Famous Bush Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Bush poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous bush poems. These examples illustrate what a famous bush poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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The Bush Girl

by Henry Lawson
 So you rode from the range where your brothers “select,” 

Through the ghostly grey bush in the dawn--- 

You rode slowly at first, lest her heart should suspect 

That you were glad to be gone; 

You had scarcely the courage to glance back at her 

By the homestead receding from view, 

And you breathed with relief as you rounded...Read more of this...

Bush warbler

by Matsuo Basho
 Bush warbler:
shits on the rice cakes
 on the porch rail....Read more of this...

416. Song—Logan Braes

by Robert Burns
 O LOGAN, sweetly didst thou glide,
That day I was my Willie’s bride,
And years sin syne hae o’er us run,
Like Logan to the simmer sun:
But now thy flowery banks appear
Like drumlie Winter, dark and drear,
While my dear lad maun face his faes,
Far, far frae me and Logan braes.


Again the merry month of May
Has made our hills and valleys gay;
The birds...Read more of this...

Cockspur Bush

by Les Murray
 I am lived. I am died.
I was two-leafed three times, and grazed,
but then I was stemmed and multiplied,
sharp-thorned and caned, nested and raised, 
earth-salt by sun-sugar. I was innerly sung
by thrushes who need fear no eyed skin thing.
Finched, ant-run, flowered, I am given the years
in now fewer berries, now more of sling
out over directions of luscious dung.
Of water crankshaft,...Read more of this...

Warble for Lilac-Time

by Walt Whitman
 WARBLE me now, for joy of Lilac-time, 
Sort me, O tongue and lips, for Nature’s sake, and sweet life’s sake—and
 death’s the same as life’s, 
Souvenirs of earliest summer—birds’ eggs, and the first berries; 
Gather the welcome signs, (as children, with pebbles, or stringing shells;) 
Put in April and May—the hylas croaking in the ponds—the elastic air,
Bees, butterflies, the...Read more of this...

Santa Claus in the Bush

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 It chanced out back at the Christmas time, 
When the wheat was ripe and tall, 
A stranger rode to the farmer's gate -- 
A sturdy man and a small. 
"Rin doon, rin doon, my little son Jack, 
And bid the stranger stay; 
And we'll hae a crack for Auld Lang Syne, 
For the morn is Christmas Day." 

"Nay noo,...Read more of this...

Sitting by a Bush in Broad Sunlight

by Robert Frost
 When I spread out my hand here today,
I catch no more than a ray
To feel of between thumb and fingers;
No lasting effect of it lingers.

There was one time and only the one
When dust really took in the sun;
And from that one intake of fire
All creatures still warmly suspire.

And if men have watched a long time
And never seen sun-smitten slime
Again...Read more of this...

Roses

by George Eliot
 You love the roses - so do I. I wish
The sky would rain down roses, as they rain
From off the shaken bush. Why will it not?
Then all the valley would be pink and white
And soft to tread on. They would fall as light
As feathers, smelling sweet; and it would be
Like sleeping and like waking, all at once!...Read more of this...

From the Bush

by Henry Lawson
 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...Read more of this...

Anecdote of the Jar

by Wallace Stevens
I placed a jar in Tennessee, 
And round it was, upon a hill. 
It made the slovenly wilderness 
Surround that hill. 

The wilderness rose up to it, 
And sprawled around, no longer wild. 
The jar was round upon the ground 
And tall and of a port in air. 

It took dominion every where. 
The jar was gray and bare. 
It...Read more of this...

Fuzzy-Wuzzy

by Rudyard Kipling
 (Soudan Expeditionary Force)
We've fought with many men acrost the seas,
 An' some of 'em was brave an' some was not:
The Paythan an' the Zulu an' Burmese;
 But the Fuzzy was the finest o' the lot.
We never got a ha'porth's change of 'im:
 'E squatted in the scrub an' 'ocked our 'orses,
'E cut our sentries up at Suakim,
 An' 'e...Read more of this...

Music In The Bush

by Robert William Service
 O'er the dark pines she sees the silver moon,
 And in the west, all tremulous, a star;
And soothing sweet she hears the mellow tune
 Of cow-bells jangled in the fields afar.

Quite listless, for her daily stent is done,
 She stands, sad exile, at her rose-wreathed door,
And sends her love eternal with the sun
 That goes to gild the land...Read more of this...

About The Bush

by Mother Goose
About the bush, Willie,
    About the beehive,
About the bush, Willie,
    I'll meet thee alive....Read more of this...

The Mulberry Bush

by Mother Goose
Here we go round the mulberry bush,
The mulberry bush, the mulberry bush,
Here we go round the mulberry bush.
On a cold and frosty morning.

This is the way we wash our hands,
Wash our hands, wash our hands,
This is the way we wash our hands,
On a cold and frosty morning.

This is the way we wash our clothes.
Wash our clothes, wash our clothes,
This is...Read more of this...

The Barberry Bush

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 The bush that has most briers and bitter fruit,
Wait till the frost has turned its green leaves red,
Its sweetened berries will thy palate suit,
And thou may'st find e'en there a homely bread.
Upon the hills of Salem scattered wide,
Their yellow blossoms gain the eye in Spring;
And straggling e'en upon the turnpike's side,
Their ripened branches to your hand they bring,
I 've...Read more of this...

A Bush Christening

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 On the outer Barcoo where the churches are few,
 And men of religion are scanty,
On a road never cross'd 'cept by folk that are lost,
 One Michael Magee had a shanty. 

Now this Mike was the dad of a ten year old lad,
 Plump, healthy, and stoutly conditioned;
He was strong as the best, but poor Mike had no rest
...Read more of this...

A Bush Lawyer

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 When Ironbark the turtle came to Anthony's lagoon 
The hills were hid behind a mist of equinoctal rain, 
The ripple of the rivulets was like a cheerful tune 
And wild companions waltzed among the grass as tall as grain. 
But Ironbark the turtle cared no whit for all of these; 
The ripple of the rivulets, the rustle of the...Read more of this...

Pigs

by Les Murray
 Us all on sore cement was we.
Not warmed then with glares. Not glutting mush
under that pole the lightning's tied to.
No farrow-**** in milk to make us randy.
Us back in cool god-****. We ate crisp.
We nosed up good rank in the tunnelled bush.
Us all fuckers then. And Big, huh? Tusked
the balls-biting dog and gutsed him wet.
Us shoved down the soft...Read more of this...

To The Moon

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 BUSH and vale thou fill'st again

With thy misty ray,
And my spirit's heavy chain

Castest far away.

Thou dost o'er my fields extend

Thy sweet soothing eye,
Watching like a gentle friend,

O'er my destiny.

Vanish'd days of bliss and woe

Haunt me with their tone,
Joy and grief in turns I know,

As I stray alone.

Stream beloved, flow on! flow on!

Ne'er can I be gay!
Thus have sport and...Read more of this...

Jim Carew

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Born of a thoroughbred English race, 
Well proportioned and closely knit, 
Neat, slim figure and handsome face, 
Always ready and always fit, 
Hardy and wiry of limb and thew, 
That was the ne'er-do-well Jim Carew. 
One of the sons of the good old land -- 
Many a year since his like was known; 
Never a game but he took...Read more of this...

Bush Christening

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 On the outer Barcoo where the churches are few, 
And men of religion are scanty, 
On a road never cross'd 'cept by folk that are lost, 
One Michael Magee had a shanty. 
Now this Mike was the dad of a ten year old lad, 
Plump, healthy, and stoutly conditioned; 
He was strong as the best, but poor Mike had...Read more of this...

Australian Bards And Bush Reviewers

by Henry Lawson
 While you use your best endeavour to immortalise in verse 
The gambling and the drink which are your country's greatest curse, 
While you glorify the bully and take the spieler's part -- 
You're a clever southern writer, scarce inferior to Bret Harte. 

If you sing of waving grasses when the plains are dry as bricks, 
And discover shining rivers...Read more of this...

In Defence of the Bush

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 So you're back from up the country, Mister Lawson, where you went, 
And you're cursing all the business in a bitter discontent; 
Well, we grieve to disappoint you, and it makes us sad to hear 
That it wasn't cool and shady -- and there wasn't whips of beer, 
And the looney bullock snorted when you first came into view...Read more of this...

A Singer of the Bush

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 There is waving of grass in the breeze
And a song in the air,
And a murmur of myriad bees
That toil everywhere.
There is scent in the blossom and bough,
And the breath of the Spring
Is as soft as a kiss on a brow --
And Spring-time I sing.

There is drought on the land, and the stock
Tumble down in their tracks
Or follow -- a...Read more of this...

Hurt Hawks

by Robinson Jeffers
 I

The broken pillar of the wing jags from the clotted shoulder,
The wing trails like a banner in defeat, 

No more to use the sky forever but live with famine
And pain a few days: cat nor coyote
Will shorten the week of waiting for death, there is game without talons.

He stands under the oak-bush and waits 
The lame feet of salvation;...Read more of this...

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