The Old Australian Ways by Banjo Paterson
Paterson’s Patriotic nostalgia
‘The Old Australian Ways‘ is a nostalgic poem, where Paterson romanticizes the freedom and pioneering spirit of old Australia in contrast to stifling British constraints. Through lyrical bush imagery and mythical archetypes, he calls for rediscovering a bold national identity. However ‘The Old Australian Ways’ presents a selective, romanticized vision of Australian identity that marginalizes complex realities.
Paterson glorifies the freedom-loving Australian stockman archetype who embraces the vast Outback landscape but this perspective ignores the constraints and hardships of rural working life. Paterson also discounts the emerging urban Australia by portraying cities like London as foreign and prison-like.
So while Paterson captures an important aspect of Australian culture with vibrancy, his one-dimensional portrayal overlooks diversity. His patriotic nostalgia provides a narrow slice of life. It silences immigrant experiences, Indigenous traditions, political tensions, and the strains of inequality.
Paterson establishes a sense of voyage back to Australia, painting vivid impressions of its wild majesty compared to England’s tamed uniformity. He presents Australians as instinctively bucking against orderly “narrow ways” in favor of daring individualism.
He envisions Australian blood pulsing with a “vagabonding love of change”, an adventurous legacy inherited from explorers who kept forging “farther out.” Paterson contrasts this against English urban life hemmed in behind “prison bars.”
Rich sensory details, like wattle blooms’ “honey-sweet perfume”, immerse the reader in the unique beauty of Australia’s untamed landscapes. Paterson presents this spirit of freedom as the heart of authentic national character.
Calling on the legend of Clancy, Paterson urges heading “beyond the Queensland side” to re-discover this essence now endangered by modern constraints. He implores breaking free from convention and reinventing Australian identity.
Of course, literary works need not encompass a nation fully. But Paterson’s text should be read aware it presents an idealized caricature of identity, not holistic representation. His work inspires national pride and resonance for some. But we must ensure other voices are not marginalized in constructing Australia’s evolving story. A modern, inclusive society requires openness to multiple lived experiences.
With muscular lyricism and mythic archetypes, Paterson attempts to redefine Australia on its own terms. He offers a high-minded vision of national identity founded upon the inherit spirit of the bush and its wide-open vistas.
The Old Australian Ways
The London lights are far abeam
Behind a bank of cloud,
Along the shore the gaslights gleam,
The gale is piping loud;
And down the Channel, groping blind,
We drive her through the haze
Towards the land we left behind—
The good old land of “never mind”,
And old Australian ways.
The narrow ways of English folk
Are not for such as we;
They bear the long-accustomed yoke
Of staid conservancy:
But all our roads are new and strange,
And through our blood there runs
The vagabonding love of change
That drove us westward of the range
And westward of the suns.
The city folk go to and fro
Behind a prison’s bars,
They never feel the breezes blow
And never see the stars;
They never hear in blossomed trees
The music low and sweet
Of wild birds making melodies,
Nor catch the little laughing breeze
That whispers in the wheat.
Our fathers came of roving stock
That could not fixed abide:
And we have followed field and flock
Since e’er we learnt to ride;
By miner’s camp and shearing shed,
In land of heat and drought,
We followed where our fortunes led,
With fortune always on ahead
And always farther out.
The wind is in the barley-grass,
The wattles are in bloom;
The breezes greet us as they pass
With honey-sweet perfume;
The parakeets go screaming by
With flash of golden wing,
And from the swamp the wild-ducks cry
Their long-drawn note of revelry,
Rejoicing at the Spring.
So throw the weary pen aside
And let the papers rest,
For we must saddle up and ride
Towards the blue hill’s breast:
And we must travel far and fast
Across their rugged maze,
To find the Spring of Youth at last,
And call back from the buried past
The old Australian ways.
When Clancy took the drover’s track
In years of long ago,
He drifted to the outer back
Beyond the Overflow;
By rolling plain and rocky shelf,
With stockwhip in his hand,
He reached at last (oh, lucky elf!)
The Town of Come-and-Help-Yourself
In Rough-and-Ready Land.
And if it be that you would know
The tracks he used to ride,
Then you must saddle up and go
Beyond the Queensland side—
Beyond the reach of rule or law,
To ride the long day through,
In Nature’s homestead—filled with awe:
You then might see what Clancy saw
And know what Clancy knew.