Andrew Barton Paterson

The Old Australian Ways

The London lights are far abeam 
Behind a bank of cloud, 
Along the shore the gaslights gleam, 
The gale is piping loud; 
And down the Channel, groping blind, 
We drive her through the haze 
Towards the land we left behind -- 
The good old land of `never mind’, 
And old Australian ways. 

The narrow ways of English folk 
Are not for such as we; 
They bear the long-accustomed yoke 
Of staid conservancy: 
But all our roads are new and strange, 
And through our blood there runs 
The vagabonding love of change 
That drove us westward of the range 
And westward of the suns. 

The city folk go to and fro 
Behind a prison’s bars, 
They never feel the breezes blow 
And never see the stars; 
They never hear in blossomed trees 
The music low and sweet 
Of wild birds making melodies, 
Nor catch the little laughing breeze 
That whispers in the wheat. 

Our fathers came of roving stock 
That could not fixed abide: 
And we have followed field and flock 
Since e’er we learnt to ride; 
By miner’s camp and shearing shed, 
In land of heat and drought, 
We followed where our fortunes led, 
With fortune always on ahead 
And always further out. 

The wind is in the barley-grass, 
The wattles are in bloom; 
The breezes greet us as they pass 
With honey-sweet perfume; 
The parakeets go screaming by 
With flash of golden wing, 
And from the swamp the wild-ducks cry 
Their long-drawn note of revelry, 
Rejoicing at the Spring. 

So throw the weary pen aside 
And let the papers rest, 
For we must saddle up and ride 
Towards the blue hill’s breast; 
And we must travel far and fast 
Across their rugged maze, 
To find the Spring of Youth at last, 
And call back from the buried past 
The old Australian ways. 

When Clancy took the drover’s track 
In years of long ago, 
He drifted to the outer back 
Beyond the Overflow; 
By rolling plain and rocky shelf, 
With stockwhip in his hand, 
He reached at last, oh lucky elf, 
The Town of Come-and-help-yourself 
In Rough-and-ready Land. 

And if it be that you would know 
The tracks he used to ride, 
Then you must saddle up and go 
Beyond the Queensland side -- 
Beyond the reach of rule or law, 
To ride the long day through, 
In Nature’s homestead -- filled with awe 
You then might see what Clancy saw 
And know what Clancy knew.