When Your Sins Come Home to Roost

Henry Lawson 1867 (Grenfell) – 1922 (Sydney)



When you fear the barber’s mirror when you go to get a crop,
Or in sorrow every morning comb your hair across the top:
When you titivate and do the little things you never used—
It is close upon the season when your sins come home to roost.

Many were the sins of others and you never were to blame,
Some were sins you shared in common—you must suffer all the same;
Some were sins of wasted hours with the wine cup or a mate,
But you cannot share the burden—and they come in duplicate.

Oh! you’ll find the fowls are heavy and their claws are sharp and deep—
They will bow your head in working, they will jerk you from your sleep,
And so many hands are eager just to give your back a boost
On the road to wreck and ruin when your sins come home to roost.

But you don’t let on they’re roosting and you take some only way,
And you never whine or guzzle and you neither curse nor pray;
You will never for an instant let your lower lip be loosed—
But you stand up like a soldier when your sins come home to roost!

And you’ll find them growing lighter till you find room for a few
Of the sins of other mortals who have weaker souls than you:
Then you’ll smile, and not too sadly, at old sins reintroduced—
And you’ll be a man in many when your sins come home to roost.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:15 min read
93

Quick analysis:

Scheme AAXB CCXX DDBB EEBB FFBB
Closest metre Iambic octameter
Characters 1,276
Words 253
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 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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