The Poetry Corner

Gipsy Too

By Henry Lawson

If they missed my face in Farmers Arms When the landlord lit the lamp, They would grin and say in their country way, Oh! hes down at the Gipsy camp! But theyd read of things in the Daily Mail That the wild Australians do, And I cared no day what the world might say, For I came of the Gipsies too. Oh! the Gipsy crowd are a mongrel lot, And a thieving lot and sly! But Id dined on fowls in the far-off south, And a mongrel lot was I. Oh! the Gipsy crowd are a roving gang, And a sulky, silent crew! But they managed a smile and a word for me, For I came of the Gipsies too. And the old queen looked in my palm one day, And a shrewd old dame was she: My pretty young gent, you may say your say, You may laugh your laugh at me; But Ill tell you the tale of your dead, dead past! And she told me all too true; And she said that Id die in a camp at last, For I came of the Gipsies too. And the young queen looked in my eyes that night, In a nook where the hedge grew tall, And the sky was swept and the stars were bright, But her eyes had the sheen of all. The spring was there, and the fields were fair, And the world to my heart seemed new. Twas A Romany lass to a Romany lad! But I came of the Gipsies too. Now a Summer and Winter have gone between And wide, wild oceans flow; And they camp again by the sad old Thames, Where the blackberry hedges grow. Twas a roving star on a land afar That proved to a maid untrue, But well meet when they gather the Gipsy souls, For I came of the Gipsies too.