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Project Gutenberg Australia HomeReturn to Index of Poems
This is the cry that is echoed to-day:
Go on the land, young man!
There’s plenty of work if there’s not any pay,
Out on the land, young man!
There’s call for your energies, patience, and pluck,
There’s promise of fortune—With plenty of luck;
And your freedom is boundless almost when you’re stuck
Out on the land, young man!
Leave the parks and the gardens, the statue and all—
Go on the land, young man!
Deputations are useless, the Ministers call:
“Go on the land, young man!”
The loan bubble’s busted, the Treasury’s broke,
The eight-bob-a-day for a Government stroke,
And the Socialist schemes’ have all ended in smoke—
Go on the land, young man!
You’ve milked the State cow till she’s poor as a crow,
Poorer than land, young man!
You’ve dribbled her dry as the creeks that don’t flow
Out on the land, young man!
And the old mother turns with the desperate cry:
“I am not bound to keep you; henceforth you must try
To shift for yourselves; like your brothers, apply
Out on the land, young man!”
You must take up the yoke of your sturdy old sires,
Out on the land, young man!
Who fought with the droughts, and the floods and the fires,
Out on the land, young man!
For if they could live then without the state cow,
Depending like men on the sweat of their brow,
There’s really no reason you shouldn’t thrive now
Out on the land, young man!
You must peel off your jackets and roll up your sleeves
Out on the land, young man!
From daylight to twilight must garner the sheaves
Out on the land, young man!
Your sweat and your blood you must give in the fight,
Keep grafting like blazes while ever ‘tis light,
And patch your old pants and make dampers at night,
Out on the land, young man!
Your kingdom provides you with game and with meat
Out on the land, young man!
Marsupial pickled, they say, is a treat
Out on the land, young man!
New fashions come not with the seasons out back,
So a ‘possumskin suit is as good as a sac.
And a bladygrass hat is a don for the track,
Out on the land, young man!
There’s fish in the rivers—your boundary mark
Out on the land, old man!
Your lines you can make out of kurrajong bark
Out on the land, old man!
When your day’s work is o’er you can hie to the bight,
And squat on the bank with your cutty alight,
The while that you wait for your breakfast to bite,
Out on the land, old man!
There are trees just as good as the parks ever grew,
Out on the land, young man!
And for winter there’s wood which the parks never knew,
Out on the, land, young man!
If you’d rather the life of a tourist than work,
You may travel for nothing from Gabo to York,
Then why in this niggard environment lurk?
Go on the land, young man!
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