A Prayer For My Daughter -- William Butler Yeats

Guest poem submitted by Priya Chakravarthi:

(Poem #1020) A Prayer For My Daughter Once more the storm is howling, and half hid Under this cradle-hood and coverlid My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle But Gregory's wood and one bare hill Whereby the haystack- and roof-levelling wind, Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed; And for an hour I have walked and prayed Because of the great gloom that is in my mind. I have walked and prayed for this young child an hour And heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower, And under the arches of the bridge, and scream In the elms above the flooded stream; Imagining in excited reverie That the future years had come, Dancing to a frenzied drum, Out of the murderous innocence of the sea. May she be granted beauty and yet not Beauty to make a stranger's eye distraught, Or hers before a looking-glass, for such, Being made beautiful overmuch, Consider beauty a sufficient end, Lose natural kindness and maybe The heart-revealing intimacy That chooses right, and never find a friend. Helen being chosen found life flat and dull And later had much trouble from a fool, While that great Queen, that rose out of the spray, Being fatherless could have her way Yet chose a bandy-leggèd smith for man. It's certain that fine women eat A crazy salad with their meat Whereby the Horn of Plenty is undone. In courtesy I'd have her chiefly learned; Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earned By those that are not entirely beautiful; Yet many, that have played the fool For beauty's very self, has charm made wise, And many a poor man that has roved, Loved and thought himself beloved, From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes. May she become a flourishing hidden tree That all her thoughts may like the linnet be, And have no business but dispensing round Their magnanimities of sound, Nor but in merriment begin a chase, Nor but in merriment a quarrel. O may she live like some green laurel Rooted in one dear perpetual place. My mind, because the minds that I have loved, The sort of beauty that I have approved, Prosper but little, has dried up of late, Yet knows that to be choked with hate May well be of all evil chances chief. If there's no hatred in a mind Assault and battery of the wind Can never tear the linnet from the leaf. An intellectual hatred is the worst, So let her think opinions are accursed. Have I not seen the loveliest woman born Out of the mouth of Plenty's horn, Because of her opinionated mind Barter that horn and every good By quiet natures understood For an old bellows full of angry wind? Considering that, all hatred driven hence, The soul recovers radical innocence And learns at last that it is self-delighting, Self-appeasing, self-affrighting, And that its own sweet will is Heaven's will; She can, though every face should scowl And every windy quarter howl Or every bellows burst, be happy still. And may her bridegroom bring her to a house Where all's accustomed, ceremonious; For arrogance and hatred are the wares Peddled in the thoroughfares. How but in custom and in ceremony Are innocence and beauty born? Ceremony's a name for the rich horn, And custom for the spreading laurel tree. -- William Butler Yeats

I was taught this poem in school and it remains one of my favourites.
Despite the seeming simplicity of its theme the poem has a deep political
undercurrent and Yeats' trademark cynicism.

Yeats was deeply involved in Irish politics, particularly the struggle for
freedom from England. His verse, even after Ireland's independence,
reflected pessimism about the political situation in his country and the
rest of Europe. In fact the howling storm with which the poem opens refers
to the gathering clouds in Ireland's political scene. In the course of his
political activities Yeats met an extremely beautiful rebel called Maud
Gonne and was influenced by her strength of character and political ideas.
Maud however chose to marry a man who Yeats considered to be an intellectual
pygmy. The "old bellows full of angry wind" is a scathing reference to this
man and the part about Helen and Venus is meant to refer to Maud. The
daughter in this poem is the product of his marriage with Georgie Hyde Lees
who was said to be rather plain.

So much of the ability to appreciate poetry depends on how it was taught in
one's formative years. When I learnt this poem in school I remember the
teacher analyzing every line and explaining the allegory to Irish folklore
in great detail.

Priya.

[Moreover]

"We all of us have or ought to have a group of poems we admire greatly but
dislike. There is so much high art in 'A Prayer for My Daughter', admirably
set forth by the Yeatsians, that the poem compels great respect. 'Under Ben
Bulben', and some other famous poems by Yeats, will be seen someday as
structures of cant and rant, but 'A Prayer for My Daughter" has the
ritualistic strength of Spenser at his strongest, no matter what it is that
here informs the ritualism. As a wholly coherent work, it disarms formalist
criticism, and further possesses an excellence rarely attained by any poem
of celebration, by providing an epitome of the values it praises and
desires. In its eighty lines we are given a complete map of Yeats' social
mind, at least of that mind in the act of idealization."

        -- Harold Bloom, "Yeats"

Bloom, for once, gets it absolutely right. I cannot bring myself to
sympathize with the social and moral philosophy this poem seems to espouse,
but I have to admit that it's beautifully written: Yeats at his fascinating
best.

thomas.

A Performance of Henry V at Stratford-upon-Avon -- Elizabeth Jennings

Guest poem sent in by Simon

The Aldrich (Poem #1018) prompts me to suggest this one (can't believe
you've only had one Elizabeth Jennings poem on Minstrels!)

(Poem #1019) A Performance of Henry V at Stratford-upon-Avon Nature teaches us our tongue again And the swift sentences came pat. I came Into cool night rescued from rainy dawn. And I seethed with language - Henry at Harfleur and Agincourt came apt for war In Ireland and the Middle East. Here was The riddling and right tongue, the feeling words Solid and dutiful. Aspiring hope Met purpose in "advantages" and "He That fights with me today shall be my brother." Say this is patriotic, out of date. But you are wrong. It never is too late For nights of stars and feet that move to an Iambic measure; all who clapped were linked, The theatre is our treasury and too, Our study, school-room, house where mercy is Dispensed with justice. Shakespeare has the mood And draws the music from the dullest heart. This is our birthright, speeches for the dumb And unaccomplished. Henry has the words For grief and we learn how to tell of death With dignity. "All was as cold" she said "As any stone" and so, we who lacked scope For big or little deaths, increase, grow up To purposes and means to face events Of cruelty, stupidity. I walked Fast under stars. The Avon wandered on "Tomorrow and tomorrow". Words aren't worn Out in this place but can renew our tongue, Flesh out our feeling, make us apt for life. -- Elizabeth Jennings

I find this poem incredibly moving and evocative. Whenever I read it I
think of trips to Stratford, the little footbridge over the Avon and the
bright lights of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. It also seems to me a
fitting tribute to Elizabeth Jennings herself, who died last year.

But (as with all of Jennings's poems) it also uses language in an
incredibly precise way. The frequent alliteration drives the rhythm of
the iambic pentameter and every word is perfectly chosen - "seethes with
language"; "The riddling and right tongue, the feeling words"; and that
fantastic final line, "Flesh out our feeling, make us apt for life."

Simon

Links:

Biography of Jennings:
[broken link] http://www.rcc.ait.ac.th/staff/suman/ElizabethJennings.html

The previous Jennings poem on Minstrels: Poem #249, 'Delay'

And yesterday's Aldrich poem: Poem #1018, 'At Stratford-Upon-Avon'

At Stratford-Upon-Avon -- Thomas Bailey Aldrich

(Poem #1018) At Stratford-Upon-Avon Thus spake his dust (so seemed it as I read The words): Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbeare (Poor ghost!) To digg the dust enclosèd heare -- Then came the malediction on the head Of whoso dare disturb the sacred dead. Outside the mavis whistled strong and clear, And, touched with the sweet glamour of the year, The winding Avon murmured in its bed, But in the solemn Stratford church the air Was chill and dank, and on the foot-worn tomb The evening shadows deepened momently. Then a great awe fell on me, standing there, As if some speechless presence in the gloom Was hovering, and fain would speak with me. -- Thomas Bailey Aldrich

    (Sonnet XI from 'XXVIII Sonnets')

Note: The reference is to Shakespeare's self-penned epitaph:
      "Good frend for Jesus sake forbeare
       To digg the dust enclosèd heare;
       Blese be ye man yt spares these stones
       And curst be he yt moves my bones "

      mavis: The song-thrush

      Aldrich dedicated the poem to Edwin Booth (see links)

As a poet and writer, Shakespeare stands alone in the public estimation -
like Einstein, his name and image have acquired a mystique out of proportion
to even his towering achievements. It is this semimythical Shakespeare that
Aldrich addresses in "At Stratford-Upon-Avon" - the man whose spirit even
now pervades the town in which he lies buried, speechless and awe-inspiring.

Aldrich captures this atmosphere admirably - the poem is evocative, and the
balance and development perfect. He also avoids the temptation to write in a
Shakespearean style[1] - an easy trap to fall into, given the subject, and
one that would likely have produced a far inferior poem.
  [1] or even to write a Shakespearean sonnet

The sonnet is developed beautifully, the octet setting up a quiet, almost
pastoral series of images which the sestet then builds upon and intensifies,
transforming 'quiet' into 'solemn' and (in the old sense of the word)
'awful'. All in all, one of the better tributes to the bard I've seen.

martin

Links:

  I found today's poem on the HTI American Verse Project, a wonderful
  resource I recently discovered:
    http://www.hti.umich.edu/a/amverse/

  There's a biography of Aldrich at Poem #236

  Edwin Booth: [broken link] http://shakespeare.eb.com/shakespeare/micro/78/51.html

  and [broken link] http://www.geocities.com/litpageplus/shakmoul.html has a lovely
  collection of pieces on and tributes to Shakespeare

Lines on and from "Bartlett's Familiar Quotations" -- Franklin P Adams

Back in action - many thanks to Thomas for covering the while

(Poem #1017) Lines on and from "Bartlett's Familiar Quotations" ("Sir: For the first time in twenty-three years 'Bartlett's Familiar Quotations' has been revised and enlarged, and under a separate cover we are sending you a copy of the new edition. We would appreciate an expression of opinion from you of the value of this work after you have had an ample opportunity of examining it." --THE PUBLISHERS) Of making many books there is no end-- So Sancho Panza said, and so say I. Thou wert my guide, philosopher and friend When only one is shining in the sky. Books cannot always please, however good; The good is oft interred with their bones. To be great is to be misunderstood, The anointed sovereign of sighs and groans. The Moving Finger writes, and having writ, I never write as funny as I can. Remote, unfriendly, studious let me sit And say to all the world, "This was a man!" Go, lovely Rose, that lives its little hour! Go, little booke! and let who will be clever! Roll on! From yonder ivy-mantled tower The moon and I could keep this up forever. -- Franklin P Adams

The title says it all <g>. Today's little gem has been stitched together -
and stitched together with nonchalant skill - from various fragments of
famous quotes, the whole dancing just on the other side of that misty
boundary between sense and nonsense. The idea is not new, of course, but it
is amusing nonetheless, and highly pleasing in its grouping into rhyming and
metrical stanzas. What makes the poem funny, though (as opposed to merely
random), is the fact that, while it is altogether incoherent on a large
scale, consecutive lines do follow on neatly from one another. The humour
lies both in the unexpectedness of the twists and their skewed but
undeniable logic (and, of course, the introductory text at the start).

The somewhat disjointed quotes are mostly one to a line, except towards the
end when the pace picks up slightly and lines break into quote-fragments.
And all the quotes are, except for one I couldn't find, all taken from
Bartlett's. (I've collected them at the end to save you the trouble of
searching.)

martin

Links:

  Biography of Adams: Poem #212

  Some poems along vaguely similar lines:
    Poem #211, 'The Oxford Hysteria of English Poetry'

    'Things are Seldom What They Seem',
      [broken link] http://math.boisestate.edu/gas/pinafore/web_opera/pn14.html

  The Dissociated Press is worth a look:
    [broken link] http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/html/entry/Dissociated-Press.html
    [broken link] http://www.gnu.org/manual/emacs/html_node/emacs_427.html
    http://www.eblong.com/zarf/markov/index.html

References:

And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is
no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh. -- Ecclesiastes 12:12, KJV

"God bless the man who first invented sleep!"
So Sancho Panza said, and so say I. -- John Godfrey Saxe, 'Early Rising'

Thou wert my guide, philosopher, and friend. -- Alexander Pope, 'Essay on Man'

A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye;
Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.
  -- William Wordsworth, 'She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways'

Books cannot always please, however good;
Minds are not ever craving for their food.
  -- George Crabbe

The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones.
  -- William Shakespeare, 'Julius Caesar'

To be great is to be misunderstood. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

This senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid;
Regent of love-rhymes, lord of folded arms,
The anointed sovereign of sighs and groans,
Liege of all loiterers and malcontents.
  -- William Shakespeare, 'Love's Labour's Lost'

The Moving Finger writes; and having writ,
Moves on; nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.
  -- Edward Fitzgerald, 'The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam'
     (Bartlett's rather curiously attributes it to Khayyam instead, making
      no mention whatsoever of Fitzgerald)

Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye,
I watched that wretched man,
And since, I never dare to write
As funny as I can
  -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, 'The Height of the Ridiculous'

Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow,
Or by the lazy Scheld or wandering Po.
  -- Oliver Goldsmith, 'The Traveller'

There studious let me sit,
And hold high converse with the mighty dead.
  -- James Thomson, 'The Seasons, Winter'

His life was gentle, and the elements
So mix'd in him, that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, "This was a man!"
  -- William Shakespeare, 'Julius Caesar'

Go, lovely rose!
Tell her that wastes her time and me
That now she knows,
When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet and fair she seems to be.
  -- Edmund Waller, 'Go Lovely Rose'

Loveliest of lovely things are they
On earth that soonest pass away.
The rose that lives its little hour
Is prized beyond the sculptured flower.
  -- William Cullen Bryant 'A Scene on the Banks of the Hudson'

Go, little booke! go, my little tragedie!
  -- Geoffrey Chaucer, 'Troilus and Creseide'

Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever;
Do noble things, not dream them, all day long:
And so make life, death, and that vast forever
One grand sweet song.
  -- Charles Kingsley, 'A Farewell'

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll!
  -- George Gordon Noel Byron, Lord Byron, 'Childe Harold's Pilgrimage'

Roll on, thou ball, roll on
Through pathless realms of space,
Roll on!
  -- Sir William Schwenck Gilbert, 'To the Terrestrial Globe'

Save that, from yonder ivy-mantled tower,
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.
  -- Thomas Gray, 'Elegy in a Country Churchyard'

Though I am anything but clever,
I could talk like that forever."
  -- W. S. Gilbert, 'HMS Pinafore'

Faces in the Street -- Henry Lawson

Guest poem submitted by Frank O'Shea:

(Poem #1016) Faces in the Street They lie, the men who tell us for reasons of their own That want is here a stranger, and that misery's unknown; For where the nearest suburb and the city proper meet My window-sill is level with the faces in the street Drifting past, drifting past, To the beat of weary feet While I sorrow for the owners of those faces in the street. And cause I have to sorrow, in a land so young and fair, To see upon those faces stamped the marks of Want and Care; I look in vain for traces of the fresh and fair and sweet In sallow, sunken faces that are drifting through the street Drifting on, drifting on, To the scrape of restless feet; I can sorrow for the owners of the faces in the street. In hours before the dawning dims the starlight in the sky The wan and weary faces first begin to trickle by, Increasing as the moments hurry on with morning feet, Till like a pallid river flow the faces in the street Flowing in, flowing in, To the beat of hurried feet Ah! I sorrow for the owners of those faces in the street. The human river dwindles when 'tis past the hour of eight, Its waves go flowing faster in the fear of being late; But slowly drag the moments, whilst beneath the dust and heat The city grinds the owners of the faces in the street Grinding body, grinding soul, Yielding scarce enough to eat Oh! I sorrow for the owners of the faces in the street. And then the only faces till the sun is sinking down Are those of outside toilers and the idlers of the town, Save here and there a face that seems a stranger in the street, Tells of the city's unemployed upon his weary beat Drifting round, drifting round, To the tread of listless feet Ah! My heart aches for the owner of that sad face in the street. And when the hours on lagging feet have slowly dragged away, And sickly yellow gaslights rise to mock the going day, Then flowing past my window like a tide in its retreat, Again I see the pallid stream of faces in the street Ebbing out, ebbing out, To the drag of tired feet, While my heart is aching dumbly for the faces in the street. And now all blurred and smirched with vice the day's sad pages end, For while the short `large hours' toward the longer `small hours' trend, With smiles that mock the wearer, and with words that half entreat, Delilah pleads for custom at the corner of the street Sinking down, sinking down, Battered wreck by tempests beat A dreadful, thankless trade is hers, that Woman of the Street. But, ah! to dreader things than these our fair young city comes, For in its heart are growing thick the filthy dens and slums, Where human forms shall rot away in sties for swine unmeet, And ghostly faces shall be seen unfit for any street Rotting out, rotting out, For the lack of air and meat In dens of vice and horror that are hidden from the street. I wonder would the apathy of wealthy men endure Were all their windows level with the faces of the Poor? Ah! Mammon's slaves, your knees shall knock, your hearts in terror beat, When God demands a reason for the sorrows of the street, The wrong things and the bad things And the sad things that we meet In the filthy lane and alley, and the cruel, heartless street. I left the dreadful corner where the steps are never still, And sought another window overlooking gorge and hill; But when the night came dreary with the driving rain and sleet, They haunted me the shadows of those faces in the street, Flitting by, flitting by, Flitting by with noiseless feet, And with cheeks but little paler than the real ones in the street. Once I cried: `Oh, God Almighty! if Thy might doth still endure, Now show me in a vision for the wrongs of Earth a cure.' And, lo! with shops all shuttered I beheld a city's street, And in the warning distance heard the tramp of many feet, Coming near, coming near, To a drum's dull distant beat, And soon I saw the army that was marching down the street. Then, like a swollen river that has broken bank and wall, The human flood came pouring with the red flags over all, And kindled eyes all blazing bright with revolution's heat, And flashing swords reflecting rigid faces in the street. Pouring on, pouring on, To a drum's loud threatening beat, And the war-hymns and the cheering of the people in the street. And so it must be while the world goes rolling round its course, The warning pen shall write in vain, the warning voice grow hoarse, But not until a city feels Red Revolution's feet Shall its sad people miss awhile the terrors of the street The dreadful everlasting strife For scarcely clothes and meat In that pent track of living death the city's cruel street. -- Henry Lawson

Thank you for today's Robert Service poem. The metre and to a certain extent
the theme, reminded me very much of this classic by Henry Lawson.

The poem was written in 1888. Lawson had come to Sydney from the bush five
years earlier and met his mother's friends, many of them radical in their
politics  It is easy to see how a young man would look for the Red flag to
impose a form of equality. It would be exactly 100 years before the events
in Berlin finally killed off that aspiration. It would be many years before
Lawson descended into the hopeless drunk of his final years. He is still the
only Australian poet to be given a state funeral.

Frank.

[1] "The March of the Dead", Minstrels Poem #980.

[Biography]

Henry Hertzberg Lawson was born on 17 June, 1867 on the goldfields at
Grenfell, New South Wales. His father was originally a Norwegian sailor
whose name was Neils Larsen. He changed his name to Peter Lawson and became
a gold miner. His mother, Louisa (nee Albury) was a very independent lady
and she had a great influence on Henry's life. Peter and Louisa had four
other children besides Henry - Charles, Peter, Getrude and Henrietta (who
died from an illness, in 1879). Henry went to school at Eurunderee and
Mudgee but during the few years he was there, he was often picked on by the
other children. At the age of nine, he developed an ear infection and became
partially deaf. By the time he was fourteen, he was totally deaf. He had a
very difficult childhood as the family were very poor. After leaving school
early, Lawson helped his father on building projects. His first employment
came as an apprentice railway coach painter in 1887, and he was often
worried about missing work because he could not hear the alarm to go to work
because of his deafness.

His parents separated in 1883 and Lawson moved to Sydney with his mother. In
1887, Louisa bought a newspaper called the Republican and it was here that
Lawson's first writing was published. That same year, the Bulletin published
Lawson's first poem and in 1888, it published his first short story, "His
Father's Mate". On New Year's Eve, 1888, Lawson's father died. In 1890,
Lawson travelled to Albany, WA where he wrote for the Albany Observer but
returned in September, 1890 and travelled to Brisbane where he accepted a
position on the Brisbane newspaper, the Boomerang, in 1891.

Between 1888 and 1892, Lawson published many of his most famous poems like
"Andy's Gone with Cattle", "The Roaring Days" and 'The Drover's Wife". In
1892, Lawson walked from Bourke to Hungerford and back and it was during
this time that he came to be very conscious of the hardships of bush life.
Also in 1892, Lawson met up with Banjo Patterson, another famous Australian
writer, to debate their views of life in the bush.

Lawson also worked as a shearer and lived with the other workers. He
travelled to New Zealand for seven months where he also worked as a shearer.
Offered a position with the Worker, Lawson returned to Sydney. When the
Worker reverted to a weekly newspaper, he became first a provincial editor
and then a contributor. In 1894 his first collection was published and
Lawson met Bertha Bredt who became his wife in 1896. Bertha Bredt was the
step daughter of Sydney bookseller and radical, W.H. McNamara as well as the
sister-in-law of the politician Jack Lang. Lawson and Bertha had two
children, their son Jim, was born 10 February, 1898 and baby Bertha in 1899.
They travelled again to New Zealand where both Lawson and Bertha worked as
school teachers at a Maori school at Mangamaunu near Kaikoura, in the South
Island.

Lawson, always a heavy drinker, had struggled with alchoholism since 1888
but was not troubled by it during his stay in New Zealand despite the
solitude. After his return from New Zealand in 1898 however, his alchoholism
recurred. Lawson published two more prose collections but was becoming more
disenchanted with Australia and in 1900, the family travelled to England,
helped financially by Earl Beauchamp, the governor of NSW, David Scott
Mitchell and the publisher, George Robertson. They rented a house at
Harpeden, 40 km north of London. Lawson continued to write some of his best
work in England but by 1902 decided to return to Australia because of
financial problems and illness.

After his return from England on 21 May, 1902, Lawson and his wife separated
and Lawson became increasingly unstable. Bertha and the two children moved
into Bertha's mother's place when he failed to pay the maintenance to her
and Bertha issued a summons for him because she was afraid of Lawson's
behaviour. On 31 December, the magistrate ordered Henry to pay Bertha 2
pounds weekly. His mother Louisa also suffered mental problems after her
publication "Dawn", a woman's magazine with a strong suffragette bias,
finally closed in 1905. She died in the Gladesville Hospital for the Insane
on 12 August, 1920.

Between 1905 and 1910, Lawson was regularly in prison for non-payment of
maintenance and inebriation. He was also in mental and rehabilitation
sanatoriums and gradually progressed into a pathetic, dissolute, alcoholic
wandering the Sydney streets, begging for money for alchohol. He even tried
to commit suicide by jumping off a cliff but survived despite serious
injuries. His friends, J. Le Gay Brereton, E.J. Brady and George Robertson,
came to his rescue and helped him financially.

Mrs Isabel Byers, who was twenty years older than Lawson, befriended him and
constantly provided shelter and food for him from 1904. In 1916, his friends
found him a position at Leeton, providing data for the Murrumbidgee
Irrigation Area. Lawson continued to produce his works during the First
World War and was well received. On 14 July, 1921, Lawson had a stroke but
continued to write about his travels to London. Between 1920 and 1922, the
government provided a pension for Lawson. On September 2, 1922, at age 55,
Lawson finally died peacefully in his sleep while still writing and was
given a state funeral on 4 September, the first writer to be given one.
Henry Lawson remains one of Australia's most famous writers and his portrait
is on our ten dollar note.

During his life, Lawson lived and wrote in widely different environments and
had known life as a bush worker, house painter, telegraph linesman,
journalist and rouseabout. Much of what he saw and experienced went into his
short stories but his deepest feelings are revealed in his verse. Even in
his earliest life, he was haunted by the impermanence of life and his poetry
in his day was often criticised as being too melancholy. Lawson did not
shrink from reminding people that they must face and endure their lives,
although Lawson himself never lost hope.

        -- [broken link] http://homepage.powerup.com.au/~rdale/lawson.htm

(As always, http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=henry+lawson leads to
more).

[Minstrels Links]

Antipodean poems:
Poem #566, Clancy of the Overflow -- A. B. "Banjo" Paterson
Poem #569, The Great Grey Plain -- Henry Lawson
Poem #573, At a Fishing Settlement -- Alistair Campbell