Knocked Up

Henry Lawson 1867 (Grenfell) – 1922 (Sydney)




I'm lyin' on the barren ground that's baked and cracked with drought,
And dunno if my legs or back or heart is most wore out;
I've got no spirits left to rise and smooth me achin' brow --
I'm too knocked up to light a fire and bile the billy now.
 
     Oh it's trampin', trampin', tra-a-mpin', in flies an' dust an' heat,
     Or it's trampin' trampin' tra-a-a-mpin'
       through mud and slush 'n sleet;
     It's tramp an' tramp for tucker -- one everlastin' strife,
     An' wearin' out yer boots an' heart in the wastin' of yer life.
 
They whine o' lost an' wasted lives in idleness and crime --
I've wasted mine for twenty years, and grafted all the time
And never drunk the stuff I earned, nor gambled when I shore --
But somehow when yer on the track yer life seems wasted more.
 
A long dry stretch of thirty miles I've tramped this broilin' day,
All for the off-chance of a job a hundred miles away;
There's twenty hungry beggars wild for any job this year,
An' fifty might be at the shed while I am lyin' here.
 
The sinews in my legs seem drawn, red-hot -- 'n that's the truth;
I seem to weigh a ton, and ache like one tremendous tooth;
I'm stung between my shoulder-blades -- my blessed back seems broke;
I'm too knocked out to eat a bite -- I'm too knocked up to smoke.
 
The blessed rain is comin' too -- there's oceans in the sky,
An' I suppose I must get up and rig the blessed fly;
The heat is bad, the water's bad, the flies a crimson curse,
The grub is bad, mosquitoes damned -- but rheumatism's worse.
 
I wonder why poor blokes like me will stick so fast ter breath,
Though Shakespeare says it is the fear of somethin' after death;
But though Eternity be cursed with God's almighty curse --
What ever that same somethin' is I swear it can't be worse.
 
     For it's trampin', trampin', tra-a-mpin' thro' hell across the plain,
     And it's trampin' trampin' tra-a-mpin' thro' slush 'n mud 'n rain --
     A livin' worse than any dog -- without a home 'n wife,
     A-wearin' out yer heart 'n soul in the wastin' of yer life.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 30, 2023

2:00 min read
101

Quick analysis:

Scheme AABB CDCEE FFGG HHXX IIJJ KKLL MMLL DDEE
Closest metre Iambic heptameter
Characters 2,051
Words 380
Stanzas 8
Stanza Lengths 4, 5, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4

Henry Lawson

Henry Lawson 17 June 1867 - 2 September 1922 was an Australian writer and poet Along with his contemporary Banjo Paterson Lawson is among the best-known Australian poets and fiction writers of the colonial period more…

All Henry Lawson poems | Henry Lawson Books

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