1889 poem by Henry Lawson
"The Roaring Days" (1889) is a poem by Australian poet Henry Lawson.[1]
It was originally published in The Bulletin on 21 December 1889, and subsequently reprinted in a collection of the author's poems, other newspapers and periodicals and a number of Australian poetry anthologies.[1]
Critical reception
When reviewing Lawson's poetry collection In the Days when the World was Wide and Other Verses, a writer in The Evening News (Sydney) noted: "Mr. Lawson is not, indeed, likely to be ever revealed in the character of a master singer, but so far as he goes he is really a minstrel of native fire, and not like a good many who pretend to that character, a merely ingenious imitator or adaptor of other people's ideas."[2]
The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature states that "The Roaring Days" is "a phrase referring nostalgically to the gold rushes. Its best-known literary use is in Henry Lawson's poem, 'The Roaring Days', written from Lawson's boyhood memories of Gulgong and Pipeclay."[3]
Publication history
After the poem's initial publication in The Bulletin it was reprinted as follows:
- In the Days When the World was Wide and Other Verses, 1900
- Selected Poems of Henry Lawson by Henry Lawson, Angus and Robertson, 1918[4]
- Winnowed Verse by Henry Lawson, Angus and Robertson, 1924[5]
- Selections from Australian Poets edited by Bertram Stephens and George Mackaness, Cornstalk Publishing, 1925[6]
- Australian Bush Songs and Ballads edited by Will Lawson, Frank Johnson, 1944[7]
- An Anthology of Australian Verse edited by George Mackaness, Angus & Robertson, 1952[8]
- A Book of Australian Verse edited by Judith Wright, Oxford University Press, 1956[9]
- New Land, New Language : An Anthology of Australian Verse edited by Judith Wright, Oxford University Press, 1957[10]
- Favourite Australian Poems edited by Ian Mudie, Rigby, 1963[11]
- Silence Into Song : An Anthology of Australian Verse edited by Clifford O'Brien, Rigby, 1968[12]
- Australian Kaleidoscope edited by Barbara Ker Wilson, Collins, 1968[13]
- This Land : An Anthology of Australian Poetry for Young People edited by M. M. Flynn and J. Groom, Pergamon Press, 1968[14]
- Poems of Henry Lawson edited by Walter Stone, Ure Smith, 1973[15]
- The World of Henry Lawson edited by Walter Stone, Hamlyn, 1974[16]
- The Essential Henry Lawson : The Best Works of Australia's Greatest Writer edited Brian Kiernan, Currey O'Neil, 1982[17]
- A Campfire Yarn : Henry Lawson Complete Works 1885-1900 edited by Leonard Cronin, Lansdowne, 1984[18]
- Cross-Country : A Book of Australian Verse edited by John Barnes and Brian MacFarlane, Heinemann, 1984[19]
- The Penguin Book of Australian Ballads edited by Elizabeth Webby and Philip Butterss, Penguin, 1993[20]
- Classic Australian Verse edited by Maggie Pinkney, Five Mile Press, 2001[21]
- Australian Poetry Since 1788 edited by Geoffrey Lehmann and Robert Gray, University of NSW Press, 2011[22]