English Poetry. Henry Lawson. From the Bush. Генри Лоусон.

Henry Lawson (Генри Лоусон)

From the Bush

The Channel fog has lifted – 
And see where we have come! 
Round all the world we’ve drifted, 
A hundred years from ”home”. 
The fields our parents longed for – 
Ah! we shall ne’er know how – 
The wealth that they were wronged for 
We’ll see as strangers now! 

The Dover cliffs have passed on – 
In the morning light aglow – 
That our fathers looked their last on 
A weary time ago. 
Now grin, and grin your bravest! 
We need be strong to fight; 
For you go home to picture 
And I go home to write. 

Hold up your head in England, 
Tread firm on London streets; 
We come from where the strong heart 
Of all Australia beats! 
Hold up your head in England 
However poor you roam! 
For no men are your betters 
Who never sailed from home! 

From a hundred years of hardships – 
’Tis ours to tell the cost – 
From a thousand miles of silence 
Where London would be lost; 
From where the glorious sunset 
On sweeps of mulga glows – 
Ah! we know more than England, 
And more than Europe knows! 

Hold up your head in London, 
However poor you come, 
For no man is your better 
Who never sailed from home! 
Our ”home” and foreign fathers, 
Where none but men dared go, 
Have done more for the White Man 
Than England e’er shall know!

Henry Lawson’s other poems:

1. The Free-Selector’s Daughter
2. Wide Spaces
3. The City Bushman
4. I’ll Tell You What You Wanderers
5. The Sliprails and the Spur

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