In the Days When the World Was Wide | Page 3

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ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*
In the Days When the World was Wide and Other Verses (2 ed.) by
Henry Lawson [Australian house-painter, author and poet --

1867-1922.]
[Note on text: Italicized stanzas will be indented 5 spaces. Italicized
stanzas that are ALREADY indented will be indented 10 spaces.
Italicized words and phrases have been capitalized.
Lines longer than
75 characters have been broken according to metre, and the
continuation is indented two spaces. Also,
some obvious errors, after
being confirmed against other sources, have been corrected. This etext
was prepared from a 1913 printing.]
[Note on content: Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson were writing for
the Sydney `Bulletin' in 1892 when Lawson suggested a `duel' of
poetry to increase the number of poems they could sell to the paper. It
was apparently entered into in all fun, though there are reports that
Lawson was bitter about it later. `Up the Country'
and `The City
Bushman', included in this selection,
were two of Lawson's
contributions to the debate. Please note that this is the revised edition of
1900. Therefore, even though this book was originally published in
1896, it includes two poems not published until 1899 (`The Sliprails
and the Spur' and `Past Carin'').]
First Edition printed February 1896,
Reprinted August 1896, October
1896, March 1898, and November 1898;
Revised Edition, January 1900;
Reprinted May 1903, February 1910,
June 1912, and July 1913.
Preface
Most of the verses contained in this volume were first published in the
Sydney `Bulletin'; others in the Brisbane `Boomerang', Sydney
`Freeman's Journal', `Town and Country Journal', `Worker', and `New
Zealand Mail', whose editors and proprietors I desire to thank for past
kindnesses and for present courtesy in granting me the right of
reproduction in book form.
`In the Days When the World was Wide' was written in Maoriland and

some of the other verses in Victoria, Queensland and Western
Australia.
The dates of original publication are given in the Table of Contents.
Those undated are now printed for the first time.
HENRY LAWSON.
To J. F. Archibald
To an Old Mate
Old Mate! In the gusty old weather,
When our hopes and our troubles
were new,
In the years spent in wearing out leather,
I found you
unselfish and true --
I have gathered these verses together
For the
sake of our friendship and you.
You may think for awhile, and with reason,
Though still with a
kindly regret,
That I've left it full late in the season
To prove I
remember you yet;
But you'll never judge me by their treason
Who
profit by friends -- and forget.
I remember, Old Man, I remember --
The tracks that we followed are
clear --
The jovial last nights of December,
The solemn first days of
the year,
Long tramps through the clearings and timber,
Short
partings on platform and pier.
I can still feel the spirit that bore us,
And often the old stars will shine
--
I remember the last spree in chorus
For the sake of that other
Lang Syne,
When the tracks lay divided before us,
Your path
through the future and mine.
Through the frost-wind that cut like whip-lashes,
Through the
ever-blind haze of the drought --
And in fancy at times by the flashes

Of light in the darkness of doubt --
I have followed the tent poles
and ashes
Of camps that we moved further out.

You will find in these pages a trace of
That side of our past which
was bright,
And recognise sometimes the face of
A friend who has
dropped out of sight --
I send them along in the place of
The letters
I promised to write.
Contents
To an Old Mate
Old Mate! In the gusty old weather,
In the Days When the World was Wide
The world is narrow and ways are short, and our lives are dull and slow,
[Dec. -- 1894]
Faces in the Street
They lie, the men who tell us in a loud decisive tone
[July -- 1888]
The Roaring Days
The night too quickly passes
[Dec. -- 1889]
`For'ard'
It is stuffy in the steerage where the second-classers sleep, [Dec. --
1893]
The Drover's Sweetheart
An hour before the sun goes down
[June -- 1891]
Out Back
The old year went, and the new returned,
in the withering weeks of
drought,
[Sept. -- 1893]

The Free-Selector's Daughter
I met her on the Lachlan Side --
[May -- 1891]
`Sez You'
When the heavy sand is yielding backward from your blistered feet,
[Mar. -- 1894]
Andy's Gone With Cattle
Our Andy's gone to battle now
[Oct. -- 1888]
Jack Dunn of Nevertire
It chanced upon the very day we'd got the shearing done, [Aug. --
1892]
Trooper Campbell
One day old Trooper Campbell
[Apr. -- 1891]
The Sliprails and the Spur
The colours of the setting sun
[July -- 1899]
Past Carin'
Now up and down the siding brown
[Aug. -- 1899]
The Glass on the Bar
Three bushmen one morning rode up to an inn,
[Apr. -- 1890]
The Shanty on the Rise
When the caravans