reefing was conducted by a syndicate or two	E
And they changed the name to Queensville' for their blood was very blue	E
They wanted Brown to help them put the feathers in their nests	C
But his leaders went like thunder for their vested interests	C
And he fought for right and justice and he raved about the dawn	O
Of the reign of Man and Reason till his ads were all withdrawn	O
	-
He was offered shares for nothing in the richest of the mines	C
And he could have made a fortune had he run on other lines	C
They abused him for his leaders and they parodied his rhymes	C
And they told him that his paper was a mile behind the times	C
Let the times alone ' said Charlie they're all right you needn't fret	E
For I started long before them and they haven't caught me yet	E
But ' says he to me they're coming and they're not so very far	B
Though I left the times behind me they are following the STAR	B
	-
Let them do their worst ' said Charlie but I'll never drop the reins	C
While a single scrap of paper or an ounce of ink remains	C
I've another truth to tell them though they tread me in the dirt	E
And I'll print another issue if I print it on my shirt '	-
So we fought the battle bravely and we did our very best	E
Just to make the final issue quite as lively as the rest	E
And the swells in Cambaroora talked of feathers and of tar	B
When they read the final issue of the CAMBAROORA STAR	B
	-
Gold is stronger than the tongue is gold is stronger than the pen	L
They'd have squirmed in Cambaroora had I found a nugget then	L
But in vain we scraped together every penny we could get	E
For they fixed us with their boycott and the plant was seized for debt	E
'Twas a storekeeper who did it and he sealed the paper's doom	P
Though we gave him ads for nothing when the STAR began to boom	P
'Twas a paltry bill for tucker and the crawling sneaking clown	D
Sold the debt for twice its value to the men who hated Brown	D
	-
I was digging up the river and I swam the flooded bend	E
With a little cash and comfort for my literary friend	E
Brown was sitting sad and lonely with his head bowed in despair	B
While a single tallow candle threw a flicker on his hair	B
And the gusty wind that whistled through the crannies of the door	B
Stirred the scattered files of paper that were lying on the floor	B
Charlie took my hand in silence and by and by he said	E
Tom old mate we did our damnedest but the brave old STAR is dead '	-
	-
	-
	-
Then he stood up on a sudden with a face as pale as death	Q
And he gripped my hand a moment while he seemed to fight for breath	Q
Tom ol	E

Henry Lawson

The Cambaroora Star Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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