Middleton’s Rouseabout by Henry Lawson

Tall and feckled and sandy,
  Face of a country lout;
This was the picture of Andy,
  Middleton's Rouseabout.

Type of a coming nation,
  In the land of cattle and sheep,
Worked on Middleton's station,
  "Pound a week and his keep".

On Middleton's wide dominions
  Plied the stockwhip an' shears;
Hadn't any opinions,
  Hadn't any "idears".

Swiftly the years went over,
  Liquor and drouth prevailed;
Middleton went as a drover,
  After his station had failed.

Type of a careless nation,
  Men who are soon played out,
Middleton was - and his station
  Was bought by the Rouseabout.

Flourishing beard and sandy,
  Tall and robust and stout;
This is the picture of Andy,
  Middleton's Rouseabout.

Now on his own dominions
  Works with his overseers;
Hasn't any opinions,
  Hasn't any "idears".

Source: In the Days When the World Was Wide, 1896

The sock funeral by Gwendda McKay

Where do they go, those missing socks

Who’s widows wait in an odd-sock box?

How did they miss the drip dry spin?

Did we toss them out?  Did we leave them in?

Are they stuck in a maze of hoses,

Never again to warm our toeses?

“Lost in the wash,” it’s gen’rally said,

Perhaps it actually means they’re dead!

Alas and alack, they never come back,

They never come back,

They never come back.

 

Cheerful version:

Where do they go, those missing socks

Whose partners wait in an odd-sock box?

Tired of warming people’s toes

They’re off to a land that no one knows.

Reds and blues and stripes and spots,

Greens and yellows and polka dots,

Dancing away to have some fun

Leaving our feet with only one.

Alas and alack, they’ll never come back,

They’ll never come back,

They’ll never come back.

 

Source:  Beetle Soup: Australian Stories and Poems for Children compiled by Robin Morrow (Scholastic Australia, 1996)

On rainy nights by Anne Bell

Sleep warm,

Though the envious wind fingers the eaves

And the windows are curtained with rain,

The roof stays strong and the wall stands firm,

Sleep warm.

 

Sleep well,

There’s break in teh crock and milk in the jug,

There’s fire on the hearth, and the dog and the cat

Are curled like commas there,

Sleep warm, sleep well.

 

Source:  Beetle Soup: Australian Stories and Poems for Children compiled by Robin Morrow (Scholastic Australia, 1996)

Now wouldn’t it be funny by Pixie O’Harris

Now, wouldn’t it be funny

If the creatures in the Zoo,

Were all let out to walk about

And look at me and you?

 

And wouldn’t it be funny

If they put us in the cages,

And Kangaroos and Cockatoos

Came guessing at our ages.

 

And wouldn’t it be funny if the Hip-O-Potamus

Said, “Don’t go near, I really fear

They’re very dangerous.”

 

Source:  Beetle Soup: Australian Stories and Poems for Children compiled by Robin Morrow (Scholastic Australia, 1996)

Too Early by Gordon Winch

Early to bed

and early to rise

makes a man healthy,

wealthy and wise.

 

Birds prosper too,

if they’re quick out of bed;

It’s the earliest bird who is the best fed.

 

But think of the worms

on which birds dine and sup.

They’d be much better off if they didn’t get up.

 

Source:  Beetle Soup: Australian Stories and Poems for Children compiled by Robin Morrow (Scholastic Australia, 1996)

City Song by Dorothy Rickards

Balancing birds on telegraph wires

Look like the music of my city song -

City noises, honking hooting,

Scraping feet and taxis tooting,

Ringing bells and voices speaking,

Rattling tins and tram wheels shrieking -

All make music for my city song.

Source:  Beetle Soup: Australian Stories and Poems for Children compiled by Robin Morrow (Scholastic Australia, 1996)

Writing a poem by Cathy Warry

Some poems come

Like a rushing

Crashing

Flashing

Thunderstorm of words

Dancing down the page

 

But some poems are slow poems

That unfold and grow

Slowly

Like a new pink rose

But not as easily

As a rose growing…

Hard

Searching for words and rhyme

Even tears and anger

Before it grows

 

Some are just there

Like a fossil in a stone

Inside my mind

Waiting

But new not old.

 
Source:  A second Australian Poetry Book compiled by Barbara Giles (Oxford University Press, 1983)

Winter bones by Kathleen Mayson

Bone-bare the winter boughs,

Bone-grey the sky.

Snug in the morning sheets,

Bone-lazy, I.

 
Source:  A second Australian Poetry Book compiled by Barbara Giles (Oxford University Press, 1983)

A sad song by Lilith Norman

Tom was very bad at sums -

He used his fingers, toes and thumbs -

Tom said, “I couldn’t be much badder,

I think I’ll try to use and adder.”

He went into the shop and tried

But the adder bit him, and he died.

 
Source:  A second Australian Poetry Book compiled by Barbara Giles (Oxford University Press, 1983)

Disbelief by Doug MacLeod

I don’t believe in werewolves

or the mummy fro the tomb,

I don’t believe in vampires

in the corner of my room.

I don’t believe in lots of things

for now I’m getting older,

But I do believe a skeleton just tapped me on the shoulder.

 
Source:  A second Australian Poetry Book compiled by Barbara Giles (Oxford University Press, 1983)