I was just looking at Penny & Roger's youtube channel, saw they had recently recorded Craig Edmonson's 'Used to be a River' so Gerry will be adding the link to the entry to the lyrics on page 16, dec 2020.

Then I saw Ballad of Eureka & realised we'd never added that classic - shock, horror ...

Ballad of Eureka
A Song by Helen Palmer © Helen Palmer 1950
Tune Doreen Jacobs © Doreen Jacobs 1950
video

    They're leaving ship and station,
    They're leaving bench and fold,
    And pouring out from Melbourne
    To join the search for gold.

    The face of town and country
    Is changing ev'ry day,
    But rulers keep on ruling
    The old colonial way.

    "How can we work the diggings
    And learn how fortune feels
    If all the traps forever
    Are yelping at our heels?"

    "If you've enough," says Lalor,
    "Of all their little games,
    Then go and get your licence
    And throw it on the flames!"

    "The law is out to get us
    And make us bow in fear.
    They call us foreign rebels
    Who'd plant the Charter here!"

    "They may be right," says Lalor,
    "But if they show their braid,
    We'll stand our ground and hold it
    Behind a bush stockade!"

    It's down with pick and shovel
    A rifle's needed now
    They come to raise a standard
    They come to make a vow

    There's not a flag in Europe
    More lovely to behold,
    Than floats above Eureka
    Where diggers work the gold.

    "There's not a flag in Europe
    More lovely to the eye,
    Than is the blue and silver
    Against a southern sky.

    Here in the name of freedom,
    Whatever be our loss,
    We swear to stand together
    Beneath the Southern Cross."

    It is a Sunday morning.
    The miner's camp is still;
    Two hundred flashing redcoats
    Come marching to the hill

    Come marching up the gully
    With muskets firing low;
    And diggers wake from dreaming
    To hear the bugle blow.

    The wounded and the dying
    Lie silent in the sun,
    But change will not be halted
    By any redcoats gun.

    There's not a flag in Europe
    More rousing to the will
    Then the flag of stars that flutters
    Above Eureka's Hill.

    Notes

    Many thanks to Doreen Bridges (formerly Doreen Jacobs) for permission to add this song to the Union Songs collection.