The City Bushman Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBAA AAAAAACC AADDAAEE FFGGAAAAHH AAA II JJAAKKLLMMLLNN AAOOPP QQLLRSTTLL LLMMKKDD UUAAVVIIWWAAWWAA XXLLAAYYLLLL AAZA2II AALLLLAALLB2B2It was pleasant up the country City Bushman where you went | A |
For you sought the greener patches and you travelled like a gent | A |
And you curse the trams and buses and the turmoil and the push | B |
Though you know the squalid city needn't keep you from the bush | B |
But we lately heard you singing of the plains where shade is not' | A |
And you mentioned it was dusty all was dry and all was hot' | A |
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True the bush hath moods and changes' and the bushman hath 'em too | A |
For he's not a poet's dummy he's a man the same as you | A |
But his back is growing rounder slaving for the absentee | A |
And his toiling wife is thinner than a country wife should be | A |
For we noticed that the faces of the folks we chanced to meet | A |
Should have made a greater contrast to the faces in the street | A |
And in short we think the bushman's being driven to the wall | C |
And it's doubtful if his spirit will be loyal thro' it all' | C |
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Though the bush has been romantic and it's nice to sing about | A |
There's a lot of patriotism that the land could do without | A |
Sort of BRITISH WORKMAN nonsense that shall perish in the scorn | D |
Of the drover who is driven and the shearer who is shorn | D |
Of the struggling western farmers who have little time for rest | A |
And are ruined on selections in the sheep infested West | A |
Droving songs are very pretty but they merit little thanks | E |
From the people of a country in possession of the Banks | E |
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And the rise and fall of seasons' suits the rise and fall of rhyme | F |
But we know that western seasons do not run on schedule time | F |
For the drought will go on drying while there's anything to dry | G |
Then it rains until you'd fancy it would bleach the sunny sky | G |
Then it pelters out of reason for the downpour day and night | A |
Nearly sweeps the population to the Great Australian Bight | A |
It is up in Northern Queensland that the seasons do their best | A |
But it's doubtful if you ever saw a season in the West | A |
There are years without an autumn or a winter or a spring | H |
There are broiling Junes and summers when it rains like anything | H |
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In the bush my ears were opened to the singing of the bird | A |
But the carol of the magpie' was a thing I never heard | A |
Once the beggar roused my slumbers in a shanty it is true | A |
But I only heard him asking Who the blanky blank are you ' | - |
And the bell bird in the ranges but his silver chime' is harsh | I |
When it's heard beside the solo of the curlew in the marsh | I |
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Yes I heard the shearers singing William Riley' out of tune | J |
Saw 'em fighting round a shanty on a Sunday afternoon | J |
But the bushman isn't always trapping brumbies in the night' | A |
Nor is he for ever riding when the morn is fresh and bright' | A |
And he isn't always singing in the humpies on the run | K |
And the camp fire's cheery blazes' are a trifle overdone | K |
We have grumbled with the bushmen round the fire on rainy days | L |
When the smoke would blind a bullock and there wasn't any blaze | L |
Save the blazes of our language for we cursed the fire in turn | M |
Till the atmosphere was heated and the wood began to burn | M |
Then we had to wring our blueys which were rotting in the swags | L |
And we saw the sugar leaking through the bottoms of the bags | L |
And we couldn't raise a chorus for the toothache and the cramp | N |
While we spent the hours of darkness draining puddles round the camp | N |
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Would you like to change with Clancy go a droving tell us true | A |
For we rather think that Clancy would be glad to change with you | A |
And be something in the city but 'twould give your muse a shock | O |
To be losing time and money through the foot rot in the flock | O |
And you wouldn't mind the beauties underneath the starry dome | P |
If you had a wife and children and a lot of bills at home | P |
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Did you ever guard the cattle when the night was inky black | Q |
And it rained and icy water trickled gently down your back | Q |
Till your saddle weary backbone fell a aching to the roots | L |
And you almost felt the croaking of the bull frog in your boots | L |
Sit and shiver in the saddle curse the restless stock and cough | R |
Till a squatter's irate dummy cantered up to warn you off | S |
Did you fight the drought and pleuro when the seasons' were asleep | T |
Felling sheoaks all the morning for a flock of starving sheep | T |
Drinking mud instead of water climbing trees and lopping boughs | L |
For the broken hearted bullocks and the dry and dusty cows | L |
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Do you think the bush was better in the good old droving days' | L |
When the squatter ruled supremely as the king of western ways | L |
When you got a slip of paper for the little you could earn | M |
But were forced to take provisions from the station in return | M |
When you couldn't keep a chicken at your humpy on the run | K |
For the squatter wouldn't let you and your work was never done | K |
When you had to leave the missus in a lonely hut forlorn | D |
While you rose up Willy Riley' in the days ere you were born | D |
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Ah we read about the drovers and the shearers and the like | U |
Till we wonder why such happy and romantic fellows strike | U |
Don't you fancy that the poets ought to give the bush a rest | A |
Ere they raise a just rebellion in the over written West | A |
Where the simple minded bushman gets a meal and bed and rum | V |
Just by riding round reporting phantom flocks that never come | V |
Where the scalper never troubled by the war whoop of the push' | I |
Has a quiet little billet breeding rabbits in the bush | I |
Where the idle shanty keeper never fails to make a draw | W |
And the dummy gets his tucker through provisions in the law | W |
Where the labour agitator when the shearers rise in might | A |
Makes his money sacrificing all his substance for The Right | A |
Where the squatter makes his fortune and the seasons rise and fall' | W |
And the poor and honest bushman has to suffer for it all | W |
Where the drovers and the shearers and the bushmen and the rest | A |
Never reach the Eldorado of the poets of the West | A |
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And you think the bush is purer and that life is better there | X |
But it doesn't seem to pay you like the squalid street and square' | X |
Pray inform us City Bushman where you read in prose or verse | L |
Of the awful city urchin who would greet you with a curse' | L |
There are golden hearts in gutters though their owners lack the fat | A |
And we'll back a teamster's offspring to outswear a city brat | A |
Do you think we're never jolly where the trams and buses rage | Y |
Did you hear the gods in chorus when Ri tooral' held the stage | Y |
Did you catch a ring of sorrow in the city urchin's voice | L |
When he yelled for Billy Elton when he thumped the floor for Royce | L |
Do the bushmen down on pleasure miss the everlasting stars | L |
When they drink and flirt and so on in the glow of private bars | L |
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You've a down on trams and buses' or the roar' of 'em you said | A |
And the filthy dirty attic' where you never toiled for bread | A |
And about that self same attic Lord wherever have you been | Z |
For the struggling needlewoman mostly keeps her attic clean | A2 |
But you'll find it very jolly with the cuff and collar push | I |
And the city seems to suit you while you rave about the bush | I |
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You'll admit that Up the Country more especially in drought | A |
Isn't quite the Eldorado that the poets rave about | A |
Yet at times we long to gallop where the reckless bushman rides | L |
In the wake of startled brumbies that are flying for their hides | L |
Long to feel the saddle tremble once again between our knees | L |
And to hear the stockwhips rattle just like rifles in the trees | L |
Long to feel the bridle leather tugging strongly in the hand | A |
And to feel once more a little like a native of the land | A |
And the ring of bitter feeling in the jingling of our rhymes | L |
Isn't suited to the country nor the spirit of the times | L |
Let us go together droving and returning if we live | B2 |
Try to understand each other while we reckon up the div | B2 |
Henry Lawson
(1)
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