I am back from up the country
Australia 1892. There was a terrible drought ravaging country New South Wales. Henry Lawson, an Australian bush poet was commissioned by The Bulletin magazine, along with Andrew Barton (Banjo) Patterson to write a series of poetic versus, highlighting the plight of the people in the bush.
Originally published under the title “Borderland”, this is the first of those poems. Published Saturday 9th July 1892.
Lawson takes a harsh and hard view of the bush, seeing it as a difficult and unpleasant place. Lawson grew up in the bush, his mother coming from Gulgong, in the Central West. Lawson knew harsh times, so he held hard images of how rough the country and its people could be. He also found the romanticism of other poets like Barton and McKellar unrealistic and very stylistic, hence his line “I have lost a lot of idols which were broken on the track”.
Times have changed and so has the fortunes of rural New South Wales. People still do it tough, the countryside can be cruel and unforgiving, but to me it is a wonderful place. I think it's a magnificent place.