Spread the Truth!

Henry Lawson 1867 (Grenfell) – 1922 (Sydney)



BRAVE the anger of the wealthy! Scorn their bitter lying spite!
Tell the Truth in simple language, when you know that you are right!
And they’ll read it by the slush-lamps in the station huts at night,

I have seen the People’s triumph in the visions of my dreams;
It as pictured by the campfires down the lonely western streams,
And the teamsters talk about it as they tramp beside their teams.

Write the Truth in simple language, and you shall not write in vain!
Sing a ringing song of freedom, and you’ll hear the same refrain
Where the drovers ride together far across the western plain.

Write of wrongs that you are hating with the grand old burning hate!
For the lonely digger reads it when the western day is late,
And he marks it in the paper he is sending to his mate.

Spread the Truth in simple language when you feel it in your breast!
It will reach the far selections in the wild Australian west,
Where the bushmen yarn together on a sunny day of rest.

O the workers’ new religion spreads beneath the southern skies,
And the bearded fathers read it, for its words are kind and wise,
And the little children listen to the Truth with wondering eyes.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 17, 2023

1:04 min read
60

Quick analysis:

Scheme AAA BBB CCC DDD EEE FFF
Closest metre Iambic octameter
Characters 1,157
Words 216
Stanzas 6
Stanza Lengths 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3

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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