| "Middleton's Rouseabout" | |
|---|---|
| by Henry Lawson | |
| First published in | The Freeman's Journal, 8 March 1890 |
| Country | Australia |
| Language | English |
| Publication date | 1890 |
| Lines | 28 |
| Full text | |
"Middleton's Rouseabout" is a poem by Australian poet Henry Lawson. [1] It was first published in The Freeman's Journal on 8 March 1890, [2] and later in the poet's collections and other Australian poetry anthologies.
This is the story of Andy, who starts out as Middleton's rouseabout and ends up buying the station after Middleton succumbs to "liquor and drought". Though he stil doesn't have any opinions or "idears".
In his commentary on the poem in 60 Classic Australian Poems Geoff Page described it as "very much a political poem in a very political era". He also notes that Lawson in just 28 lines "has given us an emblematic story for which some novelists would need 300 pages." [3]
The "Andy" of this poem is not the same as the "Andy" of Lawson's poem "Andy's Gone with Cattle".