*Lyrics:

[Verse 1]
In South Australia I was born
Heave away, haul away
South Australia is my home
We're bound for South Australia

[Verse 2]
Now as I walked out one morning fair
Heave away, haul away
'Twas there I met miss Nancy Blair
We're bound for South Australia

[Chorus]
Haul away, you rolling kings
To me heave away, haul away
Haul away, you'll hear me sing
We're bound for South Australia

[Verse 3]
I shook her up, I shook her down
Heave away, haul away
I shook her round and round the town
We're bound for South Australia

[Verse 4]
There's just one thing that grieves my mind
Heave away, haul away
That's leaving Nancy Blair behind
We're bound for South Australia

[Verse 5]
And when we're walloping off Cape Horn
Heave away, haul away
You'd wish to God you'd never been born
We're bound for South Australia

[Verse 6]
I wish I was on Australia's strand
Heave away, haul away
With a bottle of whiskey in me hand
We're bound for South Australia*

"I am reckoned a horrid brute because I had not been cowardly enough to lie down for them under such trying circumstances, and insults to my people" - Ned Kelly

*You ask me to be gay and glad
While lurid clouds of danger loom,
And vain and bad and gambling mad,
Australia races to her doom.
You bid me sing the light and fair,
The dance, the glance on pleasure’s wings –
While you have wives who will not bear,
And beer to drown the fear of things.

A war with reason you would wage
To be amused for your short span,
Until your children’s heritage
Is claimed for China by Japan.
The football match, the cricket score,
The scraps, the tote, the mad’ning Cup –
You drunken fools that evermore
To-morrow morning sober up!

I see again with haggard eyes,
The thirsty land, the wasted flood;
Unpeopled plains beyond the skies,
And precious streams that run to mud;
The ruined health, the wasted wealth,
In our mad cities by the seas,
The black race suicide by stealth,
The starved and murdered industries!

You bid me make a farce of day,
And make a mockery of death;
While not five thousand miles away
The yellow millions pant for breath!
But heed me now, nor ask me this –
Lest you too late should wake to find
That hopeless patriotism is
The strongest passion in mankind!

You’d think the seer sees, perhaps,
While staring on from days like these,
Politeness in the conquering Japs,
Or mercy in the banned Chinese!
I mind the days when parents stood,
And spake no word, while children ran
From Christian lanes and deemed it good
To stone a helpless Chinaman.

I see the stricken city fall,
The fathers murdered at their doors,
The sack, the massacre of all
Save healthy slaves and paramours –
The wounded hero at the stake,
The pure girl to the leper’s kiss –
God, give us faith, for Christ’s own sake
To kill our womankind ere this.

I see the Bushman from Out Back,
From mountain range and rolling downs,
And carts race on each rough bush track
With food and rifles from the towns;
I see my Bushmen fight and die
Amongst the torn blood-spattered trees,
And hear all night the wounded cry
For men! More men and batteries!

I see the brown and yellow rule
The southern lands and southern waves,
White children in the heathen school,
And black and white together slaves;
I see the colour-line so drawn
(I see it plain and speak I must),
That our brown masters of the dawn
Might, aye, have fair girls for their lusts!

With land and life and race at stake –
No matter which race wronged, or how –
Let all and one Australia make
A superhuman effort now.
Clear out the blasting parasites,
The paid-for-one-thing manifold,
And curb the goggled social-lights
That scorch to nowhere with our gold.

Store guns and ammunition first,
Build forts and warlike factories,
Sink bores and tanks where drought is worst,
Give over time to industries.
The outpost of the white man’s race,
Where next his flag shall be unfurled,
Make clean the place! Make strong the place!
Call white men in from all the world!*

Henry Lawson
To Be Amused

Oh, that bark hut! Never shall I forget the first day when I, a slim and somewhat effeminate youth, with London smoke not yet cleared from my throat, beheld its dilapidated walls. “You will sleep here,” said Jack, pointing to a skillion which seemed to have been used as a sheep-pen, so marked was the “spoor” of those beasts. “With all my heart,” said I, as that organ sank within me—down, down, down, until I could feel it palpitating in the very tips of my riding-boots. But I did not regret my acquiescence. How many nights in that humble shelter have I listened to the skirr of the wild cats, and watched the one bright star that pertinaciously peeped through the chinks of the bark sheets. How many nights have I lighted my lonely pipe, and wrestled alone with my own particular angel, even as Jacob wrestled at Pennel. Happy Jacob! would I owned thy cunning of wrist and elbow. How many nights have I trimmed the reed in the pannikin of tallow, and read the half-dozen books I possessed until I could read no more. How many nights have I slept the unutterably sweet slumber of virtuous weariness, until my Jack, bursting in with clanking spurs, would rouse me with his “All aboard!” Aye, old skillion, I have had some happy hours in thee; so peace to thy ashes, for, sooth to say, thou art now but fit for burning.

It is proper to boast of the Australian summer. Those who have lived in tents, camped by rocky waterholes, kept dew-sprinkled watch beneath the yellow moon, and ridden through fiery noons hard upon the tails of the head-long herd, can with justice boast of the wild intoxication of that burning ether. I have known it, I! Not the draught which the great spirit gave to eager Faust maddens so gloriously. Australian summer, dost thou say? I am with thee. With open shirt ballooned behind thee, with streaming hair and bloody spurs, urge, urge the straining steed across the level plain! No tree mars the prospect of immensity. In front, the flying emu, and behind—naught but the whistling air! The grey grass spins, the grey plain reels, the cloudless sky glows molten brass above. It comes—the hot wind of the desert! Bitter—fierce from the sand—hills of the scorching north, it sweeps upon thee! Ride! Ride!

Marcus Clarke
Learning “Colonial Experience”
1896