Sydney-Side

Where's the steward? — Bar-room steward? Berth? Oh, any berth will do — I have left a three-pound billet just to come along with you. Brighter shines the Star of Rovers on a world that's growing wide, But I think I'd give a kingdom for a glimpse of Sydney-Side.

Run of rocky shelves at sunrise, with their base on ocean's bed; Homes of Coogee, homes of Bondi, and the lighthouse on South Head. For in loneliness and hardship — and with just a touch of pride — Has my heart been taught to whisper, 'You belong to Sydney-Side.'

Oh, there never dawned a morning, in the long and lonely days, But I thought I saw the ferries streaming out across the bays — And as fresh and fair in fancy did the picture rise again As the sunrise flushed the city from Woollahra to Balmain:

And the sunny water frothing round the liners black and red, And the coastal schooners working by the loom of Bradley's Head; And the whistles and the sirens that re-echo far and wide — All the life and light and beauty that belong to Sydney-Side.

And the dreary cloud-line never veiled the end of one day more, But the city set in jewels rose before me from 'The Shore.' Round the sea-world shine the beacons of a thousand ports o' call, But the harbour-lights of Sydney are the grandest of them all!

Toiling out beyond Coolgardie — heart and back and spirit broke, Where the Rover's Star gleams redly in the desert by the 'soak' — But says one mate to the other, 'Brace your lip and do not fret, We will laugh on trains and 'buses — Sydney's in the same place yet.'

Working in the South in winter, to the waist in dripping fern, Where the local spirit hungers for each 'saxpence' that we earn — We can stand it for a season, for our world is growing wide, And they all are friends and strangers who belong to Sydney-Side.

'T'other-siders! T'other-siders!' Yet we wake the dusty dead; It is we that send the backward province fifty years ahead; We it is that 'trim' Australia — making narrow country wide — Yet we're always T'other-siders till we sail for Sydney-side.