ADD: When the Children Come Home (Henry Lawson)

Subject: Lyr Add: WHEN THE CHILDREN COME HOME (Henry Lawson
From: Mudlark
Date: 12 Sep 02 - 09:36 PM

Australian, I'm sure, and I first heard about 15 years ago. It's a beautiful song, I sing it a lot, and would like to be able to credit the writer...Couldn't find it in either forum of DT.

WHEN THE CHILDREN COME HOME
(lyrics by Henry Lawson)

On a lonely selection away in the West
There lived an old woman who worked without rest
And she crooned as she toiled 'neath the sky's glassy dome,
"I'll keep the old place 'til the children come home."

For she mends all the fences, she lambs and she plows,
She drives the old horse, she milks the old cow,
And she says to herself as she patches the stack,
"I'll keep the old place till the children come back."

Whenever the scowling old Sundowners come
And cunningly ask if the master's at home,
"Be off," she replies, "with your blarney and cant
Or I'll call my son Andy who's working behant."

"Be off," she replies, though she trembles with fear,
For she lives all alone and with no neighbors near,
And she thinks to herself when she's like to despond,
That her boys are at work in the paddock beyond.

Now it's 5 lonely years since her old husband died,
And oft as he lay on his deathbed he sighed,
"A man can bring up 10 children he can,
But it's strange that 10 sons cannot keep one old man."

For none of her children need follow the plow,
And some have grown rich in the city ere now,
But she thinks they might come when the shearing is done,
And she'll keep the old place if it's only for one.

Subject: RE: Composer Req: I'll keep the old place...
From: nutty
Date: 13 Sep 02 - 02:29 AM

It's by Henry Lawson and it's called When the Children come home

Subject: Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson & Australian Poets
From: Joe Offer
Date: 13 Sep 02 - 04:23 AM

This site (click) has the text of the poem in question, as well as lots of other works by Henry Lawson and "Banjo" Paterson.
Click here for an Australian poetry page you may enjoy.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: Lyr Add: WHEN THE CHILDREN COME HOME (Henry Lawson
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 24 Sep 08 - 12:40 PM

This looks like a more authentic text.
Copied from http://www.alldownunder.com/oz-v/henry-lawson/p10.htm


WHEN THE CHILDREN COME HOME
By Henry Lawson (1867-1922)

In a lonely selection far out in the West
An old woman works all the day without rest,
And she croons, as she toils 'neath the sky's glassy dome,
'Sure I'll keep the ould place till the childer come home.'

She mends all the fences, she grubs, and she ploughs,
She drives the old horse and she milks all the cows,
And she sings to herself as she thatches the stack,
'Sure I'll keep the ould place till the childer come back.'

It is five weary years since her old husband died;
And oft as he lay on his deathbed he sighed
'Sure one man can bring up ten children, he can,
An' it's strange that ten sons cannot keep one old man.'

Whenever the scowling old sundowners come,
And cunningly ask if the master's at home,
'Be off,' she replies, 'with your blarney and cant,
Or I'll call my son Andy; he's workin' beyant.'

'Git out,' she replies, though she trembles with fear,
For she lives all alone and no neighbours are near;
But she says to herself, when she's like to despond,
That the boys are at work in the paddock beyond.

Ah, none of her children need follow the plough,
And some have grown rich in the city ere now;
Yet she says: 'They might come when the shearing is done,
And I'll keep the ould place if it's only for one.'


Lawson, Henry. In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses. Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1900.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When the Children Come Home (Henry Lawson
From: open mike
Date: 24 Sep 08 - 01:23 PM

thanks to mudlark for bringing this sdong to my (our)
attention. i have sung it (accapella) at several cowboy
poetry gatherings and received good response.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When the Children Come Home (Henry La
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 24 Sep 08 - 07:55 PM

Priscilla Herdman recorded it on her 1987 album, Darkness Into Light. I've heard it in Sydney folk clubs, but I can't recall any Australian recordings.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When the Children Come Home (Henry Lawson
From: JennieG
Date: 24 Sep 08 - 09:05 PM

Gerry, it was recorded on an Ozzie album in the early 80s by Mike and Michelle Jackson - I will dig out my copy later. "The Teams" was also on it. I think the album was called "The Roaring Days".

Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When the Children Come Home (Henry La
From: Charley Noble
Date: 24 Sep 08 - 10:32 PM

Another website where I work as a moderator, Oldpoetry.com, has 500 Lawson poems including this one: Click here

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When the Children Come Home (Henry Lawson
From: cobber
Date: 25 Sep 08 - 07:18 PM

My wife sings this to a song we know as Tom Blackman's Waltz. That may be the Herdman version but I haven't heard it to know

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When the Children Come Home (Henry Lawson
From: JennieG
Date: 25 Sep 08 - 08:08 PM

Cobber, that's the tune that Priscilla Herdman recorded for this song. I haven't been able to get to my LPs yet, they're a bit inaccessible, but I'll see what I can do in the next few days.

Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When the Children Come Home (Henry La
From: Rowan
Date: 25 Sep 08 - 08:18 PM

"Tom Blackman's Waltz" has also been recorded by the likes of Alistair Anderson but listed under its other name, "The Mudgee Waltz". A dim memory suggests that it is known under the latter name in the northeast USA and under the first name in the southeastern USA.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When the Children Come Home (Henry Lawson
From: GUEST,Bob Jones
Date: 03 Mar 10 - 08:45 PM

Henry Lawson has long been one of my favourite poets and this poem one of my favourites of his. Mike Jackson set the poem to the tune later recorded by Priscialla Herdman (a lovely setting and version, in my opinion). Mike's son Thom does a beautiful version of another Henry Lawson poem, "The Water Lily".

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When the Children Come Home (Henry Lawson
From: open mike
Date: 03 Mar 10 - 11:20 PM

you can hear me singing this on http://www.myspace.com/laurelwoodsorrel
the Elko Highlights video from 2008 National Cowboy Poetry Gathering
it is on the video page. i learned this from mudlark

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When the Children Come Home (Henry Lawson
From: wysiwyg
Date: 04 Mar 10 - 12:16 AM

behant/beyant

Mudgee

===

What do these mean?

~S~

Subject: RE: ADD: When the Children Come Home (Henry Lawson)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 04 Mar 10 - 03:21 AM

Mudgee is a town & I assume 'beyant' is just her pronounciation of beyond, especially as beyond is used in the next verse.


Whenever the scowling old sundowners come,
And cunningly ask if the master's at home,
'Be off,' she replies, 'with your blarney and cant,
Or I'll call my son Andy; he's workin' beyant.'

'Git out,' she replies, though she trembles with fear,
For she lives all alone and no neighbours are near;
But she says to herself, when she's like to despond,
That the boys are at work in the paddock beyond.

sandra

Dots & ABCs for Mudgee Waltz & other waltzes

Subject: RE: ADD: When the Children Come Home (Henry Lawson
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 04 Mar 10 - 06:33 AM

I always took behant to mean behind, as in, behind the house, but I yield to Sandra.

Subject: RE: ADD: When the Children Come Home (Henry Lawson)
From: wysiwyg
Date: 04 Mar 10 - 06:55 AM

I did finally find an Irish vocab site that lists it as "behind" or "Over there." I suspect it's an Aussie development from the Irish stock that came over, and took on further connotations from there. In the context of the song as well as other phrases that Googled up, it seemed to have fairly loose connotations... one o fhtose words that evokes rather than defines?


I asked about Mudgee because we live next to a Mudge Road. Roads here are named for the families who first/longest live on them. I wondered if the original Mudges here knew they might have cousins so far away, or if the name had any other significance than a place name.


Both words-- idle curiosities of the sort that sometimes connect up in my head and in my wanderings.

~Susan

Subject: RE: ADD: When the Children Come Home (Henry Lawson)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 04 Mar 10 - 08:13 AM

Gerry, mine was an assumption - yours makes more sense as a word spoken by an Irish Australian woman. And then Susan found the exact word.

Susan, I think you're right about the poem evoking a rather than defining exactly.

Mudgee - info for travellers including probable origin of name

sandra

Subject: RE: ADD: When the Children Come Home (Henry Lawson)
From: open mike
Date: 04 Mar 10 - 06:21 PM

i sometimes sing "he's workin' the land"
it is all imaginary anyway, because he isn't
because he "need not follow the plow"

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When the Children Come Home (Henry Lawson
From: open mike
Date: 09 Apr 13 - 04:24 PM

Can someone please identify the tune that this poem is set to here?

open mike (Laurel Woodsorrel) sings Lawson poem

http://www.myspace.com/video/laurelwoodsorrel/elko-highlights-performance/29603502

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When the Children Come Home (Henry Lawson
From: maeve
Date: 09 Apr 13 - 04:41 PM

Laurel- I enjoyed your singing very much! Your tune is a variant of Priscilla Herdman's original melody on her "Water Lily" album. Hers originally had a higher part that is missing in your version. She wrote the melodies to four of Henry Lawson's poems on that album.

Regards,

Maeve

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When the Children Come Home (Henry Lawson
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 09 Apr 13 - 09:09 PM

maeve, it's not on the Water Lily album, it's on a later album, Darkness Into Light. http://www.priscillaherdman.com/ph__200.htm

Darkness Into Light also has a couple of other Australian songs, both written by Judy Small; From the Lambing to the Wool, and Walls and Windows.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When the Children Come Home (Henry Lawson
From: open mike
Date: 10 Apr 13 - 04:17 AM

Thank you and thanks to Mudlark for introducing me to this song and tune. I thought0 the tune might have been taken from a trad. fiddle tune/waltz. If it was written by Priscilla, I should like to credit her.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When the Children Come Home (Henry Lawson
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 10 Apr 13 - 09:11 AM

open mike, I think we've established that the tune is traditional and goes by the name, The Mudgee Waltz. Priscilla Herdman wrote tunes for some of the Lawson lyrics she sings, but not this one.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When the Children Come Home (Henry Lawson
From: maeve
Date: 10 Apr 13 - 09:19 AM

I'm sorry for my misinformation piled on top of not carefully reading the thread. It's not a mistake I usually make- clearly it's not a good time for me to be posting.
Thanks to Gerry for gently correcting me.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When the Children Come Home (Henry Lawson
From: Bruce D
Date: 11 Apr 13 - 07:41 AM

The original published version was

On a lonely selection far out in the West
An old woman works all the day without rest,
And she croons, as she toils 'neath the sky's glassy dome,
"Sure I'll keep the ould place till the childer come home."

She mends all the fences, she grubs, and she ploughs,
She drives the old horse and she milks all the cows,
And she sings to herself as she thatches the stack,
"Sure I'll keep the ould place till the childer come back."

It is five weary years since her old husband died;
And oft as he lay on his deathbed he sighed:
"Sure one man can bring up ten children, he can,
An' it's strange that ten sons cannot keep one old man."

Whenever the scowling old Sundowners come,
And cunningly ask if the master's at home,
"Be off," she replies, "with your blarney and cant,
Or I'll call my son Andy; he's workin' beyant."

"Git out," she replies, though she trembles with fear,
For she lives all alone, and no neighbours are near,
but she says to herself, when she's like to despond,
That the boys are at work in the paddock beyond.

Ah, none of her children need follow the plow,
And some have grown rich in the city ere now;
Yet she says: "They might come when the shearing is done,
And I'll keep the ould place if it's only for one."



Written in December 1890?
and first published the the Sydney Worker 22nd October 1982

Reference: Henry Lawson Collected Verse Volume One 1885-1900 Edited by Colin Roderick

Over the next six years there were minor punctuation and spelling changes, ie children to childer, childer to childre', grubs to "grubs" and a few word change ie Ah to but (line 21) & Glassy to glazed (Line 3).

Bruce D

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When the Children Come Home (Henry Lawson
From: Bruce D
Date: 11 Apr 13 - 07:49 AM

I just listen to Laurel Woodsorrel version and appart from adding "Sure I'll keep the ould place till the childer come home." to the third verse its was petty close to the orginal version.

Bruce D

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When the Children Come Home (Henry Lawson
From: open mike
Date: 11 Apr 13 - 10:42 AM

ah ha...The Mudgee Waltz....that's what i was trying ti=o find...
all I could think of was Tom Bigby Waltz and I knew that wasn't it.
Here is where we discuss that waltz ...named after a town in Australia http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=9841...apparently also known as Tom Blackman's Waltz.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When the Children Come Home (Henry Lawson
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Apr 13 - 10:51 AM

Behant means behind and beyant means beyond. In the context of the poem/song, interchangeable - ie, use which you please. Henry Lawson wouldn't mind, I'm sure.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When the Children Come Home (Henry Lawson
From: Artful Codger
Date: 11 Apr 13 - 03:10 PM

open mike's Mudgee Waltz thread link blickified:
http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=9841

Subject: RE: ADD: When the Children Come Home (Henry Lawson)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 11 Apr 13 - 11:36 PM

"Mudgee Waltz" can be found at the ABC Tune Finder.

And as linked above, also at http://www.mcdonaldstrings.com/musicfolder/waltzes/waltzes.html

-Joe-

---

X: 1
T:Mudgee Waltz
M:3/4
L:1/8
K:C
"C"E3 F G2|C2 D2 E2|"Dm"F4 A2|D4 G2|"G7"B3 A G2|F2 G2 F2|"C"E4 F2|\
G6|"C"E3 F G2|C2 D2 E2|"Dm"F4 A2|D4 G2|"G7"B3 A G2|F2 E2 D2|"C"C6|C6|
"C"e3 d c2|E2 G2 c2|"G7"B4 A2|D4 G2|B3 A G2|F2 G2 F2|"C"E4 F2|G6|\
"C"e3 d c2|E2 G2 c2|"G7"B4 A2|D4 G2|B3 A G2|F2 E2 D2|"C"C6|C6|]