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.