A worthy cheque I always earned,
And spent it like a lord.
My dress a prince’s form would grace.
And spells I could afford.
But now in tattered rags arrayed,
My limbs they ache with pain,
Lamenting on the days gone by,
Ne’er to return again.

May bushmen all in unity
Combine with heart and hand,
May cursed cringing poverty
Be banished from the land.
In Queensland may prosperity
In regal glory reign,
And washers in the time to come
Their vanished rights regain.



THE BROKEN-DOWN SQUATTER

(Air: “It’s a fine hunting day.”)


Come, Stumpy, old man, we must shift while we can;
All our mates in the paddock are dead.
Let us wave our farewells to Glen Eva’s sweet dells
And the hills where your lordship was bred;
Together to roam from our drought-stricken home—