OUT BACK.

Cromwell Argus, Volume XLIII, Issue 2287, 4 March 1912, Page 7

OUT BACK.

To Australian poetry we look for etchings, of those nameless men who toil and moil in the vanguard of the war against the brute forces of a grudging and malignant desolation—< each line to fall slow and heavy as a bead of sweat. And we get what we want from Henry Lawson in "Out Back," which is more than realism, being bitter reality— He begged his way on the parched Paroo and the Warregoi tracks once more And lived like a dog, as the swagmen do, till the western stations shore ; But men were many, and sheds were full, for work in the town was slack — The traveller never got hands in wool, though he tramped for a year Out Back. In stifling noons when his back was wrung by its load, and the air seemed dead, And the Abater warmed in the bag that hung on his aching arm like lead ; Or in times of flood, when plains were seas, and the scrubs were cold and black, He ploughed in mud to his trembling knees, and paid for his sins Out Back. And dirty and careless and old he wore, as his lamp of hope grew dim ; He tramped for years till the swag he bore seemed part of himself to him. As a bullock drags in the sandy ruts, he followed the dreary track With never a thought but to reach the huts when the sun went down Out Back.