Latest / Edgar Allan Poe Poems / Bush Debate - Edward Dyson, Francis Kenna, Henry Lawson, Banjo Paterson

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Bush Debate - Edward Dyson, Francis Kenna, Henry Lawson, Banjo Paterson · Edgar Allan Poe Poems

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Speaker 1: Palm one of the Bush debate. This is a LibriVox recording.
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Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information,
0:09
Speaker 1: ought to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by
0:15
Speaker 1: Timothy Ferguson Borderland by Henry Lawson. I am back from
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Speaker 1: up the country, very sorry that I went seeking for
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Speaker 1: the Southern poet's land, whereon to bitch my tent. I
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Speaker 1: have lost a lot of idols which were broken on
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Speaker 1: the track, burnt a lot of fancy verses, and I
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Speaker 1: am glad that I'm back. Further out may be the
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Speaker 1: pleasant scenes of which our poets boast, but I think
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Speaker 1: the country's rather more inviting round the coast anyway. I'll
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Speaker 1: stay at present at a boarding house in town, drinking
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Speaker 1: beer and lemon squashes, taking baths, and cooling down sunny
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Speaker 1: plains Great scot those burning wastes of barren soil and sand,
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Speaker 1: with their everlasting fences stretching out across the land and
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Speaker 1: desolation where the crow is, desert where the eagle flies paddics,
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Speaker 1: where the luney bullock starts and stares with reddened eyes,
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Speaker 1: Where in clouds of dust, enveloped roasted bullock drivers creep
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Speaker 1: slowly past the sun dried shepherd, dragged behind his crawling sheep,
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Speaker 1: stunted peak of granite, gleaming, glaring like a molten mass
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Speaker 1: turned from some infernal furnace on a plain devoid of grass,
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Speaker 1: Miles and miles of thirsty gutters, strings of muddy water
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Speaker 1: holes in place of shining rivers, walled by cliffs and
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Speaker 1: forest bowls, range of ridges, gullies, ridges, barren where the
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Speaker 1: madden flies, fiercer than the plagues of Egypt, swarm about
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Speaker 1: your blighted eyes. Bush where there is no horizon, where
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Speaker 1: the buried bushman sees nothing, nothing but the sameness of
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Speaker 1: the ragged, stunted trees, lonely huts, where droughts eternal, suffocating atmosphere,
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Speaker 1: where the god forgotten hat are dreams of city life
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Speaker 1: and beer. Treacherous tracks that trap the stranger, endless roads
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Speaker 1: that gleam and glare, dark and evil looking gullies hiding
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Speaker 1: secrets here and there, dull dumb flats and stony rises,
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Speaker 1: where the toiling bullocks bake and the sinister goanna, the
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Speaker 1: lizard and the snake. Land of day and night, no
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Speaker 1: morning freshness, and no afternoon for the great white sun
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Speaker 1: in rising bringeth summer heat in June. Dismal country for
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Speaker 1: the exile, when the shades begin to fall from the sad,
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Speaker 1: heart breaking sunset to the new chum worst of all.
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Speaker 1: Dreary land in rainy weather, with the endless clouds that drift,
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Speaker 1: Oh the bushmen like a blanket that the Lord will
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Speaker 1: never lift. Dismal land when it is raining, growl the floods,
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Speaker 1: and oh the wosh of the rain and the wind
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Speaker 1: together on the dark bed of the bush. Ghastly fires,
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Speaker 1: in lonely humpies, where the granite rocks are piled in
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Speaker 1: the rain swept wildernesses that are the wildest of the
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Speaker 1: wild land, where gaunt and haggard women live alone and
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Speaker 1: work like men till their husbands gone are droving will
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Speaker 1: return to them again. Homes of men, if home had
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Speaker 1: ever such a god forgotten place, where the wild selectors
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Speaker 1: children fly before a stranger's face. Home of tragedy, applauded
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Speaker 1: by the dingoes, dismal yell, heaven of the shanty keeper,
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Speaker 1: fitting fing for such a hell, And the wallaroos and wombats,
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Speaker 1: and of course the curlews call, and the lone sundowner,
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Speaker 1: tramping ever onward through it all. I am back from
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Speaker 1: up the country, up the country where I went, seeking
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Speaker 1: for the Southern poet's land, whereon to bitch my tent.
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Speaker 1: I have left a lot of broken idols out along
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Speaker 1: the track, bent a lot of fancy verses, And I
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Speaker 1: am glad that I am back. I believe the Southern
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Speaker 1: Poet's dream will not be realized till the plains are
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Speaker 1: irrigated and the land is humanized. I intend to stay
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Speaker 1: at present, as I said before, in town, drinking beer
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Speaker 1: and lemon squashes, taking baths, and cooling down. End of
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Speaker 1: Borderland poem.
4:47
Speaker 2: Too of the Bush Debate. This is a libyvox recording.
4:51
Speaker 2: All liberyvox recordings are in a public domain. For more
4:55
Speaker 2: information or to volunteer, please visit libyvox dot org. Recording
5:02
Speaker 2: by Algie pug In Defense of the Bush by Banjo
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Speaker 2: Patterson on reading Henry Lawson's Borderland. So you're back from
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Speaker 2: up the country, mister Lawson, where you went, and you're
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Speaker 2: cursing all the business in a bitter discontent. Well, we
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Speaker 2: grieve to disappoint you, and it makes its sad to
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Speaker 2: hear that it wasn't curl and shady, and there wasn't
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Speaker 2: plenty beer, and the looney bullocks snorted when you first
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Speaker 2: came into view. Well, you know, it's not so often
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Speaker 2: that he sees a swell like you. And the roads
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Speaker 2: were hot and dusty, and the plains were burnt and brown,
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Speaker 2: and no doubt your bitter suited drinking lemon squash in town. Yet, perchance,
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Speaker 2: if you should journey down the very track you went
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Speaker 2: in a month or two at furthest you would wonder
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Speaker 2: what it meant where the sun baked earth was gasping
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Speaker 2: like a creature in its pain. You would find the
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Speaker 2: grasses waving like a field of summer grain, and the
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Speaker 2: miles of thirsty gutters blocked with sand and choked with mud.
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Speaker 2: You would find them mighty rivers with a turbid, sweeping flood.
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Speaker 2: For the rain and drought and sunshine make no changes
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Speaker 2: in the street, in the sullen line of buildings and
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Speaker 2: the ceaseless tramp of feet. But the bush hath moods
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Speaker 2: and changes as the seasons rise and fall. And the
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Speaker 2: men who know the bush land, they are loyal through
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Speaker 2: it all. But you found the bush was dismal and
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Speaker 2: a land of no delight? Did you chance to hear
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Speaker 2: a chorus in the shearer's huts at night? Did they
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Speaker 2: rise up William Riley by the campfire's cheery blaze? Did
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Speaker 2: they rise him as we rose him in the good
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Speaker 2: old droving days? And the women of the homesteads and
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Speaker 2: the men you chanced to meet, were their faces sour
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Speaker 2: and saddened, like the faces in the street and the
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Speaker 2: shy select the children. Were they better now or worse
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Speaker 2: than the city urchins mentioned who would greet you with
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Speaker 2: a curse? Is not such a life much better than
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Speaker 2: the squalid street and square where the fallen women flaunted
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Speaker 2: in the fierce electric glare, where the seamstress plight are
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Speaker 2: sewing till her eyes are sore, and read in a filthy,
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Speaker 2: dirty attic, toiling on for daily bread. Did you hear
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Speaker 2: no sweeter voices in the music of the bush than
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Speaker 2: the roar of trams and busses and the war whoop
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Speaker 2: of the push. Did the magpies rouse your slumbers with
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Speaker 2: their carols? Sweet and strange? Did you hear the silver
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Speaker 2: charming of the bell birds on the range? But perchance
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Speaker 2: the wild bird's music by your senses, was despised for
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Speaker 2: you say you'll stay in townships till the bushes. Would
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Speaker 2: you make it a tea garden and on Sundays have
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Speaker 2: a band where the blokes might take their donners. With
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Speaker 2: the public close at hand, you had better stick to
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Speaker 2: Sydney and make merry with the push, for the bush
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Speaker 2: will never suit you, and you'll never suit the bush.
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Speaker 2: The banjo end of In Defense of the Bush, on
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Speaker 2: reading Henry Lawson's Borderland.
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Speaker 3: Poem number three of the Bush Debate. This is a
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Speaker 3: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
8:42
Speaker 3: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
8:47
Speaker 3: Recording by Jesse Mills. The Fact of the Matter by
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Speaker 3: Edward Dyson The Fact of the Matter. I'm wondering why
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Speaker 3: those fellers who go building chipper ditties about the rosy
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Speaker 3: times are droving and the dust and death of cities
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Speaker 3: don't sling the blooming office. Strike some drover for a
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Speaker 3: billet and soak up all the glory that comes handy
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Speaker 3: while they fill it. Perhaps it's fun to travel cattle
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Speaker 3: or to picnic with merinos, but the drover don't catch on, sir,
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Speaker 3: not much high class rapture. He knows as to sleeping
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Speaker 3: on the plains there in the shatter of the spear grass.
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Speaker 3: That's liked best by the juggins with a spring bed
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Speaker 3: and a pier glass, and the camp fire and the freedom,
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Speaker 3: and the blanky constellations, the possum rug and billy, and
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Speaker 3: the togs and stale old rations. It's strange they're only
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Speaker 3: raved about by coves. The dress are pretty and sport
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Speaker 3: a wife and live on slap up tucker in the city.
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Speaker 3: I've tickled beef in my time, clear from Clark to Riverina,
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Speaker 3: and shifted sheep all round the shop. But blow me
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Speaker 3: if I've seen a single blanky hand who didn't buck
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Speaker 3: at pleasures of this kidney, and wouldn't trade his blizzes
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Speaker 3: for a flutter down in Sydney night watchers are delightful
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Speaker 3: when the stars are really splendid to the chap who's
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Speaker 3: fresh upon the job. But you bet his raptures ended
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Speaker 3: when the rain comes down in sluice heads, or the
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Speaker 3: cutting hailstones pelter and the sheep drift off before the
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Speaker 3: wind and the horses strike for shelter. Don't take me
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Speaker 3: for a howler. But I find it come annoying to
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Speaker 3: hear these fellers rave about the pleasures we're enjoying when
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Speaker 3: perhaps weave nothing better than some fluky water handy. And
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Speaker 3: they're right on all the liquors rum and plenty beer
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Speaker 3: and brandy. The town is dusty, maybe, but it isn't
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Speaker 3: worth the curses side the dusty fella swallows and the blinded,
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Speaker 3: thirsty nurses. When he's on the hard macadam where the
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Speaker 3: jumbucks cannot browse, and the wind is in his whiskers,
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Speaker 3: and he follows twenty thousand This drove in on the
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Speaker 3: plain too. It's all okay when the weather isn't hot
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Speaker 3: enough to curl the souls right off your upper leather,
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Speaker 3: or so cold that when the morning wind comes hissing
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Speaker 3: through the grasses you can feel it cut your eyelid
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Speaker 3: like a whiplash as it passes. Then there's bullants in
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Speaker 3: the blankets, and a lame horse and mosquiters, and a
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Speaker 3: dt boss like Halligan, or one like Humpy Peters, who
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Speaker 3: is mean about the tucker and can curse from start
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Speaker 3: to sundown, and can fight like fifty devils, and whose
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Speaker 3: growlers never run down. Yes, I wonder why the fellas
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Speaker 3: what go building chipper ditties about the rosy times outdroving
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Speaker 3: and the dust and death of cities. Don't sling the
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Speaker 3: bluming office, Strike all peters for a billet, and soak
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Speaker 3: up all the glory that comes handy while they fill it.
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Speaker 3: And of the fact of the matter.
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Speaker 1: Poem four of the Bush Debate. This is a LibriVox recording.
12:02
Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
12:05
Speaker 1: information not to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
12:10
Speaker 1: by Timothy Ferguson in answer to Banjo and otherwise by
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Speaker 1: Henry Lawson. It was pleasant up the country, mister Banjo,
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Speaker 1: where you went, for you sought the green apaches, and
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Speaker 1: you traveled like a gent and you cursed the trams
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Speaker 1: and busses and the turmoil of the push, though you
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Speaker 1: know the squalid city needn't keep you from the bush.
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Speaker 1: But we lately heard you singing of the plains where
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Speaker 1: shade is not, and you mentioned it was dusty, all
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Speaker 1: is dry, and all is hot. True the bush hath
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Speaker 1: moods and changes, and the bushman hatham too, for he
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Speaker 1: is not a poet's dummy. He's a man the same
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Speaker 1: as you, and his back is growing round as slaving
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Speaker 1: for the absent tea, and his toiling wife is thinner
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Speaker 1: than a country wife should be. For we noticed that
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Speaker 1: the face are the folks we chanced to meet should
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Speaker 1: have made a greater contrast to the faces in the street.
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Speaker 1: And in short, we think the bushmen's being driven to
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Speaker 1: the wall, and it's doubtful if his spirit will be
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Speaker 1: loyal through it.
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Speaker 4: All.
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Speaker 1: Though the bush has been romantic and it's nice to
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Speaker 1: sing about, there's a lot of patriotism that the land
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Speaker 1: could do without. Sort of British workmen nonsense that you'll
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Speaker 1: perish in the scorn of the drover who is driven,
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Speaker 1: and the shearer who is shorn of the struggling Western
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Speaker 1: farmers who have little time for rest and are ruined
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Speaker 1: on selections in the squatter ridden West. Droving songs are
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Speaker 1: very pretty, but they merit little thanks from the people
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Speaker 1: of a country which is ridden by the banks and
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Speaker 1: the rise and full of seasons suits the rise and
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Speaker 1: full of rime. But we know the Western seasons do
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Speaker 1: not run on schedule. Time for the drought will go
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Speaker 1: on drying. There's anything to dry. Then it rains until
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Speaker 1: you fancy it would bleach the sunny sky. Then it
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Speaker 1: pelt us out of reason, for the downpour day and
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Speaker 1: night nearly sweeps the population to the great Australian bite.
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Speaker 1: It is up in northern Queensland that the seasons do
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Speaker 1: their best, But it's doubtful if you ever saw a season.
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Speaker 1: In the west. There are years without an autumn or
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Speaker 1: a winter or a spring. There are broiling dunes and
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Speaker 1: summers where it rains like anything in the bush. My
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Speaker 1: ears were open to the singing of the bird, but
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Speaker 1: the carol of the magpie was a thing I never heard.
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Speaker 1: Once the beggar roused my slumbers in a shanty, it
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Speaker 1: is true, but I only had him asking who the
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Speaker 1: blanky blank are you? And the bell bird in the ranges.
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Speaker 1: But his silver chime is harsh when it's heard beside
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Speaker 1: the solo of the curlew in the marsh. Yes, I
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Speaker 1: heard the surest singing William Riley out of tune, fighting
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Speaker 1: round a shanty on a Sunday afternoon. But the bushman
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Speaker 1: isn't always trapping brumbies in the night, nor is he
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Speaker 1: forever riding when the morn is fresh. And bright, and
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Speaker 1: he isn't always singing in the humpies on the run,
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Speaker 1: and the campfire's cheery blazes are a trifle overdone. We
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Speaker 1: have grumbled with the bushmen round the fire on rainy days,
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Speaker 1: when the smoke would blind a bullock, and there wasn't
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Speaker 1: any blaze save the blazes of our language. For we
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Speaker 1: cursed the fire in turn till the atmosphere was heated,
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Speaker 1: and the wood began to burn, And we had to
15:35
Speaker 1: ring our bluies which were rotting in the swags, and
15:38
Speaker 1: we saw the sugar leaking through the bottom of the bags,
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Speaker 1: and we couldn't raise a chorus for the toothache and
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Speaker 1: the cramp, or we spent the hours of darkness draining
15:48
Speaker 1: puddles round the camp. Would you like to change with Clancy,
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Speaker 1: go a droving tell us true, For we rather think
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Speaker 1: that Clancy would be glad to change with you and
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Speaker 1: be something in the city. But twould give your muse
16:03
Speaker 1: a shock to be losing time and money through the
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Speaker 1: foot rot in the flock. And you wouldn't mind the
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Speaker 1: beauties underneath the starry dome if you had a wife
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Speaker 1: and children and a lot of bills at home. Did
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Speaker 1: you ever guard the cattle when the night was inky
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Speaker 1: black and it rained, and icy water gently trickled down
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Speaker 1: your back till your saddle weary backbone fell a aching
16:27
Speaker 1: to the roots, and you almost felt the croaking of
16:30
Speaker 1: the bull frog in your boots, Sit and shiver in
16:34
Speaker 1: the saddle, cursed the restless stock, and coughed till a
16:38
Speaker 1: squatter's irate dummy cantered up to warn you off. Did
16:42
Speaker 1: you fight the drought and pleuro when the seasons were asleep,
16:46
Speaker 1: felling sheoaks all the morning for a flock of starving sheep,
16:50
Speaker 1: drinking mud instead of water, Climbing trees and lobbing boughs
16:54
Speaker 1: for the broken, hutted bullocks and the dry and dusty cows.
17:00
Speaker 1: Do you think the bush was better in the good
17:02
Speaker 1: old droving days when the squatter ruled supremely as the
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Speaker 1: king of western ways, when you got a slip of
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Speaker 1: paper for the little you could earn, but were forced
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Speaker 1: to take provisions from the station in return, When you
17:15
Speaker 1: couldn't keep a chicken at your humpy on the run
17:17
Speaker 1: for the squatter wouldn't let you, and your work was
17:20
Speaker 1: never done when you had to leave the misses in
17:23
Speaker 1: a lonely hut for lawn, while you rose up, Willie Riley,
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Speaker 1: in the days er you were born. Ah, we read
17:31
Speaker 1: about the drovers and the shearers and the like, till
17:33
Speaker 1: we wonder why such a happy and romantic fellows strike.
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Speaker 1: Don't you fancy that the poets ought to give the
17:42
Speaker 1: bush a rest, and they raise a just rebellion in
17:45
Speaker 1: the overwritten West, where the simple minded bushman gets a
17:49
Speaker 1: meal and bed and rum just by riding round reporting
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Speaker 1: phantom flocks that never come, Where the scalper never troubled
17:57
Speaker 1: by the war whoop of the push as a whet
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Speaker 1: little billet breading rabbits in the bush, where the idle
18:03
Speaker 1: shanty keeper never fails to make a drawer, and the
18:06
Speaker 1: dummy getsis tucker through provisions in the law. Where the
18:10
Speaker 1: labor agitator, when the shearers rise in might, makes his money,
18:15
Speaker 1: sacrificing all his substance for the right, where the squad
18:19
Speaker 1: makes its fortune, and the seasons rise and fall, and
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Speaker 1: the poor and honest bushmen as to suffer for it all,
18:27
Speaker 1: Where the drovers and the shearers, and the bushmen and
18:29
Speaker 1: the rest never reached the el dorado of the poets
18:33
Speaker 1: of the west, and you think the bush is purer
18:37
Speaker 1: and that life is better there, but it doesn't seem
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Speaker 1: to pay you, like the squalid street and square pray
18:44
Speaker 1: informs mister Banjo, where you read in prose or verse
18:48
Speaker 1: of the awful city urchin who would greet you with
18:51
Speaker 1: a curse. There are golden hearts in gutters, though their
18:55
Speaker 1: owners lack the fat. And we're back at Teamster's offspring
18:59
Speaker 1: to out where a city brat? Do you think we're
19:03
Speaker 1: never jolly? Where the trams and busses rage? Did you
19:07
Speaker 1: hear the gods in chorus when Retool held the stage?
19:12
Speaker 1: Did you catch a ring of sorrow in the city
19:13
Speaker 1: Urchin's voice when he yelled for Billy Elton, when he
19:17
Speaker 1: thumped the floor for Royce? Do the bushmen down on
19:20
Speaker 1: pleasure miss the everlasting stars when they drink and flirt
19:24
Speaker 1: and so on in the glow of private bars? What
19:28
Speaker 1: care you if fallen women? God help em, let em flaunt?
19:32
Speaker 1: And the seamstress seems to haunt you? To what purpose?
19:35
Speaker 1: Does she haunt? You've a down on trams and busses
19:40
Speaker 1: on the roar of em, you said, And the filthy,
19:43
Speaker 1: dirty attic where you never toiled for bread and about
19:47
Speaker 1: that self same attic. Tell us banjo, where you've been
19:52
Speaker 1: for the struggling needlewoman mostly keeps her attic clean, but
19:55
Speaker 1: you'll find it very jolly with the cuff and collar push,
19:59
Speaker 1: and the city se seems to suit you while you
20:02
Speaker 1: rave about the bush. Henry Lawson p s. You'll admit
20:08
Speaker 1: that up the country more, especially in drought, isn't quite
20:11
Speaker 1: the Eldorado that the poets rave about. Yet at times
20:15
Speaker 1: we long to gallop where the reckless bushman rides in
20:19
Speaker 1: the wake of startled brumbies that are flying for their hides.
20:22
Speaker 1: Long to feel the saddle tremble once again between our knees,
20:26
Speaker 1: and hear the stockwhips rattle just like rifles in the trees.
20:30
Speaker 1: Long to feel the bridle leather tugging strongly in the hand,
20:33
Speaker 1: and to feel once more a little like a native
20:36
Speaker 1: of the land. And the ring of bitter feeling in
20:39
Speaker 1: the jingling of our rhymes isn't susure to the country
20:43
Speaker 1: nor the spirit of the times. Let us go together,
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Speaker 1: droving and returning, if we live, try to understand each
20:51
Speaker 1: other while we reckon up the div hey chl en
20:57
Speaker 1: of in answer to Banjo and other wise Palm five
21:07
Speaker 1: of the Bush Debate. This is a LibriVox recording. All
21:11
Speaker 1: LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information
21:14
Speaker 1: not to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by
21:18
Speaker 1: Timothy ferguson the Overflow of Clancy written by H. H. C. C.
21:25
Speaker 1: Probably Henry Lawson. Subtitle on reading Banjo's Clancy of the Overflow.
21:34
Speaker 1: I've read the Banjo's letter, and I'm glad he found
21:36
Speaker 1: a better billet than he had upon the station where
21:39
Speaker 1: I met him years ago. He was slushy then for Scottie,
21:44
Speaker 1: but the bushland sent him dotty, so he rose up
21:46
Speaker 1: William Riley and departed down below. He rolled up very gladly,
21:51
Speaker 1: for he had bush fever badly when he left the
21:55
Speaker 1: smoke to wander where the wattle blossoms wave. But a
21:59
Speaker 1: course of Stagg and Brownie seems to make the bush
22:02
Speaker 1: struck tawny kinder weaken on the wattle, and the bushman's
22:06
Speaker 1: lonely grave safe in town. He spins romances of the
22:09
Speaker 1: bush until one fancies that it's all top boots and chorus,
22:14
Speaker 1: kegs of rum and whips of grass. And the sheep
22:17
Speaker 1: off camp goes stringing when the boss in charge is
22:20
Speaker 1: singing whilst we blow the cool tobacco smoke and watch
22:24
Speaker 1: the white wreaths pass. Yet I guess the bee feels
22:28
Speaker 1: fitter in a build shirt and a hard hitter than
22:31
Speaker 1: he would weigh down the cooper in a flannel smock
22:34
Speaker 1: and moles for the city cove has leisure to indulge
22:38
Speaker 1: in stocks of pleasure, but the drover's only pastime is
22:41
Speaker 1: cooking what's this on the coals? And the pub hath
22:46
Speaker 1: friends to meet him, and between the acts they treat
22:50
Speaker 1: him while he's swapping fairy twisters with girls behind their bars,
22:55
Speaker 1: and he sees a vista splendid when the ballet is extended,
23:00
Speaker 1: and at night he's in his glory with the comic
23:03
Speaker 1: opera stars. I am sitting very weary on a log
23:07
Speaker 1: before a dreary little fire that's feebly hissing neath a
23:11
Speaker 1: heavy fall of rain, and the wind is cold and nipping,
23:15
Speaker 1: and I curse the ceaseless dripping as I slaughter around
23:18
Speaker 1: for wood to start the embers up again. And in
23:21
Speaker 1: place of Beauty's greeting, I can hear the dismal bleating
23:24
Speaker 1: of a ewe that's sneaking out among the marshes for
23:26
Speaker 1: her lamb and for the poet's skiting that a new
23:30
Speaker 1: chum takes delight in the drove's share of pleasure isn't
23:34
Speaker 1: worth a tinker's dam. Does he sneer at bricks and
23:39
Speaker 1: mortar when he's squatting in the water after riding fourteen
23:43
Speaker 1: hours beneath the sullen, weeping sky, Does he look aloft
23:47
Speaker 1: and thank it as he spreads his solemn blanket? For
23:51
Speaker 1: the drover has no time to spare, He has no
23:54
Speaker 1: time to dry if the banjo's game to fill, But
24:00
Speaker 1: he's welcome to my billet. He can take a turn
24:02
Speaker 1: at droving wages three and six a day, and his
24:06
Speaker 1: throat will get more gritty than mine will in the
24:08
Speaker 1: city where with mister Lawson's squashes, I can wash the
24:12
Speaker 1: dust away, Hey chh cc end of the Overflow of Clancy.
24:27
Speaker 4: Poem six of the Bush Debate. This is a LibriVox recording.
24:33
Speaker 4: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
24:36
Speaker 4: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Banjo
24:45
Speaker 4: of the Overflow by Francis Kenna I had written him
24:51
Speaker 4: a letter, which I have for want of better knowledge,
24:54
Speaker 4: given to a partner by the name of green Hide Jack.
24:58
Speaker 4: He was cheering when I met him, and I thought
25:00
Speaker 4: perhaps i'd let him know that I was stiff, and
25:03
Speaker 4: maybe he would send a trifle back. My request was
25:07
Speaker 4: not requited, for an answer came indicted on a sheet
25:10
Speaker 4: of scented paper in an ink of fancy blue, and
25:14
Speaker 4: the envelope I fancy had an esquire to the clancy,
25:18
Speaker 4: and its simply read, I'm busy, but I'll see what
25:21
Speaker 4: I can do to the vision land. I can go,
25:24
Speaker 4: And I often think of Banjo, of the boy I
25:27
Speaker 4: used to shepherd in the not so long ago. He
25:31
Speaker 4: was not the bushman's kidney, and among the crowds of
25:33
Speaker 4: Sydney he'll be more at home than mooning on the
25:36
Speaker 4: dreary overflow. He has clients now to fee him, and
25:41
Speaker 4: his friends to come and see him. He can ride
25:43
Speaker 4: from morn to evening in the padded, handsome cars, and
25:47
Speaker 4: he sees the beauty's blending, where the throngs are never ending,
25:51
Speaker 4: and at night the wondrous women in the everlasting bars.
25:56
Speaker 4: I am tired of reading prattle of the sweetly lowing,
26:00
Speaker 4: stringing out across the open, with the bushmen riding free.
26:04
Speaker 4: I'm thick at heart of roving up and down the country, droving,
26:09
Speaker 4: and of alternating damper with the salt junk and the tea,
26:13
Speaker 4: and from sleeping in the water on the droving trips.
26:16
Speaker 4: I've caught a lively dose of rheumatism in my back
26:19
Speaker 4: and in my knee. And in spite of verse, it's
26:22
Speaker 4: certain that the sky's a leaky curtain. It may suit
26:25
Speaker 4: the banjo nicely, but it never suited me. And the
26:30
Speaker 4: bush is very pretty when you view it from the city,
26:34
Speaker 4: but it loses all its beauty when you face it
26:36
Speaker 4: on the pad, And the wildernesses haunt you, and the
26:40
Speaker 4: plains extended, don't you till at times you come to
26:43
Speaker 4: fancy that the life will drive you mad? But I
26:48
Speaker 4: somehow often fancy that I'd rather not be clancy, That
26:52
Speaker 4: I'd like to be the banjo where the people come
26:55
Speaker 4: and go, when instead of framing curses, I'd be writing charming.
27:01
Speaker 4: Though I scarcely think he'd swamp me. Banjo the Overflow
27:07
Speaker 4: k and of Banjo of the Overflow.
27:19
Speaker 2: Poem seven of the bush Debate This is a liberyvox recording.
27:24
Speaker 2: All libyvox recordings are in the public domain. For more
27:28
Speaker 2: information or to volunteer, please visit libyvox dot org. Recording
27:35
Speaker 2: by al G. Pug In Answer to Various Bards by
27:40
Speaker 2: Banjo Patterson An Answer to Various Bards, Well, I've waited
27:48
Speaker 2: mighty patient till they all came rolling in, mister Lawson,
27:52
Speaker 2: mister Dyson, and others of their kin with their dreadful,
27:56
Speaker 2: dismal stories of the overlanders. Camp fire is always smoky,
28:01
Speaker 2: and his boots are always damp, and they painted so
28:04
Speaker 2: terrific it would fill one's soul with gloom. But you
28:08
Speaker 2: know they're fond of writing about corpses and the tomb.
28:13
Speaker 2: So before they cursed the bushland, they should let their
28:16
Speaker 2: fancy range and take something for their livers and be
28:20
Speaker 2: cheerful for a change. Now, for instance, mister Lawson, Well,
28:26
Speaker 2: of course we almost cried at the sorrowful description how
28:31
Speaker 2: his little Arvey died, and we lachrymosed in silence when
28:35
Speaker 2: his father's mate was slain. Then he went and killed
28:39
Speaker 2: the father and we had to weep again. Ben Duggan
28:43
Speaker 2: and Jack Denver too. He caused them to expire, and
28:47
Speaker 2: he went and cooked the gander of Jack Dunn of Nevertire.
28:52
Speaker 2: So no doubt the bush is wretched if you judge
28:55
Speaker 2: it by the groan of the sad and soulful poet
28:58
Speaker 2: with a graveyard of his. And he spoke in terms
29:03
Speaker 2: prophetic of a revolution's beat when the world should hear
29:06
Speaker 2: the clamor of those people in the street. But the
29:09
Speaker 2: shearer chaps who started, why, he rounds on them in blame,
29:14
Speaker 2: and he calls them agitators who are living on the game.
29:19
Speaker 2: But I overwrite the bushman well, I own without a
29:23
Speaker 2: doubt that I always see a hero in the man
29:26
Speaker 2: from furthest out. I could never contemplate him through an
29:30
Speaker 2: atmosphere of gloom. And a bushman never struck me as
29:33
Speaker 2: a subject for the tomb. If it ain't all golden
29:37
Speaker 2: sunshine where the wattle branches wave, well, it ain't all
29:42
Speaker 2: damp and dismal, and it ain't all lonely grave. And
29:47
Speaker 2: of course there's no denying that the bushman's life is rough.
29:51
Speaker 2: But a man's an easy standard if he's built of
29:53
Speaker 2: sterling stuff. Though it's seldom that the drover gets a
29:57
Speaker 2: bed of eided down. If the man who's on a bushman,
30:01
Speaker 2: he gets mighty sick of town, for he's jotting down
30:04
Speaker 2: the figures and he's adding up the bills while his
30:07
Speaker 2: heart is simply aching for a sight of southern hills.
30:12
Speaker 2: Then he hears a wool team passing with a rumble
30:15
Speaker 2: in the lurch, and although the work is pressing, yet
30:18
Speaker 2: it brings him off his perch, for it stirs him
30:22
Speaker 2: like a message from his station friends afar, and he
30:25
Speaker 2: seems to sniff the rangers in the scent of wool
30:28
Speaker 2: under tar, and it takes him back in fancy, half
30:32
Speaker 2: in laughter, half in tears, to a sound of other
30:35
Speaker 2: voices and a thought of other years when the woolshed
30:39
Speaker 2: rang with bustle from the dawning of the day, and
30:42
Speaker 2: the sheer blades were clicking to the cry of wall Away.
30:47
Speaker 2: Then his face was somewhat browner, and his frame was
30:50
Speaker 2: firmer set, and he feels his flabby muscles with a
30:53
Speaker 2: feeling of regret. But the wool team slowly passes, and
30:58
Speaker 2: his eyes go sadly back to the dusty little table
31:02
Speaker 2: and the papers in the rack, and his thoughts go
31:05
Speaker 2: to the terrace where he's sickly children squall, and he
31:09
Speaker 2: thinks that something healthy in the bush life after all.
31:13
Speaker 2: But we'll go no more a droving in the wind
31:16
Speaker 2: or in the sun, for our father's hearts have failed us,
31:19
Speaker 2: and the droving days are done. There's a nasty dash
31:23
Speaker 2: of danger where the long horned bullock wheels. And we
31:26
Speaker 2: like to live in comfort and to get our regular meals,
31:30
Speaker 2: and to hang around the townships suits us better, you'll agree,
31:34
Speaker 2: And a job at washing bottles is the job for
31:36
Speaker 2: such as We let us herd into the cities, let
31:40
Speaker 2: us crush and crowd and push till we lose the
31:43
Speaker 2: love of roving, and we learn to hate the bush.
31:47
Speaker 2: For we'll turn our aspirations to a city life and beer,
31:51
Speaker 2: and we'll slip across to England. It's a nicer place
31:54
Speaker 2: than here, for there's not much risk of hardship where
31:58
Speaker 2: all comforts are in store, and the theaters are plenty,
32:02
Speaker 2: and the pubs are more and more. But that ends it,
32:06
Speaker 2: mister Lawson, and his time to say good bye. We
32:09
Speaker 2: must agree to differ in all friendship, you and I
32:13
Speaker 2: and our personal opinions, well, they're scarcely worth a rush
32:18
Speaker 2: for the sum that like the city, and the sum
32:21
Speaker 2: that like the bush. And there's no one quite contented,
32:25
Speaker 2: as I've always heard it said, except one favored person,
32:29
Speaker 2: and he turned out to be dead. So we'll work
32:34
Speaker 2: out our own salvation with the stoutest hearts we may,
32:38
Speaker 2: And if fortune only favors, we will take the road
32:41
Speaker 2: some day and go droving down the river neath the
32:44
Speaker 2: sunshine and the stars, and then return to Sydney and
32:49
Speaker 2: vermilionize the bars the banjo, end of in answer to various.
32:56
Speaker 1: Bards Poemmate of the Bush Debate. This is a LibriVox recording.
33:06
Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
33:09
Speaker 1: informational to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by
33:14
Speaker 1: Timothy Ferguson The Poets of the Tomb by Henry Lawson,
33:20
Speaker 1: subtitle for the Bulletin the world has had enough of
33:25
Speaker 1: bards who wish that they were dead. Tis time that
33:27
Speaker 1: people passed a law to knock them on the head,
33:30
Speaker 1: For twould be lovely if their friends could grant the
33:33
Speaker 1: rest they crave, those bards of tears and vanished hopes,
33:37
Speaker 1: Those poets of the grave. They said that life's an
33:41
Speaker 1: awful thing, and full of care and gloom. They talketh
33:45
Speaker 1: peace and restfulness connected with the tomb. They say that
33:51
Speaker 1: man is made of dirt and die, of course he must,
33:54
Speaker 1: But all the same a man is made of pretty
33:57
Speaker 1: solid dust. There is a thing that they forget, So
34:02
Speaker 1: let it he be writ that some are made of
34:04
Speaker 1: common mud, and some are made of grit. Some try
34:08
Speaker 1: to help the world along, while others fret and fume
34:12
Speaker 1: and wish that they were slumbering in the silence of
34:15
Speaker 1: the tomb, TwixT mother's arms and coffin gear. A man
34:19
Speaker 1: has work to do, and if he does his very best,
34:22
Speaker 1: he mostly worries through. And while there is a wrong
34:25
Speaker 1: to right, and while the world goes round, an honest
34:28
Speaker 1: man alive is worth a million underground. And yet as
34:34
Speaker 1: long as sheoaks, sigh, and wattle blossoms bloom, the world
34:38
Speaker 1: shall hear the drivel of the poets of the tomb.
34:42
Speaker 1: And though the graveyard poets long to vanish from the scene,
34:45
Speaker 1: I notice that they mostly wish their resting place kept green. Now,
34:51
Speaker 1: were I rotting underground, I do not think I'd care
34:54
Speaker 1: if warm bats rooted on the mound, or if the
34:57
Speaker 1: cows camp there, and should I have some fe feelings
35:00
Speaker 1: left when I have gone before? I think a ton
35:03
Speaker 1: of solid stone would hurt my feelings more. Such wormy
35:08
Speaker 1: songs of moldy joys can give me no delight. I'll
35:13
Speaker 1: take my chances with the world. I'd rather live and fight,
35:17
Speaker 1: though fortune laughs along my track or wears her blackest frown.
35:22
Speaker 1: I'll try to do the world some good before I
35:25
Speaker 1: tumble down. Let's fight for things that ought to be
35:30
Speaker 1: and try to make them boom. We cannot help mankind
35:34
Speaker 1: when we are ashes in the Tomb, Sydney, September ninety two,
35:40
Speaker 1: Henry Lawson and of the Poets of the Tomb.
35:50
Speaker 2: Poem nine of the Bush Debate. This is a liberyvox recording.
35:55
Speaker 2: All liberyvox recordings are in the public domain. For more information,
36:00
Speaker 2: ought to volunteer, please visit libbybox dot org. Recording by
36:05
Speaker 2: Algae pug Up the Country by Henry Lawson. I am
36:12
Speaker 2: back from up the country, very sorry that I went
36:15
Speaker 2: seeking for the Southern poets land whereon to pitch my tent.
36:20
Speaker 2: I've lost a lot of idols which were broken on
36:23
Speaker 2: the track, burned a lot of fancy verses and I'm
36:27
Speaker 2: glad that I am back. Further out may be the
36:30
Speaker 2: pleasant scenes of which our poets burst, but I think
36:33
Speaker 2: the countries were rather more inviting round the coast. Anyway.
36:38
Speaker 2: I'll stay at present at a boarding house in town,
36:42
Speaker 2: drinking beer and lemon squashes, taking baths, and cooling down
36:47
Speaker 2: sunny plains. Great Scott, those burning wastes of barren, soil
36:53
Speaker 2: and sand, with their everlasting fences stretching out across the
36:57
Speaker 2: land desolation, and where the crow is desert, where the
37:02
Speaker 2: eagle flies paddics, where the loony bullock starts and stares
37:07
Speaker 2: with reddened eyes, Where in clouds of dust, enveloped roasted
37:12
Speaker 2: bullock drivers creep slowly past the sun dried shepherd, dragged
37:17
Speaker 2: behind his crawling sheep, stunted peak of granite, gleaming, glaring
37:23
Speaker 2: like a molten mass, turned from some infernal furnace on
37:27
Speaker 2: a plain devoid of grass, miles and miles of thirsty gutters,
37:34
Speaker 2: strings of muddy water holes in the place of shining rivers,
37:40
Speaker 2: walled by cliffs and forest bows, barren ridges, gullies, ridges,
37:46
Speaker 2: where the ever maddening flies, fiercer than the plagues of Egypt,
37:51
Speaker 2: swarm about your blighted eyes. Bush where there is no horizon,
37:56
Speaker 2: where the buried bushmen sees nothing, nothing but the sameness
38:02
Speaker 2: of the ragged, stunted trees, lonely hut where droughts eternals,
38:07
Speaker 2: suffocating atmosphere, where the god forgotten hatter dreams of city
38:12
Speaker 2: life and beer. Treacherous tracks that trap the stranger, endless
38:19
Speaker 2: roads that gleam and glare, dark and evil looking gullies
38:24
Speaker 2: hiding secrets here and there, dull dump flats and stoney rises,
38:30
Speaker 2: where the toiling bullocks bake, and the sinister Gohanna and
38:35
Speaker 2: the lizard and the snake. Land of day and night,
38:39
Speaker 2: no morning freshness and no afternoon when the great white
38:44
Speaker 2: sun in rising bringeth summer heat in June, Dismal country
38:49
Speaker 2: for the exile, when the shades begin to fall from
38:53
Speaker 2: the sad, heart breaking sunset to the new chum. Worst
38:57
Speaker 2: of all three. Land in rainy weather, with the endless
39:02
Speaker 2: clouds that drift o'er the bushmen like a blanket that
39:06
Speaker 2: the Lord will never lift. Dismal land when it is raining,
39:11
Speaker 2: corrawl of floods, and oh the wush of the rain
39:15
Speaker 2: and wind, together on the dark bed of the bush
39:19
Speaker 2: ghastly fires, in lonely humpies, where the granite rocks are piled,
39:23
Speaker 2: in the windswept wildernesses that are wildest of the wild land,
39:30
Speaker 2: where gaunt and haggard women live alone and work like
39:33
Speaker 2: men till the husband's gone. A droving will return to
39:37
Speaker 2: them again. Homes of men, if home had ever such
39:42
Speaker 2: a god forgotten place, where the wild selector's children fly
39:46
Speaker 2: before a stranger's face, Home of tragedy, applauded by the dingoes,
39:52
Speaker 2: dismal liell, heaven of the shanty keeper, fitting fiend for
39:57
Speaker 2: such a hell, and the walloroo us and wombats, and
40:01
Speaker 2: of course the curlew's call, and the lone sundowner tramping
40:06
Speaker 2: ever onward through it all. I am back from up
40:10
Speaker 2: the country, up the country where I went, seeking for
40:13
Speaker 2: the Southern Poet's land, whereon to pitch my tent. I
40:17
Speaker 2: have shattered many idols out along the dusty track, burned
40:22
Speaker 2: a lot of fancy vases, and I'm glad that I
40:25
Speaker 2: am back. I believe the Southern Poet's dream will not
40:29
Speaker 2: be realized till the plains are irrigated and the land
40:33
Speaker 2: is humanized. I intend to stay at present, as I
40:37
Speaker 2: said before, in town, drinking beer and lemon squashes, taking
40:42
Speaker 2: baths and cooling down. Henry Lawson, end of Up the Country.
40:57
Speaker 1: Palm ten of the Bush de Bait. This is librovox recording.
41:01
Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
41:04
Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
41:08
Speaker 1: by Timothy Ferguson. In Defense of the Bush by ab
41:14
Speaker 1: Banjo Patterson. So you're back from up the country, mister Lawson,
41:19
Speaker 1: where you went, and you're cursing all the business in
41:22
Speaker 1: a bitter discontent. Well we grieve to disappoint you, and
41:26
Speaker 1: it makes us sad to hear that it wasn't cool
41:28
Speaker 1: and shady, and there wasn't plenty beer, and the looney
41:32
Speaker 1: bullocks snorted when you first came into view. Well, you know,
41:35
Speaker 1: it's not so often that he sees a swell like you.
41:38
Speaker 1: And the roads were hot and dusty, and the planes
41:42
Speaker 1: were burnt and brown. And no doubt you're better suit
41:45
Speaker 1: at drinking lemon squash in town. Yet, perchance, if you
41:49
Speaker 1: should journey down the very track you went in a
41:52
Speaker 1: month or two at Furthest, you would wonder what it
41:55
Speaker 1: meant where the sun baked earth was gasping like creature
42:00
Speaker 1: in its pain. You would find the grasses waving like
42:04
Speaker 1: a field of summer grain, and the miles of thirsty
42:08
Speaker 1: gutters blocked with sand and choked with mud. You would
42:11
Speaker 1: find the mighty rivers with a turbid, sweeping flood. For
42:15
Speaker 1: the rain and drought and sunshine make no changes in
42:18
Speaker 1: the street, in the sullen line of buildings, and the
42:21
Speaker 1: ceaseless tramp of feet. But the bush hath moods and
42:25
Speaker 1: changes as the seasons rise and fall. And the men
42:30
Speaker 1: who know the bush land they are loyal through it all.
42:35
Speaker 1: But you found the bush was dismal and a land
42:38
Speaker 1: of no delight. Did you chance to hear a chorus
42:41
Speaker 1: in the shearer's huts at night? Did they rise up
42:44
Speaker 1: William Riley by the camp fire's cheery blaze? Did they
42:48
Speaker 1: rise him as we rose him in the good old
42:49
Speaker 1: droving days? And the women of the homesteads and the
42:53
Speaker 1: men you chanced to meet, were their faces sour and saddened,
42:57
Speaker 1: like the faces in the street and the shop I
43:00
Speaker 1: select to children? Were they better now or worse than
43:03
Speaker 1: the little city urchins who would greet you with a curse.
43:08
Speaker 1: Is not such a life much better than the squalid
43:10
Speaker 1: street and square where the fallen women flaunt it in
43:14
Speaker 1: their fierce electric glare, where the sempstress plies her sewing
43:21
Speaker 1: till her eyes are sore and red, in a filthy,
43:24
Speaker 1: dirty attic, toiling on for daily bread. Did you hear
43:29
Speaker 1: no sweeter voices in the music of the bush than
43:32
Speaker 1: the roar of trams and busses and the war whoop
43:35
Speaker 1: of the push. Did the magpies rouse your slumber with
43:38
Speaker 1: their carols sweet and strange? Did you hear the silver
43:43
Speaker 1: chiming of the bell birds on the range? But perchance
43:47
Speaker 1: the wild bird's music, by your senses, was despised for
43:52
Speaker 1: you say you'll stay in townships till the bush is civilized?
43:55
Speaker 1: Would you make it a tea garden, and on Sundays
43:58
Speaker 1: have a band with the blokes might take their donas
44:02
Speaker 1: with a public close at hand, you had better stick
44:05
Speaker 1: to Sydney and make merry with the push, for the
44:08
Speaker 1: bush will never suit you, and you'll never suit the bush.
44:14
Speaker 1: The bulletin twenty third of July eighteen ninety two, end
44:20
Speaker 1: of In Defense of the Bush by A b Banjo Patterson.
44:31
Speaker 4: Poem eleven of the Bush Debate. This is a LibriVox recording.
44:36
Speaker 4: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
44:40
Speaker 4: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. The
44:48
Speaker 4: Fact of the Matter by Edward George Dyson. I'm wondering
44:54
Speaker 4: why those fellers who go build in chipper ditties about
44:58
Speaker 4: the rosy times out droven and dust and death and
45:01
Speaker 4: cities don't sling the bloom in office, strike some drover
45:05
Speaker 4: for a billet and soak up all the glory that
45:08
Speaker 4: comes handy while they fill it. Perhaps it's fun to
45:11
Speaker 4: travel cattle or to picnic with merinos. But the drover
45:15
Speaker 4: don't catch on, sir, not much high class rapture. He knows,
45:19
Speaker 4: as we're sleeping on the planes there in the shatter
45:21
Speaker 4: of the speargrass. That's like best by the juggins with
45:25
Speaker 4: a spring bed and a pier glass, and the campfire
45:29
Speaker 4: and the freedom and the blanky constellations, the possum rug
45:33
Speaker 4: and Billy and the togs and stale old rations. It's
45:36
Speaker 4: strange they're only raved about by coves that dress up
45:40
Speaker 4: pretty and spoort a wife and live on slap up
45:43
Speaker 4: tucker in the city. I've tickled beef in my time,
45:46
Speaker 4: clear from Clark to Riverina, and shifted sheep all round
45:50
Speaker 4: the shop. But blow me if I've seen a single
45:53
Speaker 4: blanky hand who didn't bucket pleasures of this kidney and
45:56
Speaker 4: wouldn't trade his blisses for a flutter down in Sydney.
46:01
Speaker 4: Night watches are delightful when the stars are really splendid
46:05
Speaker 4: to the chap is fresh upon the job, But you
46:07
Speaker 4: bet it's raptures ended when the rain comes down in
46:10
Speaker 4: sluice heads, or the cut in hailstones pelter and the
46:13
Speaker 4: sheep drift off before the wind and the horses strike
46:16
Speaker 4: for shelter. Don't take me for a howler, but I
46:20
Speaker 4: find it come annoying to hear these fellers rave about
46:24
Speaker 4: the pleasures we're enjoyant when perhaps we've nothing better than
46:28
Speaker 4: some fluky water handy. And they're right on all the
46:31
Speaker 4: liquors rum and plenty beer and brandy. The town is dusty, maybe,
46:36
Speaker 4: but it isn't worth the curses beside the dust of
46:39
Speaker 4: feller swallows and the blind thirsty nurses. When he's on
46:43
Speaker 4: the hard McAdam where the jumbucks cannot browse him. The
46:47
Speaker 4: wind is in his whiskers, and he follows twenty thousand.
46:52
Speaker 4: It's droven on the plane too. It's all okay when
46:55
Speaker 4: the weather isn't hot enough to curl the soles right
46:58
Speaker 4: off your upper leather, or so cold that when the
47:01
Speaker 4: morning wind comes hissing through the grasses, you can feel
47:05
Speaker 4: it cuts your eyelids like a whiplash as it passes.
47:09
Speaker 4: Then there's bull ants in the blankets, and a lamehorse,
47:12
Speaker 4: and Moskeeters and a dt boss like hal again, or
47:15
Speaker 4: one like Humpy Peters who's mean about the tucker and
47:19
Speaker 4: can curse from start to sundown, and can fight like
47:22
Speaker 4: fifty devils, and whose growlers never run down. Yes, I
47:28
Speaker 4: wonder why the fellers what go building chipper ditties about
47:32
Speaker 4: the rosy times out droven and the dust and death
47:35
Speaker 4: of cities. Don't sling the bloomin office, strike ol Peters
47:39
Speaker 4: for a billet, and soak up all the glory that
47:42
Speaker 4: comes handy while they fill it. End of the Fact
47:49
Speaker 4: of the Matter.
47:56
Speaker 2: PLM twelve of the Bush Debate. This is a vox recording.
48:01
Speaker 2: All libberyvox recordings are in the public domain. For more
48:05
Speaker 2: information or to volunteer. Please visit libyvox dot org. Recording
48:11
Speaker 2: by Algie Pug The City Bushman by Henry Lawson. It
48:18
Speaker 2: was pleasant up the country city, Bushman, where you went,
48:23
Speaker 2: for you sought the greener patches, and you traveled alike
48:26
Speaker 2: a gent and you cast the trams and busses and
48:29
Speaker 2: the turmoil and the push. Though you know the squalid
48:33
Speaker 2: city needn't keep you from the bush. For we late
48:36
Speaker 2: you heard your singing of the plains where shade is not,
48:39
Speaker 2: and you mentioned it was dusty, all was dry, and
48:43
Speaker 2: all was hot. True, the bush hath moods and changes,
48:49
Speaker 2: and the bushmen hath them too. For he's not a
48:52
Speaker 2: poet's dummy. He's a man the same as you. But
48:56
Speaker 2: his back is growing round us, slaving for the absent,
49:00
Speaker 2: and his toiling wife is thinner than a country wife
49:03
Speaker 2: should be. For we notice that the faces of the
49:06
Speaker 2: folks we chanced to meet should have made a greater
49:09
Speaker 2: contrast to the faces in the street. And in short,
49:13
Speaker 2: we think the bushmen's being driven to the wall, and
49:17
Speaker 2: it's doubtful if his spirit will be loyal through it all.
49:21
Speaker 2: Though the bush has been romantic and is nice to
49:24
Speaker 2: sing about that, a lot of patriotism that the land
49:28
Speaker 2: could do without. Sort of British workmen. Nonsense that shall
49:32
Speaker 2: perish in the scorn of the drover who is driven
49:36
Speaker 2: and the shearer who is shorn, of the struggling Western
49:40
Speaker 2: farmers who have little time for rest and are ruined
49:43
Speaker 2: on selections in the sheep infested West. The roving songs
49:48
Speaker 2: are very pretty, but they merit little thanks from the
49:51
Speaker 2: people of a country in possession of the banks. And
49:56
Speaker 2: the rise and fall of seasons suits the rise and
50:00
Speaker 2: fall of rime. But we know that Western seasons do
50:03
Speaker 2: not run on scheduled time. For the drought will go
50:07
Speaker 2: on drying while as anything to dry. Then it rains
50:11
Speaker 2: until you'd fancy it would bleach the sunny sky. Then
50:15
Speaker 2: it pelts out of reason, for the downpour day and
50:18
Speaker 2: a night nearly sweeps the population to the great Australian bite.
50:23
Speaker 2: It is up in northern Queensland that the seasons do
50:26
Speaker 2: their best, but it's doubtful if you ever saw a
50:29
Speaker 2: season in the West. There are years without an autumn
50:33
Speaker 2: or a winter or a spring. There are broiling June's
50:37
Speaker 2: and summers when it rains like anything in the bush
50:41
Speaker 2: my ears were open to the singing of a bird,
50:45
Speaker 2: for the carol of the magpie was a thing I
50:47
Speaker 2: never heard. Once the beggar roused my slumbers in a shanty,
50:52
Speaker 2: it is true, but I only heard him asking here
50:55
Speaker 2: the blanky blank, are you? And the bell bird in
50:59
Speaker 2: the ranges. But his silver chime is harsh when it's
51:02
Speaker 2: heard beside the solo of the curlew in the marsh. Yes,
51:07
Speaker 2: I heard the shearers singing William Riley out of tune,
51:12
Speaker 2: saw him fighting round a shanty on a Sunday afternoon.
51:16
Speaker 2: But the bushman isn't always trapping brumbies in the night,
51:20
Speaker 2: nor is he for ever riding when the morn is
51:22
Speaker 2: fresh and bright, And he isn't always singing in the
51:26
Speaker 2: humpies on the run. And the camphire's cheery blazes are
51:30
Speaker 2: a trifle overdone. We have grumbled with the bushmen round
51:35
Speaker 2: the fire on rainy days when the smoke would blind
51:39
Speaker 2: a bulleck, and there wasn't any blaze save the blazes
51:42
Speaker 2: of our language. For we curst the fire in turn
51:46
Speaker 2: till the atmosphere was heated and the wood began to burn.
51:50
Speaker 2: Then we had to ring our blueys, which were rotting
51:53
Speaker 2: in the swags, and we saw the sugar leaking through
51:56
Speaker 2: the bottoms of the bags, and we couldn't raise a
51:59
Speaker 2: chord for the toothache and the cramp while we spent
52:03
Speaker 2: the hours of darkness draining puddles round the camp. Would
52:08
Speaker 2: you like to change with a clancy go a droving
52:12
Speaker 2: tell us true, for we rather think that clancy would
52:15
Speaker 2: be glad to change with you and be something in
52:18
Speaker 2: the city. But would give your muse a shock to
52:22
Speaker 2: be losing time and money through the foot rot in
52:25
Speaker 2: the flock. And you wouldn't mind the beauties underneath the
52:28
Speaker 2: starry dome if you had a wife and children and
52:32
Speaker 2: a lot of bills at home. Did you ever guard
52:36
Speaker 2: the cattle when the night was inky black, and it rained,
52:40
Speaker 2: and icy water trickled gently down your back till your
52:44
Speaker 2: saddle weary backbone feller aching to the roots, and you
52:48
Speaker 2: almost felt the croaking of the bullfrog in your boots,
52:52
Speaker 2: Sit and shiver in the saddle, curse the restless stock,
52:55
Speaker 2: and cough till a squatter's irate dummy cantered up to
52:59
Speaker 2: warn you off. Did you fight the drought and plural
53:03
Speaker 2: when the seasons were asleep? Falling sheoaks all the morning
53:07
Speaker 2: for a flock of starving sheep, drinking mud instead of water,
53:12
Speaker 2: climbing trees and lopping boughs for the broken hearted bullocks
53:16
Speaker 2: and the dry and dusty cows. Do you think the
53:21
Speaker 2: bush was better in the good old droving days, when
53:25
Speaker 2: the squatter rude supremely as the king of Western ways,
53:29
Speaker 2: When you got a slip of paper for the little
53:31
Speaker 2: you could earn, but were forced to take provisions from
53:35
Speaker 2: the station in return, When you couldn't keep a chicken
53:38
Speaker 2: at your humpy on a run for the squatter wouldn't
53:41
Speaker 2: let you, and your work was never done, when you
53:44
Speaker 2: had to leave the missus in a lonely hut forlorn
53:47
Speaker 2: while you rose up Willie Riley in the days ere
53:51
Speaker 2: you were born. Ah, we read about the drovers and
53:55
Speaker 2: the shearers and the like. Do we wonder why such
53:58
Speaker 2: happy and romantic fellow strike. Don't you fancy that the
54:02
Speaker 2: poets ought to give the bush arrest? Here they raise
54:05
Speaker 2: a just rebellion in the over written West, where the
54:09
Speaker 2: simple minded bushmen gets a meal and bed and a
54:12
Speaker 2: rum just by riding round reporting phantom flocks that never come.
54:18
Speaker 2: Where the scalper, never troubled by the war whoop of
54:21
Speaker 2: the push has a quiet little billet breeding rabbits in
54:26
Speaker 2: the bush, where the idle shanty keeper never fails to
54:30
Speaker 2: make a draw, and the dummy gets his tucker through
54:33
Speaker 2: provisions in the law. Where the labor agitator, when the
54:38
Speaker 2: shearers rise in might, makes his money, sacrificing all his
54:42
Speaker 2: substance for the right, where the squatter makes his fortune,
54:46
Speaker 2: and the seasons rise and fall, and the poor and
54:50
Speaker 2: honest bushmen has to suffer for it all, Where the
54:54
Speaker 2: draws and the shearers and the bushmen and the rest
54:57
Speaker 2: never reach the eldorado of the poets of the West.
55:02
Speaker 2: And you think the bush is purer and that life
55:04
Speaker 2: is better there, but it doesn't seem to pay you,
55:07
Speaker 2: like the squalid street and square pray inform us city bushmen,
55:13
Speaker 2: where you read in prose or verse of the awful
55:17
Speaker 2: city urchin who would greet you with a curse. There
55:21
Speaker 2: are golden hearts and gutters, though the owners lack the
55:24
Speaker 2: fat and move back at teamster's offspring to outswear a
55:28
Speaker 2: city brat. Do you think whenever jolly, where the trams
55:32
Speaker 2: and busses rage did you hear the gods in chorus
55:36
Speaker 2: when riter Al held the stage? Did you catch a
55:39
Speaker 2: ring of sorrow in the city Urchin's voice when he
55:43
Speaker 2: yelled for Billy Elton, when he thumped the floor for Royce?
55:47
Speaker 2: To the bushmen down on pleasure, missed the everlasting stars
55:52
Speaker 2: when they drink and flirt and so on in the
55:55
Speaker 2: glow of private bars. You were down on trams and busses,
56:00
Speaker 2: or the roar of em you said, And the filthy,
56:04
Speaker 2: dirty attic? Were you never toiled for bread? And about
56:08
Speaker 2: that self same attic? Lord, wherever have you been for
56:12
Speaker 2: the struggling needlewoman mostly keeps her attic clean, But you'll
56:17
Speaker 2: find it very jolly with the cuff and collar push,
56:20
Speaker 2: and the city seems to suit you. While you rave
56:23
Speaker 2: about the bush, you'll admit that up the country, more,
56:27
Speaker 2: especially in drought, isn't quite the el Dorado that the
56:31
Speaker 2: poets rave about. Yet at times we long to gallop
56:35
Speaker 2: where the reckless bushmen rides in the wake of startled
56:39
Speaker 2: brumbies that are flying for their hides. Long to feel
56:43
Speaker 2: the saddle tremble once again between our knees, and to
56:47
Speaker 2: hear the stock whips rattle just like rifles in the trees,
56:51
Speaker 2: long to feel the bridle leather tugging strongly in the hand,
56:56
Speaker 2: and to feel once more a little like a native
56:58
Speaker 2: of the land. And the ring of bitter feeling in
57:01
Speaker 2: the jingling of our rhymes isn't suited to the country,
57:05
Speaker 2: nor the spirit of the times. Let us go together,
57:09
Speaker 2: droving and returning if we live, try to understand each
57:14
Speaker 2: other while we reckon up the div Henry Lawson, end
57:21
Speaker 2: of the City Bushmen, Palm thirteen of the bush Debate.
57:31
Speaker 2: This is a libyvox recording. All libyvox recordings are in
57:35
Speaker 2: the public domain. For more information, ought to volunteer, please
57:40
Speaker 2: visit libyvox dot org. Recording by alg pug The Overflow
57:47
Speaker 2: of Clancy by H. H. C. C. Probably Henry Lawson,
57:53
Speaker 2: on reading the Banjos Clancy of the Overflow. I've read
57:58
Speaker 2: the Banjo's letter, and I'm glad he's found a better
58:01
Speaker 2: billet than he had upon the station where I met
58:04
Speaker 2: him years ago. He was slushy then for Scottie for
58:09
Speaker 2: the Bushland sent him dotty. So he rose up William
58:13
Speaker 2: Riley and departed down below. He rode up very gladly,
58:19
Speaker 2: for he had bush fever badly when he left the
58:22
Speaker 2: smoke to wander where the wattle blossoms wave for a
58:26
Speaker 2: course of stagg and Brownie seems to make the bush
58:29
Speaker 2: struck towny kind of weaken on the wattle and the
58:33
Speaker 2: bushman's lonely grave safe in town. He's bins romancers of
58:38
Speaker 2: the bush until one fancies that it's old top boots
58:41
Speaker 2: and corrus kegs of rum and whips of grass, and
58:45
Speaker 2: a sheep of camp goes stringing when the boss in
58:48
Speaker 2: charge is singing whilst we blow the cool tobacco smoke
58:52
Speaker 2: and watched the white wreaths pass. Yet I guess the
58:57
Speaker 2: bee feels fitter in a bilge sh sh and heart
59:01
Speaker 2: hitter than he would way down the cooper in a
59:04
Speaker 2: flannel smock and mold. For the city cove has leisure
59:08
Speaker 2: to indulge in stocks of pleasure, but the drove is
59:11
Speaker 2: only pastimes cooking what's this on the coals? And the
59:17
Speaker 2: pub hath friends to meet him, and between the acts
59:20
Speaker 2: they treat him. While he's swapping fairy twisters with the
59:24
Speaker 2: girls behind their bars, and he sees a vista splendid
59:28
Speaker 2: when the belly is extended and at night is in
59:31
Speaker 2: his glory with the comic opera stars. I am sitting
59:36
Speaker 2: very weary on a log before a dreary little fire
59:40
Speaker 2: that's feebly hissing neath the heavy fall of rain, and
59:44
Speaker 2: the wind is cold and nipping, and I curse the
59:47
Speaker 2: ceaseless dripping as I slush around for wood to start
59:51
Speaker 2: the embers up again, and in place the beauty's greeting,
59:56
Speaker 2: I can hear the dismal bleating of a ewe that's
59:59
Speaker 2: sneaking out among the marshes for her lamb, and for
1:00:03
Speaker 2: all the poet's skitan that a new chum takes to
1:00:07
Speaker 2: light in. The drover's share of pleasure isn't worth a
1:00:11
Speaker 2: tinker's dam? Does he sneer of bricks and mortar when
1:00:15
Speaker 2: he's squatting in the water after riding fourteen hours beneath
1:00:20
Speaker 2: a sullen, weeping sky. Does he look aloft and thank
1:00:24
Speaker 2: it as he spreads his sodden blanket. For the drover
1:00:28
Speaker 2: has no time to spare, he has no time to dry.
1:00:33
Speaker 2: If the banjo's game to fill it, he is welcome
1:00:36
Speaker 2: to my billet. He can take a turn at droving
1:00:40
Speaker 2: wages three and six a day. And his throat will
1:00:43
Speaker 2: get more gritty than mine will in the city where
1:00:46
Speaker 2: with mister Lawson's squashes, I can wash the dust away.
1:00:53
Speaker 2: End of the Herberflow of Clancy.
1:01:01
Speaker 3: Poem fourteen of the Bush Debate. This is a LibriVox recording.
1:01:06
Speaker 3: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
1:01:09
Speaker 3: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
1:01:14
Speaker 3: by Jess Mills. Banjo of the Overflow by Francis Kenna.
1:01:20
Speaker 3: I had written him a letter which I had, for
1:01:22
Speaker 3: want of better knowledge, given to a partner by the
1:01:25
Speaker 3: name of green Hide Jack. He was shearing when I
1:01:29
Speaker 3: met him, and I thought perhaps i'd let him know
1:01:31
Speaker 3: that I was stiff, and maybe he would send a
1:01:34
Speaker 3: trifle back. My request was not requited, for an answer
1:01:39
Speaker 3: came and dited on a sheet of scented paper in
1:01:41
Speaker 3: an ink of fancy blue, and the envelope I fancy
1:01:45
Speaker 3: had an esquire to the clancy, and it simply read,
1:01:49
Speaker 3: I'm busy, but I'll see what I can do to
1:01:53
Speaker 3: the vision land I can go. And I often think
1:01:56
Speaker 3: of Banjo of the boy I used a shepherd in
1:01:59
Speaker 3: the not so long ago. He was not the bushman's kidney,
1:02:03
Speaker 3: and among the crowds of Sydney, he'll be more at
1:02:05
Speaker 3: home than mooning on the dreary overflow. He has clients
1:02:09
Speaker 3: now to fee him, and as friends to come and
1:02:12
Speaker 3: see him. He can ride from morn to evening in
1:02:14
Speaker 3: the padded, handsome cars, and he sees the beauties blending
1:02:18
Speaker 3: where the throngs are never ending, and at night the
1:02:21
Speaker 3: wondrous women in the everlasting bars. I am tired of
1:02:26
Speaker 3: reading prattle, of the sweetly lowing cattle stringing out across
1:02:31
Speaker 3: the open, with the bush men riding free. I am
1:02:35
Speaker 3: sick at heart of roving up and down the country, droving,
1:02:38
Speaker 3: and of alternating damper with the salt junk and the tea,
1:02:43
Speaker 3: and from sleeping in the water on the droving trips.
1:02:45
Speaker 3: I've caught a lively dose of rheumatism in my back
1:02:49
Speaker 3: and in my knee. And in spite of verse, it's
1:02:52
Speaker 3: certain that the sky's a leaky curtain. It may suit
1:02:55
Speaker 3: the banjo nicely, but it never suited me. Bush is
1:03:00
Speaker 3: very pretty when you view it from the city, but
1:03:03
Speaker 3: it loses all its beauty when you face it on
1:03:06
Speaker 3: the pad, and all the wildernesses haunt you, and the
1:03:10
Speaker 3: planes extended daunt you till at times you come to
1:03:13
Speaker 3: fancy that the life will drive you mad. But I
1:03:16
Speaker 3: somehow often fancied that I'd rather not be clancy, that
1:03:20
Speaker 3: I'd like to be the banjo whether people come and go,
1:03:23
Speaker 3: when instead of framing curses, I'd be writing charming verses,
1:03:28
Speaker 3: though I scarcely think he'd swap me Banjo the Overflow
1:03:35
Speaker 3: and of Banjo of the Overflow.
1:03:43
Speaker 1: Palm fifteen of the Bush Debate. This is LibriVox recording.
1:03:48
Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
1:03:51
Speaker 1: information not to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
1:03:55
Speaker 1: by Timothy Ferguson and answer to Various Barns by Banjo Patterson. Well,
1:04:03
Speaker 1: I've waited mighty patient while they all came rolling in,
1:04:07
Speaker 1: mister Lawson, mister Dyson, and others of their kin with
1:04:11
Speaker 1: their dreadful, dismal stories of the Overlander's camp, how his
1:04:15
Speaker 1: fire is always smoky, and his boots are always damp,
1:04:20
Speaker 1: and they painted so terrific it would fill one's soul
1:04:23
Speaker 1: with gloom. But you know they're fond of writing about
1:04:26
Speaker 1: corpses and the tomb so before they curse the bushland,
1:04:31
Speaker 1: they should let their fancy range and take something for
1:04:33
Speaker 1: their livers, and be cheerful for a change. Now, for instance,
1:04:38
Speaker 1: mister Lawson, Well, of course we almost cried at the
1:04:41
Speaker 1: sorrowful description how his little Rvey died, and we lachrymosed
1:04:46
Speaker 1: in silence when his father's mate was slain. Then he
1:04:50
Speaker 1: went and killed the father, and we had to weep again.
1:04:53
Speaker 1: Ben Dugger and Jack Denver too, He caused them to expire,
1:04:57
Speaker 1: and he went and cooked the gander of Jack Dunn
1:04:59
Speaker 1: of Nevertire. So no doubt the bush is wretched if
1:05:02
Speaker 1: you judge it by the groan of the sad and
1:05:05
Speaker 1: soulful poet with a graveyard of his own. And he
1:05:09
Speaker 1: spoke in terms prophetic of a revolution's heat, when the
1:05:13
Speaker 1: world shall hear the clamor of those people in the street.
1:05:17
Speaker 1: But the sheer chaps who start it where he rounds
1:05:20
Speaker 1: on them in blame, and he calls them agitators who
1:05:23
Speaker 1: are living on the game. But I overright, the bushman, well,
1:05:28
Speaker 1: I own without a doubt that I always see a
1:05:30
Speaker 1: hero in the man from furthest out. I could never
1:05:33
Speaker 1: contemplate him to an atmosphere of gloom, and a bushman
1:05:37
Speaker 1: never struck me as a subject for the tomb. If
1:05:41
Speaker 1: it ain't all golden sunshine where the wattle branches wave, well,
1:05:46
Speaker 1: it ain't all damp and dismal, and it ain't all
1:05:49
Speaker 1: lonely grave. And of course there's no denying that the
1:05:52
Speaker 1: bushman's life is rough. But a man can easy stand
1:05:56
Speaker 1: it if he's built of sterling staff. Though it's seldom
1:05:59
Speaker 1: the drover gets a bed of eyder down. Yet the
1:06:02
Speaker 1: man who's borne a bushman, he gets mighty sick of town,
1:06:07
Speaker 1: for he's drotting down the figures, and he's adding up
1:06:09
Speaker 1: the bills while his heart is simply aching for the
1:06:12
Speaker 1: sight of southern hills. Then he hears a wood team
1:06:17
Speaker 1: passing with a rumble and a lurch, And although the
1:06:20
Speaker 1: work is pressing, yet it brings him off his perch,
1:06:24
Speaker 1: for it stirs him like a message from his stationed
1:06:27
Speaker 1: friends afar, And he seems to sniff the rangers in
1:06:30
Speaker 1: the scent of wood and tar, and it takes him
1:06:33
Speaker 1: back in fancy, half in laughter, half in tears, to
1:06:37
Speaker 1: sound of other voices and a thought of other years.
1:06:41
Speaker 1: When the wool sheed rang with bustle from the dawning
1:06:44
Speaker 1: of the day, and the sheer blades were clicking to
1:06:48
Speaker 1: the cry of wool away. Then his face was somewhat browner,
1:06:54
Speaker 1: and his frame was firmer set, and he feels his
1:06:56
Speaker 1: flobody muscles with a feeling of regret. But the woolter
1:07:00
Speaker 1: him slowly passes, and his eyes go sadly back to
1:07:03
Speaker 1: the dusty little table and the papers in the rack,
1:07:07
Speaker 1: and his thoughts go to the terrace where his sickly
1:07:09
Speaker 1: children squall, and he thinks there's something healthy in the
1:07:13
Speaker 1: bush life after all. But we'll go no more a
1:07:16
Speaker 1: droving in the wind or in the sun, for our
1:07:19
Speaker 1: father's hearts have failed us, and the droving days are done.
1:07:25
Speaker 1: There's a nasty dash of danger where the long horned
1:07:29
Speaker 1: bullock wheels. And we like to live in comfort and
1:07:32
Speaker 1: to get our regular meals. For to hang around the
1:07:35
Speaker 1: township suits us better, you'll agree. And a job of
1:07:39
Speaker 1: washing bottles is the job for such as We let
1:07:42
Speaker 1: us herd into the cities, let us crush and crowd
1:07:46
Speaker 1: and push till we lose the love of roving, and
1:07:49
Speaker 1: we learn to hate the bush, and we'll turn our
1:07:53
Speaker 1: aspirations to a city life and beer, and we'll slip
1:07:56
Speaker 1: across to England. It's a nicer place than here, for
1:08:01
Speaker 1: there's not much risk of hardship. We're all comforts are
1:08:04
Speaker 1: in store, and the theaters are plenty, and the pubs
1:08:07
Speaker 1: are more and more. But that ends at mister Lawson,
1:08:12
Speaker 1: and it's time to say good bye, for we must
1:08:15
Speaker 1: agree to differ in all friendship, you and I. So
1:08:18
Speaker 1: we'll work our own salvation with the stoutest hearts we may,
1:08:23
Speaker 1: and if fortune only favors, we will take the road
1:08:27
Speaker 1: some day and go droving down the river beneath the
1:08:30
Speaker 1: sunshine and the stars, and then return to Sydney and
1:08:35
Speaker 1: Vermilionize the Bars end of and Answer to Various Bards
1:08:41
Speaker 1: by Banjo Patterson.
1:08:48
Speaker 2: Poem sixteen of the Bush Debate. This is a libby
1:08:53
Speaker 2: bux recording. All liby bux recordings are in the public domain.
1:08:57
Speaker 2: For more information or to volunteer, please visit libbybox dot org.
1:09:03
Speaker 2: Recording by Algie Pug The Poets of the Tomb by
1:09:08
Speaker 2: Henry Lawson. The world has had enough of bads who
1:09:12
Speaker 2: wished that they were dead. Tis time that people passed
1:09:16
Speaker 2: a lot and knock him on the head, for twould
1:09:19
Speaker 2: be lovely if their friends could grant the rest they crave,
1:09:23
Speaker 2: those bads of tears and vanish'd hopes. Those poets of
1:09:27
Speaker 2: the grave, they say that life's an awful thing, and
1:09:31
Speaker 2: full of care and gloom. They talk of peace and
1:09:35
Speaker 2: restfulness connected with the tomb. They say that man is
1:09:40
Speaker 2: made of dirt, and die, of course he must. But
1:09:43
Speaker 2: all the same, a man is made of pretty solid
1:09:46
Speaker 2: and dust. There is a thing that they forget. So
1:09:50
Speaker 2: let it here be writ that some are made of
1:09:52
Speaker 2: common mud, and some are made of grit. Some try
1:09:56
Speaker 2: to help the world along, while others fret and fume
1:10:00
Speaker 2: and wish that they were slumbering in the silence of
1:10:03
Speaker 2: the tomb, TwixT mother's arms and coffin gear. A man
1:10:07
Speaker 2: has work to do, and if he does his very best,
1:10:11
Speaker 2: he mostly worries through. And while there is a wrong
1:10:14
Speaker 2: ter right, and while the world goes round, an honest
1:10:18
Speaker 2: man alive is worth a million underground. And yet as
1:10:22
Speaker 2: long as she oaks, sigh, and wattle blossoms bloom, the
1:10:27
Speaker 2: world shall hear the dribble of the poets of the tomb.
1:10:31
Speaker 2: And though the graveyard poets long to vanish from the scene.
1:10:35
Speaker 2: I noticed that they mostly wish their resting place kept green.
1:10:40
Speaker 2: Now were I rotty underground, I do not think i'd
1:10:43
Speaker 2: care if Wombat's rooted under ground, or if the cows
1:10:47
Speaker 2: camped there. And should I have some feelings left when
1:10:51
Speaker 2: I have gone before. I think a ton of solid
1:10:54
Speaker 2: stone would hurt my feelings more. Such wormy songs of
1:11:00
Speaker 2: holy joys can give me no delight. I'll take my
1:11:03
Speaker 2: chances with the world. I'd rather live and fight, though
1:11:07
Speaker 2: Fortune laughs along my track or wears her blackest frown.
1:11:12
Speaker 2: I'll try to do the world some good before I
1:11:15
Speaker 2: tumble down. Let's fight for things that ought to be
1:11:19
Speaker 2: and try to make him boom. We cannot help mankind
1:11:23
Speaker 2: when we are ashes in the tomb. End of the
1:11:28
Speaker 2: parts of the tomb