The Tent Poles are Rotten

The tent poles are rotten and the campfire’s dead

And the possums may ramble in the trees overhead

I’m humping my bluey far out in the land

And the prints of my bluchers sink deep in the sand

I am out on the wallaby humping my drum

And I come down the road where the sundowners come

It is nor’west by west o’er ridges and far

To the plains where the cattle and sheep stations are

With the sky for my roof and the earth for my bunk

And a calico bag for my damper and my junk

And scarcely a comrade my memory reveals

The spirit still tingles in my toe and my heels

When my tent is all torn and my blankets are damp

And the fast rising waters flow down by the camp

And the cold water rises in jets from the floor

I lie in my bunk and listen to it roar

And I think of tomorrow how my footsteps will lag

As I tramp ‘neath the weight of a rain sodden swag

But I think of the honest old light in my home

When the stars hang in clusters like lamps in a dome

And I think of the hearth where the dark shadows fall

And the campfire I build in the wildest place of all

But I’m following my fate for I know she knows best

I follow she leads and it’s nor’west by west

Though the way of a swagman is mostly uphill

There are joys to be found on the wallaby still

When the day has gone by with its tramp and its toil

Your campfire you build and the billy you can boil

There’s comfort and peace in the bowl of you clay

Or the yarn of a mate who is tramping that way

But beware of the city where it’s poison for years

In the pleasure you find in drinking long beers

Where a bushman gets bushed in the streets of the town

Where he loses his friends when his cheques are knocked down

He’s right ‘til his pocket is empty and then

He must waltz his old bluey up the country again

The Tent Poles are Rotten: H. Lawson / Traditional

The words for this song, written by Henry Lawson in 1891, are more correctly known by the title “On the Wallaby”, taken from the fifth line of the poem.  This is a term to describe being on the move in the bush – it thus pays homage to “the swagmen”.