Sandra, thanks for posting Dale's review. Here is another good'un from the album.

Note in lyric booklet: Mary Gilmore clearly felt that fellow poet, Henry Lawson, was very poorly treated during his life and that his state funeral in 1922 was no compensation.

The Dead Poet (for the pioneer)
(M.Gilmore/M.Somerville)

Turn down his glass on the bar
Take up the cards he let fall
Sort them and count what they are
Now he has taken the call

Joker and sequence and flush -
Trumpeters blowing before -
Flowers, cathedral and crush
What could we give to him more?
Sorrow he had for his portion
Shame - and the cold of a cell
Cruelty, blame and extortion
Hatred, bitter as hell

Poverty, pity, contempt
Patronage, judgment of fools
Always some clerk to pre-empt
Right to read him the rules!

Lonely he walked in your streets
Solitude lone as the grave
Now with your mighty he seats
Spotlight, centre and nave

Ah, had you but given him half
Living, you gave at his death!
Surely his ghost of a laugh
Shakes on the air like breath!

14 October 1922 - published in 'Murray Pioneer', 15 December 1922.

--Stewie.