The Sliprails and the Spur
"The Sliprails and the Spur" 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, 1900An Anthology of Australian Verse edited by Bertram Stevens, Angus and Robertson, 1907The Golden Treasury of Australian Verse edited by Bertram Stevens, Angus and Robertson, 1909Selected Poems of Henry Lawson by Henry Lawson, Angus and Robertson, 1918The Oxford Book of Australasian Verse edited by Walter Murdoch, Oxford University Press, 1924Winnowed Verse by Henry Lawson, Angus and Robertson, 1924Selections from Australian Poets edited by Bertram Stephens and George Mackaness, Cornstalk Publishing, 1925The Australian Women's Mirror, 5 January 1926, p37An 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, 1943Out Back and Other Poems by Henry Lawson, W. H. Honey, 1943From the Ballads to Brennan edited by T. Inglis Moore, Angus & Robertson, 1964Poems of Henry Lawson edited by Walter Stone, Ure Smith, 1973The World of Henry Lawson edited by Walter Stone, Hamlyn, 1974The Essential Henry Lawson : The Best Works of Australia's Greatest Writer edited Brian Kiernan, Currey O'Neil, 1982A Treasury of Colonial Poetry, Currawong, 1982A Campfire Yarn : Henry Lawson Complete Works 1885-1900 edited by Leonard Cronin, Lansdowne, 1984Cross-Country : A Book of Australian Verse edited by John Barnes and Brian MacFarlane, Heinemann, 1984The Penguin Book of Australian Ballads edited by Elizabeth Webby and Philip Butterss, Penguin, 1993The Oxford Book of Australian Love Poems edited by Jennifer Strauss, Oxford University Press, 1993Australian Verse : An Oxford Anthology edited by John Leonard, Oxford University Press, 1998The Puncher & Wattmann Anthology of Australian Poetry edited by John Leonard, Puncher & Wattmann, 2009Australian Poetry Since 1788 edited by Geoffrey Lehmann and Robert Gray, University of NSW Press, 2011