Banjo Paterson

Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson (February 17, 1864 – April 5, 1941) was an Australian bush poet, journalist and author, widely considered one of the greatest writers of Australia's colonial period.

Andrew Paterson in 1935

Quotes

• 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.
  • "The Man From Snowy River", st. 1, in The Bulletin (26 April 1890)

• He hails from Snowy River, up by Kosciusko's side,
    Where the hills are twice as steep, and twice as rough;
  Where the horse's hoofs strike firelight from the flintstones every stride,
    The man that holds his own is good enough.
  And the Snowy River riders on the mountains make their home,
    Where the river runs those giant hills between;
  I have seen full many horsemen since I first commenced to roam,
    But nowhere yet such horsemen have I seen.
  • "The Man From Snowy River", st. 5, in The Bulletin (26 April 1890)

• It was the man from Ironbark who struck the Sydney town,
  He wandered over street and park, he wandered up and down.
  He loitered here, he loitered there, till he was like to drop,
  Until at last in sheer despair he sought a barber's shop.
  "Ere! shave my beard and whiskers off, I'll be a man of mark,
  I'll go and do the Sydney toff up home in Ironbark."
  • "The Man From Ironbark", st. 1, in The Bulletin (17 December 1892)

• The barber man was small and flash, as barbers mostly are,
  He wore a strike-your-fancy sash, he smoked a huge cigar;
  He was a humorist of note and keen at repartee,
  He laid the odds and kept a "tote", whatever that may be,
  And when he saw our friend arrive, he whispered, "Here's a lark!
  Just watch me catch him all alive, this man from Ironbark."
  • "The Man From Ironbark", st. 2, in The Bulletin (17 December 1892)

• 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."
  • "Waltzing Matilda" (written 1895; revised "standard" lyrics by Marie Cowan, 1903), st. 1

• The noblest study of mankind is man, but the most fascinating study of womankind is another woman's wardrobe.
  • An Outback Marriage (1900), Ch. 8

• With Mr Smythers to think was to act. He was not a man who believed in allowing grass to grow under his feet. His motto was "Up and be doing—somebody."
  • "Done for the Double", in Three Elephant Power and Other Stories (1917)

• He lived in comfort, not to say luxury. He had champagne for breakfast every morning, and his wife always slept with a pair of diamond ear-rings worth a small fortune in her ears. It is things like these that show true gentility.
  • "Done for the Double", in Three Elephant Power and Other Stories (1917)

• The truth is that he is a dangerous monomaniac, and his one idea is to ruin the man who owns him. With this object in view he will display a talent for getting into trouble and a genius for dying that are almost incredible.
  • "The Merino Sheep", in Three Elephant Power and Other Stories (1917)

• 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.
  • "The Merino Sheep", in Three Elephant Power and Other Stories (1917)

• All men are born free and equal; and each man is entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of horse racing.
  • "Australian Declaration of Independence", Racehorses and Racing, Ch. 1, epigraph. Reprinted in Song of the Pen, ed. R. Campbell and P. Harvie (1972), p. 275

• A man without one redeeming vice.
  • Of Rudyard Kipling. Quoted in Clement Semmler, The Banjo of the Bush (1975)

• I saw bank booms ... land booms, silver booms, Northern Territory booms, and they all had one thing in common—they always burst.
  • Quoted in Clement Semmler, The Banjo of the Bush (1975)

Quotes about Paterson

• He always looked sartorially like a colonel of cavalry who had just left Tattersall's Sale Ring with a field-marshal after having bought a steeplechaser.
  • M. H. Ellis, in The Bulletin (28 August 1965)

See also

• The Man from Snowy River (1982 film)

External links

• The Man From Snowy River quotes at the Internet Movie Database
• Australian Government Culture and Recreation Portal: "The Man From Snowy River"
• An alphabetical listing of Banjo Paterson's poems