Poet Henry Lawson

Henry Lawson

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The Stranger's Friend Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDD EEFF CCDD AAGG HHII GGDD JJAA KKGG CCLL

The strangest things and the maddest things that a man can do or sayA
To the chaps and fellers and coves Out Back are matters of every dayA
Maybe on account of the lives they lead or the life that their hearts discardB
But never a fool can be too mad or a hard case be too hardB
I met him in Bourke in the Union days with which we have nought to doC
Their creed was narrow their methods crude but they stuck to the cause like glueC
He came into town from the Lost Soul Run for his grim half yearly bendD
And because of a curious hobby he had he was known as The Stranger s FriendD
-
It is true to the region of adjectives when I say that the spree was grimE
For to go on the spree was a sacred rite or a heathen rite to himE
To shout for the travellers passing through to the land where the lost soul bakesF
Till they all seemed devils of different breeds and his pockets were filled with snakesF
-
In the joyful mood in the solemn mood in his cynical stages tooC
In the maudlin stage in the fighting stage in the stage when all was blueC
From the joyful hour when his spree commenced right through to the awful endD
He never lost grip of his fixed idee that he was the Stranger s FriendD
-
The feller as knows he can battle around for his bloomin self he d sayA
I don t give a curse for the blanks I know the hard up bloke this wayA
Send the stranger round and I ll see him through and e en as the bushman spokeG
The chaps and fellers would tip the wink to a casual hard up blokeG
-
And it wasn t only a bushman s bluff to the fame of the Friend they scoredH
For he d shout the stranger a suit of clothes and he d pay for the stranger s boardH
The worst of it was that he d skite all night on the edge of the stranger s bunkI
And never got helplessly drunk himself till he d got the stranger drunkI
-
And the chaps and the fellers would speculate by way of a ghastly jokeG
As to who d be caught by the jim jams first the Friend or the hard up blokeG
And the Joker would say that there wasn t a doubt as to who d be damned in the endD
When the Devil got hold of a hard up bloke in the shape of the Stranger s FriendD
-
It mattered not to the Stranger s Friend what the rest might say or thinkJ
He always held that the hard up state was due to the curse of drinkJ
To the evils of cards and of company But a young cove s built that wayA
And I was a bloomin fool meself when I started out he d sayA
-
At the end of the spree in clean white moles clean shaven and cool as iceK
He d give the stranger a bob or two and some straight Out Back adviceK
Then he d tramp away for the Lost Soul Run where the hot dust rose like smokeG
Having done his duty to all mankind for he d stuck to a hard up blokeG
-
They ll say tis a song of a sot perhaps but the Song of a Sot is trueC
I have battled myself and you know you chaps what a man in the bush goes throughC
Let us hope when the last of his sprees is past and his cheques and his strength are doneL
That amongst the sober and thrifty mates the Stranger s Friend has oneL

Henry Lawson



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