I saw bank booms ... land booms, silver booms, booms, and they all had one thing in common—they always burst. - Andrew Barton Paterson

Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong Under the shade of a coolibah tree,
And he sang as he watched and waited till his "Billy" boiled, "You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me."

The hard, resentful look on the faces of all bushmen comes from a long course of dealing with merino sheep. The merino dominates the bush, and gives to Australian literature its melancholy tinge, its despairing pathos. The poems about dying boundary-riders, and lonely graves under mournful she-oaks, are the direct outcome of the poet’s too close association with that soul-destroying animal. A man who could write anything cheerful after a day in the drafting-yards would be a freak of nature.

There was movement at the station, for the word had passed around That the colt from old Regret had got away,
And had joined the wild bush horses — he was worth a thousand pound, So all the cracks had gathered to the fray.
All the tried and noted riders from the stations near and far Had mustered at the homestead overnight,
For the bushmen love hard riding where the wild bush horses are, And the stockhorse snuffs the battle with delight.