O Cupid, Cupid, Get Your Bow

By HENRY LAWSON (1867-1922)

Arming down along the stream,
Along the sparkling water,
And past the pool where lilies gleam,
There comes the squatter’s daughter.

Her eyes are kind; her lips are warm;
And like a flower her face is;
The habit shows her bonny form
As graceful as a Grace’s.

O I’ll be mad of love, I know;
My head she’ll surely addle;
O Cupid, Cupid; get your bow;
And shoot her from the saddle!

For, like a bird on breezes waft,
She quickly, quickly passes;
O Cupid, Cupid, draw your shaft;
And bring her to the grasses!

O she is worthy game for you;
And there is none to match her.
So, Cupid, send your arrow true;
And I’ll be there to catch her!

1889.

Henry Lawson became totally deaf at the age of 14, an affliction which, it has been suggested, rendered his world all the more vivid and subsequently enlivened his writing.

Henry Lawson Contemporaries
Joseph Bert Smiley
George Santayana
Rudyard Kipling
Ella Wheeler Wilcox