MY COUNTRY

The Love Of Field & Coppice, 

Of Green Shaded Lanes 

Of Ordered Woods And Gardens

Is Running Through Your Veins 

Strong Love Of Blue Grey Distance

Brown Streams & Soft Dim Skies

I Know But Cannot Share It

My Love's Otherwise 

I Love A Sunburnt Country

A Land Of Sweeping Plains

Of Ragged Mountain Ranges 

Of Droughts And Flooding Rains

I Love Her Far Horizons

I Love The Jewel Sea

Her Beauty And Her Terror

Clancy Of The Overflow - Banjo Paterson

Clancy Of The Overflow - By Banjo Paterson...

This Was One Of The Banjo Paterson Poems That My Grandmother used to make me Recite Word For Word. 

I Went To Waverley Cemetery One day last year Looking for his Grave Site, but I had no Luck, and as No one is interested In the History Of This Country or It's People, there Obviously Wasn't Any Signage, or actually anyone there that could help me on my Quest That Day..... Disappointing. Absolutely No one Seemed to know. 

I'm Going to Go To The Auction Next Saturday Of Another Piece Of Heritage Given To Developers.... The Old Psychiatric Hospital Next To Darlinghurst Courthouse was Recently Pulled Down and All That Is Left Is The Old Residence Of The  Director General (If That Is The Right Title....)  Of St Vincents Hospital Back In it's Hey Day When It Was 2 - 3 Times The Size Of What It Is Now. So This 2 Storey Colonial Residence Which Is The Gardens Of The Psychiatric Part Has A Block Of Units Towering Over It. I Don't Know If I'd Want To live There now. 

The Reason I Mention this Is, Is Because Banjo Paterson Was A Regular Guest.....

Clancy Of The Overflow........

I had written him a letter which I had,
for want of better Knowledge,

sent to where I met him 

down the Lachlan, years ago,

He was shearing when I knew him, 

so I sent the letter to him,

Just `on spec', 

addressed as follows, 

`Clancy, of The Overflow'.

& an answer came directed in a writing unexpected,

(& I think the same was written with a thumb-nail dipped in tar)

'Twas his shearing mate who wrote it,

& verbatim I will quote it:

`Clancy's gone to Queensland droving,

& we don't know where he are.'

In my wild erratic fancy visions come to me of Clancy Gone a-droving 

`down the Cooper' where the Western drovers go;

As the stock are slowly stringing, 

Clancy rides behind them singing,

For the drover's life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know.

& the bush hath friends to meet him, 

& their kindly voices greet him

In the murmur of the breezes & the river on its bars,

& he sees the vision splendid 

of the sunlit plains extended,

& at night the wond'rous glory of the everlasting stars.

I am sitting in my dingy little office,

where a stingy ray of sunlight struggles feebly down between the houses tall,

& the foetid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty city

Through the open window floating, 

spreads its foulness over all

& in place of lowing cattle,

I can hear the fiendish rattle of the tramways & the 'buses making hurry down the street,

& the language uninviting of the gutter children fighting,

Comes fitfully & faintly through the ceaseless tramp of feet.

& the hurrying people daunt me, 

& their pallid faces haunt me

As they shoulder one another in their rush & nervous haste,

With their eager eyes & greedy,

& their stunted forms & weedy,

For townsfolk have no time to grow,

they have no time to waste.

& I somehow rather fancy that I'd like to change with Clancy,

Like to take a turn at droving where the seasons come & go,

While he faced the round eternal of the cash-book and the journal

--But I doubt he'd suit the office, 

Clancy, of `The Overflow'

You Say You Belong To Australia My Friend

You Say You Belong To Australia My Friend,

And Like Me You'd Die For This Land Defend

But Let Us Be Honest

It's Sad But True

Australia My Friend, Doesn't Belong To You

Our Country's Been Sold ByThe Powers That Be. 

To Big Wealthy Nations Over The Sea

They Couldn't Take Us With Lead Or Bayonet

So They Decided To Buy Us Instead 

and tAlking Of Wars And Blood That Was Spilt

And I Wonder If They're Gjosts Can See What's Happening To Their Native Land 

I Wonder If The Fallen Can See The Crime Corruption And Poverty

With A Lost Generation On The Dole

Adrift On Life's Ocean Without Any Goal

I Once Had A Dream Of Our Country So Grand

Where Rivers Outback Irrigated The Land

With Dams And Canals

And Big Inland Cities With Work Everywhere

Profit From Farm Factory And Mine 

Was Used To Build A Nation So Fine

When I Woke From My Dreaming TonTge Areality

That The Wealth Of Out Nation Goes Over The Sea... 

Waltzing Matilda - Banjo Paterson - Happy memories Of the Good Old Australia..

Waltzing Matilda is the bush ballad A.B. “Banjo” Paterson wrote in Queensland in 1895 — one t in Paterson, whatever the live title says. Christina Macpherson’s tune met his swagman-and-jumbuck verses in Dagworth station country near Winton, in the hangover of the shearers’ strikes. It was never the official national anthem. It has always been the song you hum when the anthem feels too stiff.

Keep the lyrics — they’re the reason the post exists — but park the facts above them. The 1977 national-song plebiscite put Waltzing Matilda second to Advance Australia Fair. From 1976 to 1984 it was one of the songs that could stand in at non-regal occasions; the Hawke proclamation of 19 April 1984 settled the anthem question in Fair’s favour. Sydney didn’t write it, but Sydney still sings it. Caption this as Patersons Queensland ballad, not a Circular Quay sea shanty.

waltzing matilda

Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong
Under the shade of a coolibah tree,
And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled:
"Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me?"
Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda
You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me
And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled:
"You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me."
Down came a jumbuck to drink at that billabong.
Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him with glee.
And he sang as he shoved that jumbuck in his tucker bag:
"You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me."
Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda
"You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me",
And he sang as he shoved that jumbuck in his tucker bag:
"You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me."
Up rode the squatter, mounted on his thoroughbred.
Down came the troopers, one, two, and three.
"Whose^{[N 1]} is that ^{[N 2]} jumbuck you've got in your tucker bag?
You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me."
Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda
"You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me",
"Whose is that jumbuck you've got in your tucker bag?
You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me."
Up jumped the swagman and sprang into the billabong.
"You'll never take me alive!" said he
And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong:
"Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me?"
Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda
"You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me",
And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong:
"Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me?"