Famous Shearer Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Its Grand

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 It's grand to be a squatter 
And sit upon a post, 
And watch your little ewes and lambs 
A-giving up the ghost. 

It's grand to be a "cockie" 
With wife and kids to keep, 
And find an all-wise Providence 
Has mustered all your sheep. 

It's grand to be a Western man, 
With shovel in your hand, 
To dig your...Read more of this...

An Evening in Dandaloo

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 It was while we held our races -- 
Hurdles, sprints and steplechases -- 
Up in Dandaloo, 
That a crowd of Sydney stealers, 
Jockeys, pugilists and spielers 
Brought some horses, real heelers, 
Came and put us through. 
Beat our nags and won our money, 
Made the game by np means funny, 
Made us rather blue; 
When the racing was concluded,...Read more of this...

The City Bushman

by Henry Lawson
 It was pleasant up the country, City Bushman, where you went, 
For you sought the greener patches and you travelled like a gent; 
And you curse the trams and buses and the turmoil and the push, 
Though you know the squalid city needn't keep you from the bush; 
But we lately heard you singing of the `plains where shade...Read more of this...

The Passing of Gundagai

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 "I'll introduce a friend!" he said, 
"And if you've got a vacant pen 
You'd better take him in the shed 
And start him shearing straight ahead; 
He's one of these here quiet men. 
"He never strikes -- that ain't his game; 
No matter what the others try 
He goes on shearing just the same. 
I never rightly knew his...Read more of this...

Out Back

by Henry Lawson
 The old year went, and the new returned, in the withering weeks of drought, 
The cheque was spent that the shearer earned, 
and the sheds were all cut out; 
The publican's words were short and few, 
and the publican's looks were black -- 
And the time had come, as the shearer knew, to carry his swag Out Back. 

For...Read more of this...

An answer to Various Bards

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Well, I've waited mighty patient while they all came rolling in, 
Mister Lawson, Mister Dyson, and the others of their kin, 
With their dreadful, dismal stories of the Overlander's camp, 
How his fire is always smoky, and his boots are always damp; 
And they paint it so terrific it would fill one's soul with gloom -- 
But you know...Read more of this...

The Silent Shearer

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Weary and listless, sad and slow, 
Without any conversation, 
Was a man that worked on The Overflow, 
The butt of the shed and the station. 

The shearers christened him Noisy Ned, 
With an alias "Silent Waters", 
But never a needless word he said 
In the hut or the shearers' quarters. 

Which caused annoyance to Big Barcoo, 
The shed's unquestioned...Read more of this...

The Heart of Australia

by Henry Lawson
 When the wars of the world seemed ended, and silent the distant drum, 
Ten years ago in Australia, I wrote of a war to come: 
And I pictured Australians fighting as their fathers fought of old 
For the old things, pride or country, for God or the Devil or gold. 

And they lounged on the rim of Australia in...Read more of this...

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