HENRY LAWSON - SOMETHING DIFFERENT

 

Henry Lawson (1867 – 1922), was an Australian writer and bush poet. Along with his contemporary Banjo Paterson, Lawson is among the best-known Australian poets and fiction writers of the colonial period and is often called Australia's "greatest short story writer".

A vocal nationalist and republican, Lawson regularly contributed to The Bulletin, and many of his works helped popularise the Australian vernacular in fiction. He wrote prolifically into the 1890s, after which his output declined, in part due to struggles with alcoholism and mental illness. At times destitute, he spent periods in Darlinghurst Gaol and psychiatric institutions.

After he died in 1922 following a cerebral haemorrhage, Lawson became the first Australian writer to be granted a state funeral.

The following poem – Written Out - by Lawson gives an insight into his private hell and demons.

"Written Out" contrasts with Lawson's earlier work, known for its focus on the Australian bush and rural hardship. This poem delves into the darker elements of urban life and explores themes of degradation, societal hypocrisy, and the fragility of reputation. It captures the bleak reality of a writer struggling with alcoholism and the judgment and pity he faces from both admirers and detractors. Lawson's portrayal of the writer's descent into self-destruction is a stark depiction of the challenges faced by artists in the face of adversity.

https://allpoetry.com/Written-Out-_1_

Written Out

- Henry Lawson

Sing the song of the reckless, who care not what they do;

Sing the song of a sinner and the song of a writer, too—

Down in a pub in the alleys, in a dark and dirty hole,

With every soul a drunkard and the boss with never a soul.

Uncollared, unkempt, unshaven, sat the writer whose fame was fair,

And the girls of the streets were round him, and the bullies and bludgers there;

He was one of themselves and they told him the things that they had to tell—

He was studying human nature with his brothers and sisters in hell.

He was neither poor nor lonely, for a place in the world he’d won,

And up in the heights of the city he’d a thousand friends or none;

But he knew that his chums could wait awhile, that he’d reckon with foes at last,

For he lived far into a future that he knew because of the past.

They remembered the man he had been, they remembered the songs he wrote,

And some of them came to pity and some of them came to gloat:

Some of them shouted exulting—some whispered with bated breath

That down in a den in the alleys he was drinking himself to death.

Thus said the voice of the hypocrites—and the true hearts sighed with pain,

‘Oh! he never will write as he used to write! He never will write again;’

A poet had written his epitaph in numbers of sad regret,

And the passing-notice was pigeon-holed, and the last review was set.

But the strength was in him to rise again to a greater height, he knew,

For the sake of the friends who were true to him and the work that he had to do;

He was sounding the depths that he had to know, he was gathering truths for his craft,

And he heard the chatter of little men—and he turned to his beer and laughed.