The first metropolis to be depicted in Australian literature was Hell: before cities existed in Australia, Francis McNamara, the convict poet, described the infernal one populated by those who tormented him and his fellow prisoners. Sentenced in 1832 to seven years' transportation to Australia for stealing a plaid, he survived the brutality of the penal system: his witty, rebellious poems laid the foundations for a new Australian poetry.
    Les Murray's anthology of poets from the early years of European settlement in Australia reaches back in time from his Fivefathers, which collected significant voices from the early twentieth century. Hell and After contains extended selections from the work of four poets: reading them is to experience a culture in the process of creating itself. Francis MacNamara (1811-1880), the only poet whose work has survived from the convict era, and three poets from the second half of the nineteenth century. Mary Gilmore (1865-1962) was born to a pioneering life in the bush; she became a social reformer and renowned figure in the Australian Labor Party, and her poems are much loved by Australians for their vivid evocations of colonial life. John Shaw Neilson (1872-1942), who spent most of his life as a manual labourer, wrote poems of great lyricism and humour under conditions of poverty and ill-health. Lesbia Harford (1891-1927), a radical activist who was one of the first women to graduate with a law degree from the University of Melbourne, worked as a factory machinist and domestic servant. Her poems give voice to a woman's experience of working life and private desire.

Table of Contents

Introduction



Francis McNamara:

The Convict's Arrival

Labouring with the Hoe

A Petition from the A.A. Co. Flocks at Peels River in Behalf of the Irish Bard

[For the Company Underground]

A Petition from the Chain Gang at Newcastle to Captain Furlong the Superintendent

A Convict's Tour to Hell

A Dialogue Between Two Hibernians in Botany Bay

[Epigram of Introduction]

The Seizure of the Cyprus Brig in Recherche Bay, Aug. 1829



Mary Gilmore:

When Myall Creek Was New

I Am the Idle

Eva Has Gone

Eternal Claim

The Linen for Pillow...

Judged

The Rue Tree

These?

In Poverty and Toil

The Truest Mate

The Forest Prayed

'As late as the 1870's...'

The Forest Prayed

The Coming

Outcast

All Souls

Heritage

Awakened

The Kiss

The Babe

Fourteen Men

The Tenancy

Of Certain Critics

The Gift

Never Admit the Pain

The Harvesters

The Saturday Tub

Bones in a Poet

Old Botany Bay

'The kangaroos were patriarchal...'

The Little Shoes that Died

Eve-Song

The Road

Somehow We Missed Each Other

Second-hand Beds

Famous

Nationality

In Wesleyan Days, Wagga Wagga

The Road to Gunning

Verdicts



John Shaw Neilson:

The Crane is My Neighbour

The Gentle Water Bird

The Flautist

To a Runaway Sound

For the Little Boys Out of Heavan

The Ballad of Remembrance

The Poor, Poor Country

The Lad Who Started Out

The Child Being There

Love in Absence

The Hour of the Parting

Love's Coming

To a Lodging-House Canary

The Sweetening of the Year

A Limerick

The Soldier is Home

Stony Town

Stephen Foster

Tell Summer that I Died

The Hen in the Bushes

The Moon Was Seven Days Down

Schoolgirls Hastening

The Orange Tree

In the Dim Counties

You, and Yellow Air

Sheedy Was Dying

May

Song Be Delicate

The Prince Has Been into the Lane

The Sundowner

The Happy Thief

From a Coffin

In the Long Gown

To a Blonde Typist

You Cannot Go Down to the Spring

Lament for Laddie

Take Down the Fiddle, Karl!

The Power of the Bells

To the Red Lory

Uncle to a Pirate

The Bard and the Lizard

Dolly's Offering

The Eleventh Moon

Surely God Was a Lover

The Poor Can Feed the Birds

The Smoker Parrot



Lesbia Harford:

'I dreamt last night'

'If I had six white horses'

Little Ships

'I count the days until I see you, dear,'

'I can't feel the sunshine'

'My mission in the world'

Day's End

'Ours was a friendship in secret, my dear,'

'Somebody brought in lilac'

Deliverance Through Art

The Folk I Love

'Oh, oh, Rosalie,'

'All day long'

Fatherless

Lawstudent and Coach

Machinists Talking

The Invisible People

Closing Time: Public Library

Machinist's Song

Periodicity

'This evening I'm alone.'

'I was sad'

'All through the day at my machine'

'Sometimes I wish that I were Helen-fair'

'Sometimes I am too tired'

'My lovely pixie, my good companion,'

'Into the old rhyme'

'The love I look for'

'He has a fairy wife.'

'Those must be masts of ships the gazer sees'

'I have golden shoes'

'Now I have been three days'

'I found an orchid in the valley fair,'

'I love to see'

Skirt Machinist

'I'm like all lovers, wanting love to be'

'I used to be afraid to meet'

Body and Soul

A Blouse Machinist

An Improver

'Once I thought my love was worth the name'

'Pink eucalyptus flowers'

'I came to live in Sophia Street'

'Today is rebels' day. And yet we work - '

'To look across at Moira gives me pleasure.'

Street Music

'I dreamt last night of happy home-comings.'

'Sometimes I think the happiest of love's moments'

'The people have drunk the wine of peace'

Girl's Love

'I must be dreaming through the days'

'When I get up to light the fire,'

'Today, in class,'

'I bought a red hat'

Miss Mary Fairfax

'Whenever I think of you, you are alone,'

A Strike Rhyme

'In this little school'

Inventory

A Parlourmaid

Street Scene - Little Lonsdale St

'I'd like to spend long hours at home'

'I had a lover who betrayed me'

'Most people have a way of making friends'

The Psychological Craze

Lovers Parted

'All Knowledge...'

'How funny it would be if dreamy I'

'Pat wasn't Pat last night at all.'

'A bunch of lilac and a storm of hail'

'O you, dear trees, you have learned so much of beauty,'

Pruning Flowering Gums

Polytheist

'Love is not love...'

The Moonlit Room

A Meaning Learnt

The Wife

Raiment

'When I am articled'

'When my lover put the sea between us'

'I read a statement in a newspaper'

'I am no mystic. All the ways of God'

A Prayer to Saint Rosa



Bibliography

Index of titles

Index of first lines