I hate this grinding poverty, To toil, and pinch, and borrow,And be for ever haunted by The spectre of to-morrow.It breaks the strong heart of a man, It crushes out his spirit,Do what he will, do what he can, However high his merit!
I hate the praise that Want has got From preacher and from poet,The cant of those who know it not To blind the men who know it.The greatest curse since man had birth, An everlasting terror:The cause of half the crime on earth, The cause of half the error.
Sources, publication & text notesReference details
Canonical recordPOEM-000435
Copy-textProject Gutenberg Australia, Collected Poems of Henry Lawson (2022), anchor p148; selected digital copy-text retained exactly; wording and layout confirmed against Ironbark Resources under D-180
While The Billy BoilsSearch