"The Sliprails and the Spur" (1899) is a poem by Australian poet Henry Lawson.
It was originally published in The Bulletin on 1 April 1899 and subsequently reprinted in several of the author's other collections, other periodicals and a number of Australian poetry anthologies.
Critical reception While reviewing The Golden Treasury of Australian Verse edited by Bertram Stevens a writer in The Western Mail noted that this poem, among others in the anthology, represents "Australian bush life in a way to delight those who know it by experience, and are a means of interpretation to the city man".
In an essay outlining Lawson's career and work, the reviewer "Wayfarer" called this poem a "nugget of pure Australian gold", and asked "Is there in Australian literature a more poignantly beautiful piece than this?"
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 by Henry Lawson, Angus and Robertson, 1900 An Anthology of Australian Verse edited by Bertram Stevens, Angus and Robertson, 1907 The Golden Treasury of Australian Verse edited by Bertram Stevens, Angus and Robertson, 1909 Selected Poems of Henry Lawson by Henry Lawson, Angus and Robertson, 1918 The Oxford Book of Australasian Verse edited by Walter Murdoch, Oxford University Press, 1924 Winnowed Verse by Henry Lawson, Angus and Robertson, 1924 Selections from Australian Poets edited by Bertram Stephens and George Mackaness, Cornstalk Publishing, 1925 The Australian Women's Mirror, 5 January 1926, p37 An Australasian Anthology : Australian and New Zealand Poems edited by Percival Serle, R. H. Croll, and Frank Wilmot, Collins, 1927 New Song in an Old Land edited by Rex Ingamells, 1943 Out Back and Other Poems by Henry Lawson, W. H. Honey, 1943 From the Ballads to Brennan edited by T. Inglis Moore, Angus & Robertson, 1964 Poems of Henry Lawson edited by Walter Stone, Ure Smith, 1973 The World of Henry Lawson edited by Walter Stone, Hamlyn, 1974 The Essential Henry Lawson : The Best Works of Australia's Greatest Writer edited Brian Kiernan, Currey O'Neil, 1982 A Treasury of Colonial Poetry, Currawong, 1982 A Campfire Yarn : Henry Lawson Complete Works 1885-1900 edited by Leonard Cronin, Lansdowne, 1984 Cross-Country : A Book of Australian Verse edited by John Barnes and Brian MacFarlane, Heinemann, 1984 The Penguin Book of Australian Ballads edited by Elizabeth Webby and Philip Butterss, Penguin, 1993 The Oxford Book of Australian Love Poems edited by Jennifer Strauss, Oxford University Press, 1993 Australian Verse : An Oxford Anthology edited by John Leonard, Oxford University Press, 1998 The Puncher & Wattmann Anthology of Australian Poetry edited by John Leonard, Puncher & Wattmann, 2009 Australian Poetry Since 1788 edited by Geoffrey Lehmann and Robert Gray, University of NSW Press, 2011
See also 1899 in Australian literature 1899 in poetry
References