Where the Dead Men Lie, and Other Poems

Where the Dead Men Lie, and Other Poems (1897) is the first and only collection of poems by Australian poet Barcroft Boake. Edited by A. G. Stephens, it was released in hardback by Angus and Robertson in 1897, five years after the poet's death. It contains an introduction by the editor, an introductory poem by Will H. Ogilvie, and features the poet's major works "Jack's Last Muster", "Jim's Whip" and "Where the Dead Men Lie".

The original collection includes 33 poems^[1] by the author that are reprinted from various sources, though they mainly originally appeared in The Bulletin.

In his introduction to the volume, editor Stephens posed the question: "Should Boake be treated from a literary standpoint or from a personal standpoint — as poet or as man and poet?" Stephens chose the personal, later noting "...Boake's least remarkable compositions, with two or three exceptions, are as characteristic of Australia and of himself as are the most remarkable. So, instead of trying to exalt the Poet by his work, I have tried rather to show the Man in his poetry."

Stephens concluded the volume by including his memoir of the poet.

Contents

• "From the Far West"
• "Jack's Last Muster"
• "A Memory"
• "Josephus Riley"
• "A Vision Out West"
• "Jim's Whip"
• "The Demon Snow Shoes"
• "A Valentine"
• "The Box Tree's Love"
• "A Wayside Queen"
• "Fogarty's Gin"
• "A Song from a Sandhill"
• "The Babes in the Bush"
• "The Digger's Song"
• "How Polly Paid for her Keep"
• "An Allegory"
• "Kitty McCrae"
• "'Twixt the Wings of the Yard"
• "A Song"
• "Skeeta"
• "On the Boundary"
• "Babs Malone"
• "At the 'J.C.'"
• "Jack Corrigan"
• "Down the River"
• "Kelly's Converison"
• "On the Range"
• "At Devlin's Siding"
• "Fetherstonhaugh"
• "Desiree"
• "Where the Dead Men Lie"

Critical reception

On its original publication in Australia a reviewer in The Queenslander concluded that the volume "should find an honoured place on the colonial bookshelf beside such authors as Adam Lindsay Gordon, Brunton Stephens, Paterson, and Lawson; and we venture the opinion that its author is not the least of these."^[2]

The Town and Country Journal opined that Boake had the makings of a major Australian poet: "The memoir appended to the collected poems by their editor, A. G. Stephens, shows as plainly as do the verses themselves how their author possessed the qualifications necessary to an Australian poet. His faculty of versification, though wholly untrained, sufficed for the production of lines whose rugged character — even to the substitution of assonance for rhyme — is appropriate enough to a bushman's lays of the bush, and will offend those only of his readers who value nicety of literary, workmanship. His experiences as surveyor, as boundary-rider, and in travelling with stock, gave him practical and varied knowledge of the life and scenes of inland Australia; while the natural and, perhaps, hereditary disposition of his mind enabled him to discern their picturesque and romantic aspects."^[3]

See also

• 1897 in Australian literature
• 1897 in poetry

References