Sydney-Side

Where's the steward?-Bar-room steward? Berth? Oh, any berth will do-
I have left a three-pound billet just to come along with you.
Brighter shines the Star of Rovers on a world that's growing wide,
But I think I'd give a kingdom for a glimpse of Sydney-Side.
Run of rocky shelves at sunrise, with their base on ocean's bed;
Homes of Coogee, homes of Bondi, and the lighthouse on South Head.
For in loneliness and hardship-and with just a touch of pride-
Has my heart been taught to whisper, 'You belong to Sydney-Side.'
Oh, there never dawned a morning, in the long and lonely days,
But I thought I saw the ferries streaming out across the bays-
And as fresh and fair in fancy did the picture rise again
As the sunrise flushed the city from Woollahra to Balmain:
And the sunny water frothing round the liners black and red,
And the coastal schooners working by the loom of Bradley's Head;
And the whistles and the sirens that re-echo far and wide-
All the life and light and beauty that belong to Sydney-Side.
And the dreary cloud-line never veiled the end of one day more,
But the city set in jewels rose before me from 'The Shore.'
Round the sea-world shine the beacons of a thousand ports o' call,
But the harbour-lights of Sydney are the grandest of them all!
Toiling out beyond Coolgardie-heart and back and spirit broke,
Where the Rover's Star gleams redly in the desert by the 'soak'-
But says one mate to the other, 'Brace your lip and do not fret,
We will laugh on trains and 'buses-Sydney's in the same place yet.'
Working in the South in winter, to the waist in dripping fern,
Where the local spirit hungers for each 'saxpence' that we earn-
We can stand it for a season, for our world is growing wide,
And they all are friends and strangers who belong to Sydney-Side.
'T'other-siders! T'other-siders!' Yet we wake the dusty dead;
It is we that send the backward province fifty years ahead;
We it is that 'trim' Australia-making narrow country wide-
Yet we're always T'other-siders till we sail for Sydney-side.