English

The Lady in the motor car, she stareth straight ahead;
Her face is like the stone, my friend, her face is like the dead;
Her face is like the living dead, because she is " well-bred " —
Because her heart is dead, my friend, as all her life was dead.

The Lady in her motor car, she speaketh like a man,
Because her girlhood never was, nor womanhood began.
She says, " To the Aus-traliah, John! " and " Home " when she hath been.
And to the husband at her side she says, " Whhat doo you mean? "

O he was very handsome
When he went to the war—
His eyes would haunt an angel—
They'll haunt the pure no more.
He's sleeping out to-night beside
The old road to the Rhine,
From me who should have been his bride,
My Soldier Libertine.

I hope they shot the brute before
He looked in French girls' eyes;
I like to think that he went pure
From me to Paradise,
Or to the Hell he strove to win
Through women, lies and wine,
And all the girls he led to sin,
My Soldier Libertine.

FROM AUSTRALIA

O tell me, God of Battles! O say what is to come!
The King is in his trenches, the millionaire at home;
The Kaiser with his toiling troops, the Czar is at the front.
O tell me, God of Battles! Who bears the battle's brunt?
The Queen knits socks for soldiers, the Empress does the same,
And know no more than peasant girls which nation is to blame.
The wounded live to fight again, or live to slave for bread;
The Slain have graves above the Slain—the Dead are with the Dead.

O the Boar's tail is salted, and the Kangaroo's exalted,
And his right eye is extinguished by a man-o'-warsman's cap;
He is flying round the fences where the Southern Sea commences,
And he's very much excited for a quiet sort of chap.
For his fleet has had a scrap and they've marked it on the map
Where the H.M.A.S. Sydney dropped across a German trap.
So the Kangaroo's a-chasing of his Blessed Self, and racing
From Cape York right round to Leeuwin, from the coast to Nevertire;
And of him need be no more said, save that to the tail aforesaid

Flames through the black smoke shooting — flames to the skies aflame!
Hatred and crime that are nameless, and murder without a name!
The deeds of a death-doomed nation, and the fury of guilt and shame,
And the flames die down in the morning and the black smoke smothers the flame.

Blue smoke from the embers curling, and the morning is fresh and fair;
And the dead and the charred and the mangled, and the wounded are everywhere.
And out on the paths of the fleeing, where the remnants are scattered like chaff,

Are you coming, Ivan, coming? — Ah, the ways are long and slow,
In the vast land that we know not — and we never sought to know.
We are watching through the daybreak, when the anxious night is done,
For the dots upon the skyline — black against the rising sun;
We are watching through the morning haze, and waiting through the night,
For the long, dark, distant columns that proclaim the Muscovite!

Are you coming, Ivan, coming? (O the world is growing grey
With the terror of the future and the madness of to-day!)

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

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

The Local Spirit never dies,
Though it is mostly rotten.
For Local Spite and local lies
Can never be forgotten;
The local truth dies very young
When wed to local merit;
'Tis murdered by the envious tongue —
And — that's the Local Spirit.

The General Good is sacrificed,
In spite of all petitions,
To paltry private interests
And local mean ambitions.

Seen plainly from O'Brien's Hill,
That stands by our old home,
Mount Buckaroo is standing still,
And likewise old Mount Frome;
Lowe's Peak and all its hills are ranged
Just as in memory,
And Granite Ridge is little changed
As far as I can see.

The creek that I can ne'er forget
Its destiny fulfils,
The glow of sunrise purples yet
Along the Mudgee hills;
The flats and sidings seem to lie
Unchanged by Mudgee town,
And with the same old song and sigh
The Cudgegong goes down.

By Lawson's Hill, near Mudgee,
On old Eurunderee —
The place they called " New Pipeclay " ,
Where the diggers used to be —
On a dreary old selection,
When times were dry and thin,
In a slab-and-shingle kitchen
There stood a flour bin.

'Twas " ploorer " with the cattle,
'Twas rust or smut in wheat,
'Twas blight in eyes and orchards,
And coarse salt-beef to eat.
O how our mothers struggled
Till eyes and brains were dull —
O how our fathers slaved and toiled