Because I feel like pimping out one of my favourite poets...

[highlyeccentric]

Now up and down the siding brown
    The great black crows are flyin’,
And down below the spur, I know,
    Another ‘milker’s’ dyin’;
The crops have withered from the ground,
    The tank’s clay bed is glarin’,
But from my heart no tear nor sound,
    For I have gone past carin’—
            Past worryin’ or carin’,
            Past feelin’ aught or carin’;
            But from my heart no tear nor sound,
            For I have gone past carin’.

Through Death and Trouble, turn about,
    Through hopeless desolation,
Through flood and fever, fire and drought,
    And slavery and starvation;
Through childbirth, sickness, hurt, and blight,
    And nervousness an’ scarin’,
Through bein’ left alone at night,
    I’ve got to be past carin’.
            Past botherin’ or carin’,
            Past feelin’ and past carin’;
            Through city cheats and neighbours’ spite,
            I’ve come to be past carin’.

Our first child took, in days like these,
    A cruel week in dyin’,
All day upon her father’s knees,
    Or on my poor breast lyin’;
The tears we shed—the prayers we said
    Were awful, wild—despairin’!
I’ve pulled three through, and buried two
    Since then—and I’m past carin’.
            I’ve grown to be past carin’,
            Past worryin’ and wearin’;
            I’ve pulled three through and buried two
            Since then, and I’m past carin’.

’Twas ten years first, then came the worst,
    All for a dusty clearin’,
I thought, I thought my heart would burst
    When first my man went shearin’;
He’s drovin’ in the great North-west,
    I don’t know how he’s farin’;
For I, the one that loved him best,
    Have grown to be past carin’.
            I’ve grown to be past carin’
            Past lookin’ for or carin’;
            The girl that waited long ago,
            Has lived to be past carin’.

My eyes are dry, I cannot cry,
    I’ve got no heart for breakin’,
But where it was in days gone by,
    A dull and empty achin’.
My last boy ran away from me,
    I know my temper’s wearin’,
But now I only wish to be
    Beyond all signs of carin’.
            Past wearyin’ or carin’,
            Past feelin’ and despairin’;
            And now I only wish to be
            Beyond all signs of carin’.
- Henry Lawson, Past Carin'

Henry Lawson was, as his own personal mythology would have it, born on the goldfied at Grenfell in 1867, to Neils 'Peter' Larsen and his wife Louisa. The story goes that he was to have been christened Henry Hertzberg Larsen, but due to a deaf parson, was named Henry Archibald Lawson. In fact, his mother registered his birth in the town of Forbes as Henry Lawson, adding 'Archibald' later in the family bible, which Henry used interchangably with Hertzberg. Louisa herself, later one of Sydney's foremost and most fiery feminists, went by the name Lawson in her public life and as editor of the Dawn magazine. Henry grew up in the bush, where Louisa was desperately unhappy and she and Peter fought bitterly. He was first schooled in a recently-opened provisional school, for the opening of which both of his parents had actively campaigned. By all accounts he was an odd and anti-social child, but as it turns out, this was in part because he went deaf early in life. Louisa moved Henry from school to school, constantly in conflict with his teachers, and blaming them, rather than his deafness, for his slow academic progress.

Henry left school at fourteen, already quite widely read thanks to his mother's interest in literature and writing, and noted by the District Inspector for his promise in English Composition. He travelled and worked with his father as a builder until in 1883 Louisa convinced Peter to move the family to Sydney, where her marriage evidently broke down. Henry went to life with her in Phillip Street, close to Circular Quay, and was apprenticed to a carriage builder in Clyde. He attended night school, but never matriculated, and never finished his apprenticeship, moving to work as a 'painter's employer' for thirty shillings a week. While Louisa was becoming heavily involved with radical activist groups, leading to the foundation of the Dawn Club in 1889¹, Henry cannot have been out of touch with his mother's circle, which included several of the Bulletin journalists.

Legend has it that he walked up to the Bulletin offices as a shy noob with poem in hand, but in fact his first published poem, A Song of the Republic (originally titled 'Sons of the South'), shows that he was already fluent with the dynamic political discourse both of the Bulletin and of his mother's circle, and had firmly chosen radical Republicanism as his creed. The poem appeared in 1887, and in the same year his prose piece 'Australian Loyalty Sentiment and Political' was published in the Republican, for which he became editor in 1888. Mid '88 his poetry appeared in the Bulletin again, with my personal favourite of his poems, Faces in the Street:
 

They lie, the men who tell us for reasons of their own
That want is here a stranger, and that misery's unknown;
For where the nearest suburb and the city proper meet
My window-sill is level with the faces in the street
Drifting past, drifting past,
To the beat of weary feet
While I sorrow for the owners of those faces in the street.

And cause I have to sorrow, in a land so young and fair,
To see upon those faces stamped the marks of Want and Care;
I look in vain for traces of the fresh and fair and sweet
In sallow, sunken faces that are drifting through the street
Drifting on, drifting on,
To the scrape of restless feet;
I can sorrow for the owners of the faces in the street.

In hours before the dawning dims the starlight in the sky
The wan and weary faces first begin to trickle by,
Increasing as the moments hurry on with morning feet,
Till like a pallid river flow the faces in the street
Flowing in, flowing in,
To the beat of hurried feet
Ah! I sorrow for the owners of those faces in the street.

The human river dwindles when 'tis past the hour of eight,
Its waves go flowing faster in the fear of being late;
But slowly drag the moments, whilst beneath the dust and heat
The city grinds the owners of the faces in the street
Grinding body, grinding soul,
Yielding scarce enough to eat
Oh! I sorrow for the owners of the faces in the street.

And then the only faces till the sun is sinking down
Are those of outside toilers and the idlers of the town,
Save here and there a face that seems a stranger in the street,
Tells of the city's unemployed upon his weary beat
Drifting round, drifting round,
To the tread of listless feet
Ah! My heart aches for the owner of that sad face in the street.

And when the hours on lagging feet have slowly dragged away,
And sickly yellow gaslights rise to mock the going day,
Then flowing past my window like a tide in its retreat,
Again I see the pallid stream of faces in the street
Ebbing out, ebbing out,
To the drag of tired feet,
While my heart is aching dumbly for the faces in the street.

And now all blurred and smirched with vice the day's sad pages end,
For while the short 'large hours' toward the longer 'small hours' trend,
With smiles that mock the wearer, and with words that half entreat,
Delilah pleads for custom at the corner of the street
Sinking down, sinking down,
Battered wreck by tempests beat
A dreadful, thankless trade is hers, that Woman of the Street.

But, ah! to dreader things than these our fair young city comes,
For in its heart are growing thick the filthy dens and slums,
Where human forms shall rot away in sties for swine unmeet,
And ghostly faces shall be seen unfit for any street
Rotting out, rotting out,
For the lack of air and meat
In dens of vice and horror that are hidden from the street.

I wonder would the apathy of wealthy men endure
Were all their windows level with the faces of the Poor?
Ah! Mammon's slaves, your knees shall knock, your hearts in terror beat,
When God demands a reason for the sorrows of the street,
The wrong things and the bad things
And the sad things that we meet
In the filthy lane and alley, and the cruel, heartless street.

I left the dreadful corner where the steps are never still,
And sought another window overlooking gorge and hill;
But when the night came dreary with the driving rain and sleet,
They haunted me the shadows of those faces in the street,
Flitting by, flitting by,
Flitting by with noiseless feet,
And with cheeks but little paler than the real ones in the street.

Once I cried: 'Oh, God Almighty! if Thy might doth still endure,
Now show me in a vision for the wrongs of Earth a cure.'
And, lo! with shops all shuttered I beheld a city's street,
And in the warning distance heard the tramp of many feet,
Coming near, coming near,
To a drum's dull distant beat,
And soon I saw the army that was marching down the street.

Then, like a swollen river that has broken bank and wall,
The human flood came pouring with the red flags over all,
And kindled eyes all blazing bright with revolution's heat,
And flashing swords reflecting rigid faces in the street.
Pouring on, pouring on,
To a drum's loud threatening beat,
And the war-hymns and the cheering of the people in the street.

And so it must be while the world goes rolling round its course,
The warning pen shall write in vain, the warning voice grow hoarse,
But not until a city feels Red Revolution's feet
Shall its sad people miss awhile the terrors of the street
The dreadful everlasting strife
For scarcely clothes and meat
In that pent track of living death the city's cruel street.

I did say he and his mother were raving lefties, didn't I? But that description. That's Sydney. Right there. That's my city, over a century on. I love Lawson and Patterson both for their bush poetry, but Lawson owns my soul for his gritty, dirty city poems.

In the late 80s, Lawson edited the Republican, assisted his mother with the editing and publishing of the Dawn. He had kept in close contact with his father until the latter's death at the end of 88. Henry's poetry appeared in various magazins, but not until the 90s did he turn his hand seriously to short stories. In 1890 he met a girl, one Mary Jane Cameron, later a poet in her own right, and he also developed a drinking porblem. For one or both of these reasons, his mother shipped both Henry and his brother Peter off to Western Australia to look for work- which Henry didn't find, save for some piecemeal journalism work in Albany. Six months later, he was back in Sydney and working as a builder's labourer, in the grip of the Depression. The Labor Party came suddenly to the fore, and many radicals including Lawson, developed an enthusiasm for constitutional change over revolution; the Federation debate was heating up; life, in short, was hard but interesting.

In 1891 Henry took up a full-time journalism position with the Boomerang, based in Brisbane- the editor, Gresley Lukin, was a friend of his mother. The economy being what it was, the paper shortly collapsed, and Lawson drifted back to Sydney, unemployed, until fellow writers conspired to have him shipped to Bourke as a commentator upon local conditions, thus removing him once again from his drinking mates. That too didn't last long, and in 1892-3 he apparently walked from Bourke to Hungerford (around 200 ks) looking for work. While outback, he was impressed by the unionism of shearers and bush workers, and this combined with his earlier nationalist feeling he began to pack together into a code of 'mateship' which he extolled as uniquely Australian. Consider:

We learnt the creed at Hungerford,
We learnt the creed at Bourke;
We learnt it in the good times
And learnt it out of work.
We learnt it by the harbour-side
And on the billabong:
"No matter what a mate may do,
A mate can do no wrong!

"He’s like a king in this respect
(No matter what they do),
And, king-like, shares in storm and shine
The Throne of Life with you.
We learnt it when we were in gaol
And put it in a song:
" No matter what a mate may do,
A mate can do no wrong!"

They’ll say he said a bitter word
When he’s away or dead.
We’re loyal to his memory,
No matter what he said.
And we should never hesitate,
But strike out good and strong,
And jolt the slanderer on the jaw –
A mate can do no wrong !

No matter what you think of the 'mateship' thing- and trust me, as a national sentiment it bugs me, and this particular example here is so... problematic. A mate can do no wrong? Really? Never? I think what you mean is you'll deny it strenuously, which is not a healthy basis for a friendship or political alliance. But ANYWAY. Moving on. Regardless of the problems with 'mateship' as a national propaganda tool, and with Lawson's own articulation thereof, I maintain, it's interesting, and he's interesting for being here and being influential in the formation of that ideal. 

The Bulletin, Lawson's first publishing ground and one to which he frequently returned, prided itself on nationalism and fostering the creation of an Australian political and cultural identity. Lawson and Banjo Patterson were contemporaries and their subject matter- primarily life in the bush, with a side order of city dwellers- is remarkably similar. The two sparked a rousing debate in the Bulletin pages over the various merits of the country and city, Lawsin beginning with his poem Up the Country (originally titled Borderland), and Banjo responding with In Defence of the Bush, and other Bulletin poets joining in. Broadly speaking, Lawson seems to have been viewed not only by Patterson but also by later critics as 'a townsman at heart' (A. W. Jose, 1933), who saw the bush as hard and harsh and tragic. Hard and harsh he definitely paints it- consider Past Carin', above, or Scots of the Riverina. But, as you can see by Faces in the Street (compare to Patterson's Clancy of the Overflow), Lawsons' view on town life is hardly any more cheerful than is Patterson's- in fact, it's bleak realism is far more visceral, although whether that's your cup of tea in a poem is another matter. Patterson is hailed as a great lover of the bush, romanticising bush life and portraying its upbeat and funny side. Lawson's stories and poems- even The Loaded Dog, which is read a lot in schools as an example of bush humour- is much darker, but I don't think he loved the bush or bush dwellers any less than did Patterson. Consider Andy's Gone With Cattle: sad and lonely, desolate even. But I don't think you could write that if you didn't deeply love the bush and all its harshness.

Lawson was meanwhile in and out of work for some years, trying to pick up positions in journalism and publishing both prose and verse, but work didn't last and newspaper publication was not profitable. In the end, his mother came to the rescue, publishing, on the Dawn's presses, Short Stories in Prose and Verse Henry Lawson Price One Shilling. Small, and unremarkable in itself, and, as he complained in its preface, unlikely to recieve much attention, as it did not come bound between the covers of a recognised British publishing house. In 1895 he signed with Angus and Robertson for the publication of two further books, the beginning of a fiery love-hate relationship between author and publisher in which Lawson and Robertson fought over editorial changes, and Robertson bailed Lawson out of financial dire straits.

In 1896, Lawson married Bertha Bredt, daugher of Bertha McNamara and step-daughter of W.H.T. MacNamara, a Castlereigh Street bookseller and publisher whose shop was a hotbed of radical Labor and left politicians, and did so against the advice of many of their friends including George Robertson. They meandered about between Western Australia, Sydney, and New Zealand, where Bertha taught in a Maori school and Lawson wrote a play so bad it was never performed nor published. Back in Sydney, he lost his job with the New South Wales Government Statistician's office, and was by th end of 1989 being treated for alcoholism. He became bitter, wrote complaining that Australia and Australians would not support genius, and then up and left for London. London did not work out any better than Australia, and Lawson's drinking and poor money management wound up with Bertha in hospital with a nervous breakdown. The most interesting thing he did there was to convince the publisher Blackwood to publish Miles Franklin's novel My Brilliant Career, a manuscript of which he had taken abroad with the author's permission.

After Lawson's return to Australia his marriage fell apart and he and Bertha were judicially separated. Hannah Thornburn, who may or may not have been his mistress but whom he certainly wrote about as the love that got away, died shortly after Lawson returned to Australia and before Lawson could see her again; with his wife and lover gone, he drifted about, drinking heavily, until he was taken in by an elderly widow, Mrs Isabel Byers, who managed to support him and house him for the next twenty years, in between his stints in the Darlinghurst Mental Hospital for 'drying out'. His writing from this period is considered generally bad, although there was a bit of a resurgence around the period of WWI, which ended embarrassingly with Lawson advocating conscription in verse well before the rest of the nation would countenance the idea. Despite the apparently poor quality of his work from this period, one of my favourites is the 1910 poem Do You Think That I Do Not Know:

They say that I never have written of love,
As a writer of songs should do;
They say that I never could touch the strings
With a touch that is firm and true;
They say I know nothing of women and men
In the fields where Love's roses grow,
And they say I must write with a halting pen
Do you think that I do not know?

When the love-burst came, like an English Spring,
In days when our hair was brown,
And the hem of her skirt was a sacred thing
And her hair was an angel's crown.
The shock when another man touched her arm,
Where the dancers sat round in a row;
The hope and despair, and the false alarm
Do you think that I do not know?

By the arbour lights on the western farms,
You remember the question put,
While you held her warm in your quivering arms
And you trembled from head to foot.
The electric shock from her finger tips,
And the murmuring answer low,
The soft, shy yielding of warm red lips
Do you think that I do not know?

She was buried at Brighton, where Gordon sleeps,
When I was a world away;
And the sad old garden its secret keeps,
For nobody knows to-day.
She left a message for me to read,
Where the wild wide oceans flow;
Do you know how the heart of a man can bleed
Do you think that I do not know?

I stood by the grave where the dead girl lies,
When the sunlit scenes were fair,
And the white clouds high in the autumn skies,
And I answered the message there.
But the haunting words of the dead to me
Shall go wherever I go.
She lives in the Marriage that Might Have Been
Do you think that I do not know?

They sneer or scoff, and they pray or groan,
And the false friend plays his part.
Do you think that the blackguard who drinks alone
Knows aught of a pure girl's heart?
Knows aught of the first pure love of a boy
With his warm young blood aglow,
Knows aught of the thrill of the world-old joy
Do you think that I do not know?

They say that I never have written of love,
They say that my heart is such
That finer feelings are far above;
But a writer may know too much.
There are darkest depths in the brightest nights,
When the clustering stars hang low;
There are things it would break his strong heart to write
Do you think that I do not know?

In 1916 friends and the Premier arranged a living and stipend for him in the town of Yanco, where the sale of liquor was prohibited, and his health improved and with it his poetry; by 1918 his collection of revised poems, Selected Poems, was pulished and well recieved. His mother died in 1920, by which time Henry was back in Sydney and suffering again from alcoholism. During his recovery from a cerebral haemorrhage, the public concern for his health was such that apparently he recived messages and good wishes from school-children as well as members of his own circle. He died suddenly in 1922, and was deeply mourned, and given a state funeral. Another of my favourite Lawson pieces is On The Night Train, published in 1922:

Have you seen the bush by moonlight, from the train, go running by?
Blackened log and stump and sapling, ghostly trees all dead and dry;
Here a patch of glassy water; there a glimpse of mystic sky?
Have you heard the still voice calling – yet so warm, and yet so cold:
"I'm the Mother-Bush that bore you! Come to me when you are old"?

Did you see the Bush below you sweeping darkly to the Range,
All unchanged and all unchanging, yet so very old and strange!
While you thought in softened anger of the things that did estrange?
(Did you hear the Bush a-calling, when your heart was young and bold:
"I'm the Mother-bush that nursed you; Come to me when you are old"?)

In the cutting or the tunnel, out of sight of stock or shed,
Did you hear the grey Bush calling from the pine-ridge overhead:
"You have seen the seas and cities – all is cold to you, or dead –
All seems done and all seems told, but the grey-light turns to gold!
I'm the Mother-Bush that loves you – come to me now you are old"?

And here's a picture of Henry Lawson and his enormous moustache. Have some links to other excellent Lawson poems: The Roaring Days; Scots of the Riverina. I would rec you some of his fiction, but I actually haven't read anything aside from The Loaded Dog, which got force-fed to me too many times in school.

Information for this rough biography drawn largely from The World of Henry Lawson, ed. Walter Stone, 1974, introduction by Walter Stone. Supplemented by Stone's The Best of Banjo Patterson, 1977, and the government Henry Lawson profile page.Some information on the Dawn Club drawn from Letters from Louisa, a biography of Louisa MacDonald, first Principal of The Womens College, ed. Beaumont and Hole 1996.

~

1. The Dawn Club and its journal advocated, along with women's suffrage and the defence of women's labour rights, the establishment of a Women's College within the University of Sydney, and although Lousia Lawson seems to have been socially a rung below the Women's College circle of supporters, the Dawn Club's founding address was given by Margaret Windeyer, whose family were on the first College Council. I believe the Windeyer's also owned Tomago, once a big farm and now an industrial estate between my place and the freeway. SMALL COUNTRY, this.